Thousands of people around the world are wondering whether or not they should give online dating a try, especially whether comparing eHarmony vs OKCupid. Ask any of your friends, and they probably have a story about their experience with online dating. If not, they likely know someone who has experience with these sites.
There are several things that you should consider when choosing the online dating site that is best for you. However, the first thing that online daters need to consider is whether or not they want to pay for the service. It can be scary to sign up for an online dating service without a guarantee that you’ll find dating success.
Online dating is constantly evolving and improving. This evolution has resulted in these online dating sites having tons of cool features. The paid sites usually have more premium, exclusive features. But don’t underestimate the free dating sites that are out there today, many of them are high-quality and capable of producing successful relationships.
This review is going to try and make choosing between OKCupid vs eHarmony easier for you. We’re going to break down these two sites by covering the following topics:
- Overall reviews of both sites
- Pricing options
- Member demographics
- Which site is better for avoiding being scammed
- Features comparison
- Dating success for eHarmony and OkCupid
- The verdict: Which is Best?
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eHarmony vs OKCupid: Overall Review
OkCupid is one of the most popular dating web pages and apps in the world. The company receives roughly 100 million visitors each month. eHarmony gets around 5 million visitors per month.
Both web pages contain nearly the same number of male and female users. OkCupid is comprised of slightly more male members, while eHarmony has slightly more female members.
The members of OkCupid tend to be slightly younger compared to the members of eHarmony. The members of both web pages get most of their members from the U.S., U.K., and Canada. OkCupid is popular in several other nations as well.
eHarmony: 8/10
eHarmony is one of the most complex, in-depth online dating sites in the world. Their matching algorithm is so revolutionary that it changed the entire online dating market. eHarmony is a paid online dating site that draws in mostly single heterosexuals who are seeking long-term, serious relationships.
The chance of finding an optimal match is excellent for members of eHarmony. The possibilities are great as long as you are honest when you take the complex personal questionnaire. This complexity is why the site has an outstanding dating success rate. Additionally, it is the reason that eHarmony is more expensive than most other services. However, if a serious relationship is what you’re looking for, eHarmony may be your best option.
OKCupid: 7/10
OkCupid is also among the most popular online dating services in the world. The significant difference between OkCupid and eHarmony is that OkCupid provides more free services.
OkCupid boasts 30 million active members, and that number is growing. The demographics and reasons for members using OkCupid are much more diverse than eHarmony. Whether you are looking for a friend or a long-term relationship, OkCupid can work for you.
The OkCupid algorithm that matches members is good, but it is not as advanced and comprehensive as the eHarmony system.
eHarmony vs OKCupid: Pricing
Whether or not you should pay for your dating site is possibly the most critical question when initially choosing a site. There are several options for both types of websites. Most people would think that all the paid dating sites provide better quality. However, that may not be true in some cases. Many free dating sites offer an experience that is just as good as a paid dating service. Below is a breakdown of the pricing options of both eHarmony and OkCupid.
eHarmony
There are several different pricing options on eHarmony. You can sign up for a free account, which gives you access to a minimal amount of features, but you won’t be able to talk to any of your matches.
eHarmony’s pricing structure adjusts depending on how the amount of time that you subscribe. However, the site is always regarded as one of the most expensive online dating websites on the market. Here is a brief overview of eHarmony’s pricing options:
- 3 months for $39.95 per month
- 6 months for $29.95 per month
- 12 months for $19.95 per month
Additionally, eHarmony provides customers with a satisfaction guarantee after three months. Therefore, if you’re not happy with your membership after 3 months, the company will give you another 3 months for free. The new, unique, eH+ feature costs approximately $5,000 per year.
OKCupid
OkCupid offers free membership customers a lot more features than eHarmony. The best dating sites on the market are known for providing minimal service for free prices and then charging for basically any function that a potential dater wants in their preferred site.
As previously stated, OKCupid does offer a significant amount of features for a free membership. However, the brand does provide two paid membership options that will give those ‘VIP’ members with additional features and services. Here is a brief overview of the OKCupid pricing structure:
- The A-List plan for 1 month for $9.95 per month
- The A-List plan for 6 months for $6.95 per month
- The A-List Premium plan for $24.90 for 1 month
- The A-List Premium plan for $19.90 per month for 6 months
eHarmony vs OKCupid: Demographics
The service that you choose doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have the kind of members that you’re looking to find. OkCupid has over 30 million users, but only approximately 10 millions of those users are active. eHarmony has around 11 millions users, and all of them are active. They probably maintain more activity because it is a paid site.
