For a dating site that launched at the dawn of the new millennium, eharmony has remained relevant, largely by focusing on a more substantive, personality-based approach to online matchmaking. Of course, it’s still far from perfect. While users consistently appreciate the depth of its matchmaking algorithm, they also have numerous complaints about the cost of the service and the proliferation of fake profiles, especially since artificial intelligence became widely available.
Here’s what real eharmony users had to say about the site, from the best features to the worst experiences:
Pro: The screening process weeds out unserious daters
If you’re looking for substance in your dating life, one of the first challenges can be filtering out the seemingly overwhelming number of people who are in it for short-term fun. But eharmony largely bypasses that problem, first by its reputation (it began as a Christian dating site!) and next by its rather involved signup process, which includes filling out their proprietary compatibility questionnaire.
Reddit reviewers consistently lauded this focus on substance in the screening process (“it forces you to focus on depth over pure visuals“) and found the compatibility scores, assigned based on your answers to the personality quiz you take when you sign up, to be a useful way of evaluating matches before starting a conversation.
Here’s a story from one older gentleman: “My mindset was that I really needed to be fully honest in my answers, because why would I pay for a service and not be honest? After a few days, I got my matches. A day later, I got a nice message from a woman 10 years younger than me. We exchanged some messages, and then I looked at our match score after she prompted me about it. We were 126 out of 140. I decided to go with it because she and I were really vibing on each other. A year later we got engaged and will marry next year.”
For reference, a compatibility score of 126 on eharmony is incredibly rare. As one Redditor responded, “When I was on there, I never had greater than 105 with any match.”
Con: Expensive membership fees
A recurring complaint about eharmony was the cost of a premium membership, which is non-negotiable if you want to get the most out of the site (you can’t even see photos without upgrading!). There are three premium membership tiers (Light, Plus, and Unlimited), with pricing varying somewhat by your location, but you should expect to pay at least $15 per month for a membership, which makes it more expensive than a standard Netflix membership and in line with some of the cheaper gym memberships you can get.
Users consistently complained not only about the price but also about the cancellation process: “I’ve tried eHarmony and found it way too expensive for what it offers, and to top it [off], the process of cancellation is so complicated,” said one Reddit reviewer. Other users were outraged by the automatic membership renewals or the difficulty of canceling a subscription, even within 12 hours of signing up.
On the other hand, eharmony regularly offers steep discounts of up to 50 percent off its membership price, so if you time your signup right, you can enjoy substantial savings.
Pro: eharmony caters to older daters
It isn’t necessarily by design, but it’s also glaringly obvious that different age demographics tend to gravitate towards different dating sites or apps, which becomes very apparent if you’ve ever used Tinder as a middle-aged adult. Older daters, divorced daters, and anyone looking for a more mature partner should definitely give eharmony a try (we named it the “gold standard” for daters over 40 for a reason!)
Here’s a typical experience from an older male dater: “45 yo divorced guy here. I signed up with eHarmony and Bumble 2 months ago based on recommendations from co-workers. I’ve had much better luck with eHarmony than Bumble. My highest compatibility ratings are in the 110 to 116 range, and these comprise about 33 percent of my daily feed. The other 33 percent are in the 100 to 105 rating scale, and the final 33 percent are in the 89 to 99 rating scale. […] In contrast, I have connected with zero women in Bumble Premium after 2 months.”
Con: Proliferation of fake profiles
In the age of agentic AI and cheaply produced fake photos and videos, all dating sites are having a hard time distinguishing between real and fake members, but eharmony users were particularly concerned with the number of fake dating profiles they would have to sift through before finding a real human being to engage.
In fact, one of the top-rated posts on the /r/eharmony subreddit in the last year decries, “The fake profile problem has got noticeably worse,” complaining that of the 14 likes their account received, 11 came from obviously fake accounts.
How big a con is this, really? For older daters unaccustomed to filtering out fake profiles and obviously enhanced photos, it can be a pain in the butt, but if you’re even remotely internet-savvy, you shouldn’t have too much trouble distinguishing real from unreal users, and we guarantee you’ll encounter this problem, to some degree, on almost every dating platform currently in use. And because eharmony is so restrictive of free members, it’s a problem you can largely side-step if you upgrade your account and only interact with other paying members.