You’re sitting across the table from someone new and wondering “What makes you tick?” You don’t want to have meaningless conversations about their favorite colors, musicians, vacation spots, or tattoos. Maybe you care about their smoking habits or drinking habits, but really you want to know what kind of person they are.
In the choice of eHarmony vs Elite Singles, both sites may be in the top five for online dating sites that dig deeper. The whole goal for both is to really figure out the person behind the computer screen. Whether you meet in person or have a virtual date, you’ll have known random things like how this person argues or career aspirations.
But now that you know these fun facts, you’ve got to figure out whether this person that you’re (ideally) physically attracted to and (potentially) mentally attracted to is someone you want to hang out with for the long haul.
Read about both sites below to find out which one may be better for you.
eHarmony vs Elite Singles
Key Features of Both Websites
Both sites are going to hit you with personality questions from the very beginning. If you’re not ready to give substantive questions some thought, you may want to hold off on signing up for these sites.
Breezing through the questions just to get to the end will do nothing more than hurt your chances of finding the best match in the long run. With every answer, both sites are using their algorithms to find people who should connect with you.
So if you answer “wrong” or not how you usually would answer, don’t be surprised if other users mention it or if you get questionable match results. Have patience and wait until you’re in the mood to learn more about yourself.
Comparison of the Sign-Up Process
Both websites go past height, weight, hair color, body type, and other things you can probably spot from a few recent and real photographs. It’s all about the personality of these sites, along with verifying email addresses, names, and locations. Have your credit card ready to pay for membership.
Elite Singles even has SSL encryption and a fraud detection system to make you feel more comfortable with entering your private payment information on a site you’re not all that familiar with.
User Base on Each Website
EliteSingles is an international dating platform, which operates with partners in more than 25 countries worldwide. More than 90 percent of the members are over the age of 30 and hold an above-average education.
While it’s not immediately clear whether there are more men than women, eHarmony has 51 percent of men and 49 percent of women. It also claims to have 2 million people.
Ease of Using Each Platform
Neither site is particularly hard to use. Just don’t decide you’re going to join this site on a low battery. You’ll be choosing answers from personality questions for several minutes. Navigate these personality quizzes on your laptop or smartphone.
Then have your credit card ready because neither site will allow you to people-watch, send messages, and/or have live conversations without paying to see what each site has to hold. While some other online sites will give you a few freebies or let you flirt/like other users, this one is not giving away any information on new or continuous users.
You must pay to play for both. If you want email mailing list responses, you can also see who both sites suggest are your best matches. This means it can help move you along instead of having to force yourself to log in and browse around every day.
For users who lean more toward professional dating sites or compatibility responses, at least you’ll know who the site thinks you should immediately initiate a message or reply to.
On eHarmony’s “32 Dimensions Model,” you can even read through all of the users’ answers that you responded to, too, to see if their answers match yours. One difference between the two is it takes a bit more time to figure out the model results for eHarmony’s users.
You may have to click a few screens to find it as opposed to it being plastered all over the page or immediately available in the messaging section.
However, you may want to look at this on the bright side. If you’ve ever encountered someone who blames his or her entire personality on an astrology sign, you already know how annoying it can be to try to justify someone’s behavior based on a personality summary.
Use these personality tests as more of a template of a “website” as opposed to the entirety of what the website is about. You may find that you and another user are in agreement on certain topics and not on others. Pay attention to as many answers as you two are in alignment as you two are not.
Only you’ll know where your deal-breakers are within those results, as will the person talking to you via messaging system.
Security Features
Elite Singles dating profiles are vetted to confirm authenticity, including profile verification, SSL encryption, and fraud detection systems to ensure that your data is safe. If someone is being inappropriate, you can also block and report them to moderators.
eHarmony is also pretty strict, blurring all faces. If you want to know who is “smiling” at you, you definitely will not see that smile until you whip out a credit card. New users may find them both to be a drag if they want to be able to physically see what their prospects are.
Pricing of Each
On Elite Singles, there’s not much you can do without a paid membership. All photos are blurred out, but you can see their personality perks. Pay $11.95 to $22.95 per month to learn more about 381K members.
On eHarmony, requires a 20-minute Compatibility Quiz along with basic contact information. Pay $22.95 for the first six months (regularly $45.90 but currently has a 50 percent discount), $14.95 for the first 12 months (regularly $29.90) and $10.45 for 24 months (regularly $20.90).
Enjoy unlimited photos, unlimited messaging, the ability to see who has viewed you, distance search, and a detailed personality profile.
Pros and Cons
Although Elite Singles may seem like the ideal place to go for someone who you’re not only physically and mentally attracted to but also bond with on an educational level, this is a mixed bag.
With partners in more than 25 countries worldwide, more than 90 percent of the members are over the age of 30 and hold an above-average education.
However, when you sign up for the site, there are options to share whether the other user’s education is a high school graduate.
While there are plenty of financially successful people who didn’t go to college, if university experiences, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and Ph.D.s are a major deal-breaker for you, don’t assume that everyone has the same higher education.
Do a quick browse ahead of time. But remember that the degree does not make the person. You may find that the high school grad is a much lovelier person than the person with all the abbreviations on his or her name.
eHarmony doesn’t push degrees as much as it pushes its “32 Dimensions Model” to find someone you’re compatible with. However, with more than 2 million people on the site and self-identifying, as the “number one trusted dating site” among U.S. singles (in one study), it definitely pushes how its compatibility tests do a better job of not matching people up with head-scratching results.
Does that mean the site will always get it right? Nope. But it may help you along the way more than the superficial “yes/no” photo-only options.
Bottom Line
So which site is your best bet? While some online dating sites feel like carbon copies of each other, these two have enough of a difference (in questions, personality tests, navigation) to make you feel like you have more options to choose from.
If you’ve been on other online dating sites where you can log into one and it looks exactly like another (but on a new website), this isn’t it. You’re going to have to do more work to communicate on these two sites.
That can either be a tedious thing for people who are looking more for hook-ups and short-term relationships than long-term relationships and marriage. But it’s also a major plus for people who are just fed up with dating based on looks alone or not really feeling like they “knew” their significant others until it was too late.
Should this be the site you start with? It’s hard to tell. You may not want to immediately start paying for memberships if you’re not sure you want to do online dating at all. But if you’ve checked out other online dating sites that don’t ask for as much, this may be a refreshing change of pace.