Let’s take a look at how the two websites differ in terms of demographics below.
eHarmony
eHarmony boasts a membership of approximately 16,000,000. The ratio of men to women is almost equal. However, there are slightly more women than men. About 30% of eHarmony’s members are between the ages of 18 and 24. The age ranges of 25 to 34, 35 to 44, and 45 to 54 all represent roughly 20% of the membership group. The smallest group within the demographic is the age range of over 55.
The users of eHarmony reside in all 50 states of the U.S. and around 150 different countries. The majority of users are Caucasian at around 80%. The other standard member demographics are Asian, African-American, and Hispanic or Latino.
Furthermore, eHarmony members are well-educated. Approximately 40% of eHarmony users possess a high school degree. Around 45% have graduated from a four-year university or have a bachelor’s degree.
OKCupid
Although it does take time and effort to create a profile on this site, it’ll be worth it in the end. If you follow all of the advice and profile features, you’ll be finding matches on OKCupid in no time whatsoever. OkCupid appeals to individuals who want a more in-depth dating experience because of the number of questions that are asked while you’re building your profile.
According to user reviews and reports, OKCupid seems like an excellent choice for people who are trying to get into a serious relationship. The site isn’t like Tinder or other “swiping” dating sites. It is designed for users who are looking for serious relationships as opposed to one night stands.
OkCupid is an ideal site for liberal individuals, which is demonstrated by their inclusion of an LGBTQ option. It’s comforting for many people, no matter their sexual orientation, that everyone has a safe, secure place to meet like-minded people.
The majority of dating sites have chosen not to take sides regarding social justice issues, primarily about members sexual orientation. However, OKCupid has made their stance clear. Therefore, if you are an individual who leans profoundly conservative, or you are very religious, then OKCupid may not be the best choice for you. The site’s stance on these social justice issues will become evident during the sign-up process when you are asked to answer questions regarding your opinions on these issues.
OkCupid garners more than 55 million users per month. The members of the site reside in the U.S., Canada, Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and South America. One of the unique aspects of OkCupid is that the site provides a haven for individuals other than heterosexual males or females. Additionally, OkCupid accepts members of a variety of sexual orientations and gender identifiers. The follow gender identifiers are listed on OkCupid:
- Genderfluid
- Non-binary
- Transsexual
- Pangender
- Androgynous
- Homoflexible
- Asexual
- Questioning
- Queer
- Sapiosexual
eHarmony vs OKCupid: Who is better at being Scam-Free?
Every year there are thousands of romance scam debates throughout the world. There are plenty of scammers online who have the goal of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals. People who are looking for love and relationships tend to be vulnerable.
Avoiding scams and choosing a service that will protect you is easy if you know what to look for. Here are some of the most common online dating scams and methods to avoid them.
- Your match is asking for money. A person with genuine purposes would not ask for money from someone they just met online. If one of your matches is asking you for money, you should block and report them immediately.
- Your match shows poor use of grammar and several mistakes in spelling. A significant amount of online dating scammers resides in countries that don’t use English as their primary language. Therefore, if your match is showing broken English, that should be a red flag.
- Your match only has one picture, or not many. Pictures are very important on most online dating sites. If you match with a beautiful woman, or handsome man, and they only have one picture, there’s a large possibility that they’re a scammer.
- Your match is expressing feelings after a short time. While everyone enjoys thinking about the feeling of “love at first”, it’s not common in online dating. If your match is being over-affectionate, take that as a possible sign of scamming.
- Your match continues to delay or postpone an in-person meetup. The overall goal of online dating should be to eventually meet in person. Therefore, if you’re match constantly avoids meeting in-person over a long time, you should be suspicious.
eHarmony
eHarmony is one of the leaders in online dating website security. The page was designed for serious daters and includes a detailed personality questionnaire. One of the best features of eHarmony is that members don’t need to search and match. The site will search and match for you.
This service has been given TRUSTe’s Privacy Seal, which guarantees that the site follows all of TRUSTe’s policies and guidelines. The site employs multiple features that protect data with complex access requirements. They use these complex requirements during credit card transactions and personal member information. Furthermore, eHarmony uses the RelyID system for member verification.
