Dating Services: How Long Should I Sign Up For?

Published on February 19, 2008

My last article talked about an offer from Match.com where you could get six months free after paying for six months (although there are more than a few hoops to jump through to earn those free months).

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At any rate, the very fact that you have to pay for six months up-front got me thinking about how most online dating services offer different time frames for signing up. Many people may wonder how long they should be signing-up for, especially when considering that they will receive a discount for a longer term.

Regardless of discounts or any other deal, it is best to sign up for the shorter time frame than the maximum offered. Here are some reasons why:

The Service May Not Fit Your Needs

Initially, when I first tried eHarmony I was excited. It took much of the guess work out of online dating and, since I was so new to internet dating at that time, this was a big plus. For those unfamiliar with eHarmony, you don’t select who you can contact. Instead, they provide you with people you match well with and, in the beginning, I had plenty of matches.

Unfortunately, because I lived in a small town, the matches dried up quickly. When you’re only contacting one person a week, the service loses most of its value. I would have really regretted signing up for a year at eHarmony: I loved what the service offered but, in my particular case, the benefits disappeared after a short time.

You Might Have Success!

It’s hard to imagine, I know, but things may actually go your way! As an example, I was the first person my wife met using online dating.

While her experience is far different from most people, there is still a good chance you can meet someone in a few months. If my wife would have signed up for a year (or even six months in her case), she would have ended up paying for months and months she never needed.

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Longer Terms are Pessimistic

It really is a good idea to stay positive. Get too negative and you might end up being someone else’s bad date.

I think the pessimism of long subscriptions becomes clear if we hypothetically extend the time-frame: What if an online dating service offered a 5-year plan? Wouldn’t the very idea that you might need a service for that long be discouraging? Is a year that much different? Sure, you might not meet someone in a few months or even a year, but assuming that will be the case from the start seems like a bad way to begin.

There Will Be Times Where You Won’t (or Shouldn’t) Be Dating

Chances are there will be periods where you will be unable or uninterested in dating. During these times, having that online dating subscription is just a waste of money.

I became frustrated after my first seven months of online dating and took a short break. After a month, I came back with a new outlook and a better plan. Had I subscribed for a year, I may have never taken my much needed break and, because of that, may have never re-evaluated how I was approaching online dating (that would have been a very bad thing).

Also, think about your schedule: is it really likely that you are going to have the time to date consistently over the next year? Many of us have very busy times at work or need to travel. Because of this, for many of us, the answer to that is no.

Longer Terms Benefit the Service Provider More than the Dater

Signing up longer benefits the company selling the service far more than it benefits their customers. The benefits on a longer term aren’t even that great: you will get some small discount but in the end you’re likely pay more, not less.

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One exception to these rules would be for those people who have become serial daters. Some people fall in love with the excitement of constantly meeting new people and the chase involved with online dating. For these people, signing up for a year would make a lot of sense. For everyone else, and I hope that includes most of my readers, my advice is to sign up for a medium period (normally three month is offered).

This medium range doesn’t over-commit you and at the same time you can save some money. For example, at eHarmony, paying month-to-month for two months will cost you as much as the three-month plan. So basically the three-month plan gives you a month free over the month-to-month. I think this is the proper mix of pricing and commitment. I could understand 6-months in some cases (if you were going for the Match.com deal for example) but it’s hard for me to see a situation where a year makes sense.

Things change too rapidly in life to assume that you will want, or even need, that dating service a year from now.

The eharmony Difference? Deep compatibility! Try it Today!

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