Let’s check out the biggest and the best Australian date sites to see who comes out on top. Read our brand new eHarmony appraisal!

What Is eHarmony?

Pros / Cons

• Large international matchmaking site
• Users tend to be well educated and affluent
• Aimed at long-lasting relationships
• Fairly even gender split
• Sign up possible via Facebook
• Minimal ads
• Free app download on Android or iOS for members

• No email verification process
• Registration is fairly long
• Lack of varied communication options
• The better messaging features are all premium
• Seeing photos is restricted to upgraded accounts
• One of the most expensive online date sites
• Basic functions and lack of games

Membership Base

The vast majority of eHarmony members are looking for long-term relationships, so if you want to try out online matchmaking for some fun flirting, this is not the site for you! While there is a significant global user base, in Australia this is only around 300,000 with 90,000 of those members active each week, so relatively small in comparison to other date sites.

User ages on the site vary, and you do find people from age 18 up to 55, but most users tend to be around 25-44, so this is not a site that specialises in matching for mature couples, or younger people perhaps looking for some fun.

Given the nature of the site, the users here seem to be a little more serious about compatibility, so it’s not as vibrant and fun as we would like, with a lot of the personality questions being more analytical than enjoyable.

Profiles

It isn’t challenging to create an eHarmony profile, but it is time-consuming. This is owing to the compatibility quizzes that go quite in-depth, so you have to be looking for serious connections to want to spend the time answering everything.

We were quite surprised not to have any email verification process, so the site isn’t particularly secure. Users can also register via Facebook, but will still have to work through all of the questionnaires before they can use the website or start browsing.

Personal pages are very detailed, and you can check out a full profile with a free subscription. However, you cannot see profile photos, which makes this a reasonably useless option since it is impossible to know if you are attracted to a potential match without being permitted to look at their photo.

Search Features on eHarmony

Our eHarmony review found the search function to be somewhat limited since the site prefers to recommend matches based on your answers to the personality questions. This means that you don’t have much freedom to browse or scan the site for other potential dates.

The search filter cannot be used to run a new search, so you are not able to take a broader look at local singles. This feature can only be based to narrow down the matches that the site has recommended to you, by filtering by age or location.

Messaging

As with the search functions, the messaging on eHarmony is a little out of date and not very exciting. To make the first contact with somebody, you need to ask automated questions – so you can’t tailor these to what you want to know, but have to choose from the eHarmony questions.

Messages are only available to premium members, at a high cost, so unless you are prepared to spend quite a lot, you won’t get much out of being a member of this site.

The functionality is so restrictive that you are not able to see who is online now, or who has recently been active, so you could end up matching with an account that hasn’t been used in months. If you aren’t satisfied with the suggestions received from the platform, your only option is to wait for the next day and see whether anybody new has joined the site.

eHarmony Pricing

How much does eHarmony cost? We found this to be one of the most expensive dating sites we have received in Australia:

Free vs Premium

Free services:

• Creating a profile and registering
• Sending winks
• Looking at profiles (without a photo)
• Sending automated lists of questions
• Filtering your matches
• Adding people to favourites

Premium services:

• Seeing photos
• Seeing who has added you to their favourites
• Unlimited messaging
• Anonymous browsing

If you want to use eHarmony to find a partner, you will have to choose one of the membership options – without being able to send messages or see any photos, the site will not be of much use on a free subscription!

eHarmony App

The eHarmony app is free to download and offers all the same functionality as the desktop version. There’s nothing groundbreaking here to report, no special functions or features, but you’ll find everything on the app that you would on the website.

VERDICT

Our eHarmony review found that this is a costly date site that hasn’t kept up with the times. While the site boasts of millions of matches, this is because it has been around for many years. As new sites look to offer exciting ways of interacting, highly personalised experiences and flexible membership options, this one does not. The absence of a search function means that you have little control over who you connect with, and just have to hope that your personality quiz answers find you the right suggestions.

At this level of cost, we’d expect to see at least some sort of games to play, or way to make the site experience more fun. It looks like eHarmony has some serious upgrading to do, to keep up with the evolution of online matchmaking.