Mike D.

First thing to know is this site is part of the Conscious Dating Network pool. They do explain that up front if you want to read it so its hard to hold it against them. It basically groups a bunch of niche sites together.

Even though this may seem contrary to the whole idea of signing up for a niche site, believe me its necessary. There just arent enough people on each individual site in any area to make them work separately. And thats hardly the owners fault. If anything, I think they were smart to evolve. And the other sites are similar in that they are people not being shallow - lots of vegetarian and earth conscious people in addition to the spiritual and they all tend to have some sort of spiritual belief even if not the main focus.

I really like the profile section - there is plenty of room to really elaborate and not be limited by a few hundred characters if you want to put more. There are decent bonus questions as well and the options to change or remove or hide your answers are helpful.

As far as people - you will need to have a bit wider range than a larger site. There are the same inactivity issues as anywhere but to be fair, it does feel like a bit of a lower %. But anything is lower than the 95% inactivity on the big ones. Maybe 70% inactive? I have had more profile views than I have had on eHarmony with a similar response rate. But again, a much smaller pool which is both good and bad. But the people you meet are also looking for a stronger connection so the further distance is not necessarily as damning as on other sites. Lots of International - but if you are looking to just chat with a few distant people in the meantime they are typically all open to it.

The main reason I like this network of sites though is the lack of scammers and fake accounts. I have had zero issue here and its worth the smaller pool in a way to not have it being infested with parasites you need to sort through. They might exist, but I have not come across any myself that I know of.

As far as matches and searches - same problems as everywhere. Inactive accounts. Outside parameters. No worse, but no better.

All in all, if you are in any way focused on spirituality, earth, dietary preference, any sexual preference (including poly) etc. and have some more patience and flexibility, it is worth a shot. It doesn't feel like a scam anyway and that alone is refreshing.

*Edit: I forgot to add that this site DOES have an activity feature. I have seen "last few days" which applies to someone who just logged off as well; "last month"; "last 3 months"; "last 6 months" and "last year". As with all, the first one is really what you want but still, its nice that they are not afraid to have this and you have a decent idea of how much time you might be wasting by reaching out to someone.

Anyone who complains about the inactivity of matches will get the canned response that is all over these reviews as well... people may take a while... its not really that long... cant control who logs in... That is just talking circles around the problem. EHarmony REMOVED the ability to determine activity for a reason. We all know why.

I had signed up 2 years ago with a free account for a day just to see what it was like. I decided to focus on other things though and forgot about dating. Fast forward two years and i figured it might be worth a shot so i bought a 6-mo premium membership. I already had an account established so i just filled out the profile for real, added pictures etc. Well, apparently i had been getting matches for 2 years and had over 1,000 waiting for me. I asked anything pre-2018 be removed but was told it wasnt possible and to spend a few minutes a day looking at them and blocking them. Really? So i got rid of anything further than a year, any no photos, any i wasnt interested in with a quick look and narrowed it down to about 300. I requested they remove any not active within 3mo and they referred me to the "Active Within" feature. Are you serious?!? YOU REMOVED IT 2 YEARS AGO!

So i concentrate on very recent match date matches. I was matched with someone that I thought really clicked and sent a note. If i didnt get a response thats fine, its part of the process. But I was cautious and curious about the inactivity i was seeing everywhere and wondered if this was just another dead profile. The profile had all the information needed to take a quick look on FB and a public page popped right up. Lo and behold - the person has been in a wonderful relationship FOR YEARS! But this wasn't one i was matched up with 2 years ago - this was matched to me a week ago. We get 4 or 5 a day drip fed. 2 or 3 always get eliminated right away so of the 2 or 3 left, there is a 95%+ chance they don't exist and could even be married already? Do you know what they call a person who spends their day talking to people who don't exist?

It is NOT the users responsibility to notify you eHarmony of them closing their accounts when you push free accounts on the masses. You know full well that this is just to build numbers and shame on you for using dead profiles as peoples limited matches. Don't say you do not know if they are inactive - you specifically HID that function for a reason. Don't pretend they might log-on 3 months from now - if its already been 3 months no one is interested in waiting another 3 and they clearly are not looking for a date. Let US decide if we want to wait or go for someone obviously more interested in dating in the here and now. Advising us to hold out hope for months that that one person might actually check their account is completely contrary to the point of online dating.

Now that there is a shift to app dating, you are trying to hide the reduction in active users instead of being honest and evolving to meet it. Whoever is making these calls internally is not too bright - if you evolved you could survive. But holding tight to an outdated model and lying to your remaining customers is a guaranteed end game. Maybe you need to lower the budgets for a while until you get the hang of the new scene or bring something unique (and useful) back to the table. Even if i do find "that person", that is no excuse for purposefully wasting my time. I would rather have 2 active profiles a day instead of 10 roll the dice profiles. Or maybe its time to open the gates and allow more searching? Instead, you will end up just having another user go inactive - regardless of having paid time left on the subscription. That's not good for the future of your business.

EDIT: I will leave most of my original review below (as of Jan 2018) but I do see they have reached out on this review with information on changes and that is appreciated. So I will change my Star rating to average for the effort and specifics of the changes. I have not tried any sites in a few years though so I am unable to comment further at this time.

Original:

Dating sites are coming to an end and they know it. That's why there is no way to tell when someone has last been active for most of them. EHarmony actually removed theirs - what other possible reason would they do that? Dharma was a decent idea in trying to weed out the more shallow end of the pool, and at some point it probably worked, but its a ghost town now. And i live in a major US metropolitan area. I paid for one month - no big loss - and contacted a bunch of people. I understand not getting responses, but in a month my profile was only VIEWED 2 times. And neither of which were people i contacted. These sites may have once had good intentions, but...