OKCupid
OkCupid takes great pride in protecting its member’s data and information by providing an anonymous method to chat and talk with other members. The information that you share with other members is your choice, and OkCupid does not take that for granted.
OkCupid’s messaging interface provides anonymous chatting without the need to use your communication devices. However, if you purchase a full subscription, you’ll be able to change your username whenever you want to provide even more anonymity.
This website provides excellent security and information protection for its members.
eHarmony vs OKCupid: Features Comparison
Online dating pages and apps need unique features for your own goals. You’ll want different features if you’re looking for a casual date or a serious relationship. If you don’t look at the site’s features, you’ll probably be disappointed. Site features should be convenient, helpful, fun, and functional. Here’s an overview of the features on eHarmony and OkCupid.
eHarmony
The features that you’ll get with your eHarmony account are highly dependent on the type of account that you choose. As we previously discussed, there are options for free accounts as well as paid accounts. Here are some of the features that you’ll get with a free account:
- No time limit on account, it will be accessible for as long as you keep the account active
- You can create the personality profile, which is one of the defining features of the entire website
- With a free account, the only relationship type that you are allowed to select is straight. Therefore, if you are gay and looking for a relationship, a free account on eHarmony is probably not your best option
- You cannot communicate with other members on a free eHarmony account. You will only be able to view other member profiles, which is a major drawback to having a free account and a huge incentive to purchasing a paid account.
There are three basic kinds of paid memberships on this dating site. They are known as the basic plan, the “Total Connect” plan, and the “Premier” plan. The basic plan is the least expensive and provides members with the following features:
- You’ll be able to see the pictures of people that match with you
- You can request pictures from the people that match with you
- You’ll be able to send and receive communication requests whenever you want
- You’ll be able to see who has looked at your profile
- You can see the time that your matches were logged in most recently
The “Total Connect” plan provides members with the following features, which are in addition to the basic plan:
- Includes all features of the eHarmony basic plan
- The personality profile is extended and more in-depth
- This memberships provides “RelyID”, which ensures that membership information is verified and secured
- You can make a secure call on the site. For example, you can make an anonymous voice call to another member
The “Premier” plan provides members with the following features, which are in addition to the basic plan and “Total Connect” plan.
- If you haven’t found your perfect match after one year of membership, eHarmony will be renew your subscription for another 12 months without any questions asked
- You will have the ability to “pause” your account for a term of up to 3 months
- Everyone that you match with will be able to see and view your profile. Additionally, they’ll be able to view your photos and chat with you
- You’ll be able to call eHarmony Premier Team members 24/7 and inquire about further personalizing your matching preferences. This provides for a much more in-depth and personalized dating experience. It also ensures that the person you match with will be highly compatible to your personality
- You’ll have access to the RelyID security technology, which affirms your identity. This security measure allows users to feel confident that the people they’re speaking to aren’t’ scammers.
- You have access to the eHarmony secure check. This feature provides users with the ability to request a summary of one of their match’s personal information. You are allowed to use this feature up to 3 times
- You will be allowed to make secure calls and communications with matches via your smartphone without giving out phone number
- You’ll be able to prepare a premium personality profile, which is an extended version of the normal profile and includes 15 more pieces of information per profile
eH+ is a unique feature of eHarmony, which most online dating sites don’t have. This feature is the cream of the crop as far as online dating websites are concerned. eH+ provides users with a professional personal counselor to help coach them through the dating process.
With eH+, the profiles of the people that you match with will be examined by your counselor before you chat with them. Your counselor will help determine if they are an optimal match for you. However, this new, unique feature does come at a steep cost.
OKCupid
One of the cool, unique features that OkCupid provides is a comprehensive dating blog. On this blog, you can talk about social topics, tales of dating success, activities, and events near you, look at other users’ statistics, and various other blog threads. This blog provides an excellent opportunity for the OkCupid software developers to get to know and understand their user base. Additionally, it provides a feature to OkCupid that most other dating sites don’t offer.
This dating site allows members to look around and chat with other members without needing to pay for a premium membership. With the use of the search page, you’ll be able to check and see your matches that are currently online. Additionally, you’ll be able to ‘like’ their profile from the search page. However, without using a paid subscription, the only information that your profile will contain is a username, current location, and picture.
