10 Things You Need to Know About eHarmony Before You Sign Up

This is the claim of eHarmony: they’ve “helped 600,000 couples tie the knot and counting,” and it certainly highlights their focus on lifelong relationships instead of quick hookups. Started in 2000, eHarmony’s whole approach to online dating has focused on matching people with the right points of compatibility for a long-term relationship-in other words, helping online daters find The One.

However, before you jump into a relationship with eHarmony and the commitment that comes with it, you need to do your due diligence and make sure it’s what you’re looking for. For starters, here are ten things you should absolutely know about eHarmony before you sign up.

1. They’re scientifically proven. sort of.

If there is one message you’ll hear again and again in eHarmony’s commercials and online ads, it’s that their method for matching compatible people is “scientifically proven” to increase potential for dating and marriage. The founders of eHarmony say they’ve created a formula that identifies members’ best possible matches based on what they’ve dubbed the “29 Dimensions of Compatibility,” which are a host of attributes from emotional temperament to physicality to values and beliefs. Based on this magical formula, eHarmony claims:

“[It] matches singles based on a deeper level of compatibility, not likes and dislikes, but true compatibility. Do you and your potential mate resolve conflict in a similar fashion? Are you both romantics at heart?”

Keep in mind that everything about this formula, and the way that eHarmony is set up, is designed to help people find that one person that they could spend the rest of their life with. If you aren’t ready to settle down with one person, if you just want to play around and keep your love life casual, eHarmony is not the dating site for you.

You should also know that although eHarmony claims that their formula is scientifically proven, a fair number of critics have questioned this claim. One of these critics, Benjamin Radford at Discovery News, said in his article “Is eHarmony scientific?”:

“Does their ‘science’ greatly improve the quality or odds of a match? How good is their tests’ construct validity? After all, many matches are made without a hint (or claim) of scientific basis for the pairing. Though the company and its founder, Neil Clark Warren, insist that the tests are useful, they have yet to be scientifically validated.”

2. It’s one of the priciest dating services out there.

Yes, eHarmony offers a free membership package, but as is customary with most dating sites, if you want to do any serious communicating with other members on eHarmony, you’re going to have to shell out for a paid subscription. These don’t come cheap, as reflected in their three subscription options below:

• One month = $ per month
• Six-months = $ per month
• 12-month = $ per month

This places eHarmony as the most expensive of the top online dating services, more expensive than both Match and Zoosk. For those members who can’t pay their subscription up front, they also offer installment payment plans.

These higher subscription costs have the double effect of chasing away less-than-serious daters and, as a result, keeping membership on eHarmony relatively low-15.5 million compared to the 21.5 million members on Match or the 25 million on Zoosk.

3. They have ID verification tools.

One of the most common complaints on other dating sites is dishonest and even fraudulent profiles, and nearly all other dating services decline to screen their members for this kind of nonsense. http://besthookupwebsites.org/habbo-review/ One of the standout features of eHarmony then is the requirement for members to verify their identities.