The site made some recent changes to it’s messaging tool. Now, new messages will be visible next to the sender’s profile. Therefore, you’ll be able to gain some insight into who the person is before you start up a conversation with them. OkCupid made this change in an attempt to stop people from sending messages to every single person they see. Additionally, the feature encourages members to increase the amount of time they spend looking for new matches as opposed to managing their message inbox.
The site also has a feature known as ‘Quickmatch,’ which will send you profiles that are likely to be compatible. Once you’ve received one of these notifications, you can choose to press ‘like,’ or move onto another member.
OkCupid has also improved the design and layout of the website and app. The original plan was quite standard and possibly dull. The new layout was designed to be socially-friendly, including sections like ‘snapshots,’ and a question and answer section.
Here are some the most critical and accessible features on this dating website:
- Easy profile setup that allows you start searching and chatting immediately
- Free membership features allow members to chat and interact with each other
- Upgrading to a premium membership will give you access to features like: invisible searching, increased message storing, and several more
- The ‘Quickmatch’ feature provides members with a sample of possible matches
- The newly created ‘social aspects’ features provides members with the ability to look over the site and find matches within a casual setting
eHarmony vs OKCupid: Dating Success
Any person who has used a dating service knows that the process can take time and be frustrating. Meeting a match with the same relationship goals as you can be like trying to find a needle in the haystack. However, online dating tends to get a bad reputation as far as success rates are concerned. There are plenty of happy couples that met on either OkCupid or eHarmony.
eHarmony
If you want a dating site that provides ultimate convenience, then eHarmony is a possible match for you. The reason that the site is rated so highly in convenience is because it is trying to find your future husband or wife, not just a quick fling. eHarmony is also compatible with Apple and Android devices, which allows members to interact with their matches via Smartphone or tablet. The mobile version of eHarmony offers members all the aspects of the online website, even the premium features.
The process of joining, filling in your profile, completing the personality questionnaire, and other aspects related to signing up with eHarmony is time-consuming, and most features of the site require you to pay for a premium membership. However, once you’ve jumped through all the signing up ‘hoops,’ the connections that you receive will be based on data-driven, proven, quantitative information.
The site is the polar opposite of the photo-driven Tinder, and similar dating sites. The people at eHarmony have good intentions and want to help people find their soulmate. If you are a heterosexual person trying to find a serious, committed relationship, then eHarmony is very likely to be a thriving option for you.
OKCupid
OkCupid is a bit of a combination between Tinder-like sites and more serious relationship sites like eHarmony. There are members that are looking for serious relationships and others that are looking for brief flings or casual relationships. A member’s profile should give you a good indication of the type of relationship that they are looking for and whether or not they’ll be a good match for you. Therefore, confusion related to a member’s dating intentions should not be a problem. However, it can be a problem for some members.
There are proven and documented stories of successful relationships that started on OkCupid, so it is certainly possible to find a serious relationship on the site. However, you should be patient if you decide to join OkCupid and search for other members that are looking for the same thing as you.
OkCupid is notorious for its platform in which a significant aspect of their algorithm is related to survey responses on your profile. These survey answers give the site a percentage score, which is shown next to each profile that you see. This feature makes OkCupid a unique dating site in which the matching and chatting experience feels more organic and natural.
Verdict: Which is Best?
Both OkCupid and eHarmony are fantastic dating sites. eHarmony is outstanding and provides excellent value for costs. eHarmony provides several useful aspects and features. Additionally, the site has one of the best matching algorithms on the web.
OkCupid is a free service, which provides members with sufficient features to keep them active. However, the paid version of the site does offer additional useful features. The primary difference between the two services is that eHarmony is useful almost exclusively for single heterosexuals. OkCupid provides for as many different groups as any other service.
eHarmony provides members with the best opportunity of meeting a great match and having a long-lasting relationship. Therefore, as far as quality is concerned, eHarmony is the best online dating site. However, if you are not a heterosexual dater, then you should give OkCupid a try.
If you’re looking for love, a long-term relationship, and you’re a heterosexual, then there is no better option than eHarmony. It has an excellent success rate, and it will give you the best chance of finding a marriage partner.
If you are a member of the LGBTQ community, then you should look into OkCupid. Whatever choice you make, you should use the dating service that you choose for between 6 and 12 months. This length of time will optimize your visibility on the site and provide you with the most excellent results.
