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About the Author: Steve Ward
Steve Ward is the Owner and CEO of Master Matchmakers and a second-generation matchmaker who built the firm alongside his mother and co-founder JoAnn Ward. He hosted and executive-produced VH1's Tough Love for six seasons, co-authored Crash Course in Love (Simon & Schuster), and has been featured as a dating expert by CNN, the Today Show, Oprah, Glamour, People, and Cosmopolitan. He has spent more than 25 years personally coaching and matching relationship-minded singles nationwide.
Quick answer: Master Matchmakers is a matchmaker, not a dating service site: a person sources, background-checks, and verifies every introduction before you meet, for a fee from $3,500. A subscription site sells you access to a database and leaves the searching to you. Those are different products, not two versions of one.
Search "dating site" or "dating website" and the results all look like variations on the same idea: create a profile, browse, message, repeat. It is easy to conclude that everything in this space works the same way and differs only in audience or price. That assumption costs people real time. A dating service site and a matchmaker are not two competitors selling the same thing at different price points. They are two different products, built around two different questions: are you looking for access to more people, or are you looking for someone to find the right person for you.
I have run Master Matchmakers for more than 25 years, matching people the old way: a person doing the searching, not a database doing the sorting. This is the plain version of what separates a site you use from a matchmaker you hire, what each one is actually selling, and how to tell which product you were looking for before you spend money assuming they are interchangeable.
Two Products, One Search Box
Type a phrase like "dating site" into a search engine and the results blend subscription platforms with local matchmaking firms, because from the search engine's point of view, both promise to help you meet someone. That is where the confusion starts, and it is worth stopping there. A subscription dating service site is, underneath the marketing, a piece of software: a database of member profiles, a way to browse them, and a messaging layer connecting one account to another. A matchmaker is a person, or a small team of people, doing a job: finding candidates, checking who they actually are, and introducing you personally.
Neither description is a criticism of the other. A database with a large pool of profiles is a genuinely useful product for someone who wants a wide field and is willing to do the searching. The confusion only becomes a problem when someone assumes the second product does not exist, and ends up choosing between two websites when the option they actually wanted was never a website at all.
What a Dating Service Site Is Actually Selling: Access
When you pay for a subscription dating service site, what you are buying is access: to the database, to messaging features, sometimes to visibility tools that put your own profile in front of more people. The site does not search on your behalf. It gives you the pool and the tools, and the work of searching it, reading profiles, starting conversations, deciding who is worth a first date, stays with you from the first login to the last one.
That is a reasonable product for the right person. If you enjoy the process, have time most weeks to give to it, and are comfortable judging a stranger from a profile they wrote about themselves, a subscription site does exactly what it is built to do, priced around continued access rather than a finished search.
What a Matchmaker Is Actually Selling: The Work
A matchmaker sells something categorically different: the labor of the search itself. At Master Matchmakers, that starts with a personal consultation, moves into profile building and verification, and continues through curated introductions and coaching after each one. You are not handed a login and a pool. You are given a person whose job is to go looking for candidates who fit what you have described, whether or not you had the time or energy to look yourself that week.
The fee, starting at $3,500, is not a subscription for continued access. It is payment for a person's time and judgment: sourcing candidates, verifying who they are before you ever hear a name, and staying involved through coaching and feedback after each introduction. The more open you are about who and where you are willing to be matched, the lower that starting fee tends to be, and the total varies with how many introductions and coaching sessions your search actually needs.
What that buys you before you ever meet: every person eligible to be introduced through Master Matchmakers has already cleared identity, age, and photo verification, plus a criminal and public-record background check. When there is a genuine fit, you receive their verified profile and a phone number, and you speak with them yourself before agreeing to meet anyone. A subscription site cannot do this for you, because nobody at the company is doing the checking. That is not a flaw in the product. It was never built to.
Buying Access or Buying Work, Side by Side
Put plainly, here is what each fee is actually purchasing:
| What you're comparing |
A subscription dating service site |
Master Matchmakers, a matchmaker |
| What the fee actually buys |
Access to a database of profiles you search yourself |
A person's labor: sourcing, vetting, and introducing candidates on your behalf |
| Where your effort goes |
Building a profile, browsing, and messaging, continuously |
A personal consultation up front; the searching happens without you |
| What you know before meeting someone |
Whatever they chose to write on their own profile |
A verified profile, photos, and a phone number, checked first |
| How you're billed |
A recurring subscription for continued access |
One fee for the whole search, starting at $3,500 |
| What happens during a quiet stretch |
Nothing changes; you keep paying for access either way |
Coaching and feedback keep the search moving, and contracts do not expire |
What Changes When You Buy the Work Instead of the Access
Buying the work instead of the access changes what happens when things go quiet. On a subscription site, a slow month is just a slow month: you keep paying for access, and whether anything comes of it is entirely on you to keep pursuing. Nobody at the company is accountable for the fact that nothing happened this week.
With a matchmaker, a quiet stretch works differently, because a person is still working on your behalf and can tell you why. Feedback after each introduction travels both ways, filtered through a coach and matchmaker who have every reason to be honest with you rather than to simply keep you subscribed. And because Master Matchmakers' contracts do not expire, a demanding month at work or a stretch where nothing suitable surfaces becomes a pause, not a lost month you already paid for.
Which Product Actually Fits What You Want
If you want the widest possible pool and are willing to do the work of searching it yourself, a subscription dating service site is the right product, not a lesser one. It is built for exactly that job, and plenty of people are genuinely well served by it.
If the volume of searching, not a shortage of platforms, is what has worn you down, or if knowing who someone actually is before you meet them matters more to you than casting the widest possible net, a matchmaker is solving a different problem than any website can, because the product itself is different: a person doing the work, rather than a database waiting for you to use it.
What We're Accountable For
The Work Is Verifiable. The Outcome Cannot Be Promised.
In business since: 2001 | Private network: 65,000+ singles | Fees from: $3,500
We cannot promise you will meet the right person, because no legitimate matchmaker or dating service site can guarantee that outcome. What we can stand behind is the work itself: every candidate introduced to you has been sourced, interviewed, and background-checked before your name and theirs were ever put together, information a subscription database has no way to provide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly am I paying for on a dating website?
Access. A dating website's fee covers a database of member profiles, tools to browse and message them, and sometimes visibility features for your own profile. It does not cover anyone searching on your behalf. The site provides the pool and the mechanism; you provide the time and effort of using it.
Why is a matchmaker so much more expensive than a dating site subscription?
Because the fee is paying for different things. A subscription pays for continued access to a database. A matchmaker's fee, starting at $3,500 at Master Matchmakers, pays for a person's labor: sourcing candidates, verifying who they are, and staying involved through coaching and feedback after each introduction.
Can I cancel a matchmaker the way I would cancel a dating site subscription?
Not quite, because the two are not structured the same way. A dating site subscription runs month to month until you stop paying for access. Master Matchmakers' contracts do not expire and are not billed as a recurring subscription; the engagement runs until the search itself is finished.
Does a dating website verify who members actually are?
Usually not beyond what a member typed into their own profile. Most subscription dating sites rely on self-reported information rather than independent checks. Master Matchmakers verifies identity, age, and photos, and runs a criminal and public-record background check on every person before they become eligible for an introduction.
Should I use a dating website and a matchmaker together?
Some people do, and there's no conflict in trying both. A dating website widens the pool you search yourself; a matchmaker takes the searching off your plate entirely. If the volume of self-directed searching is what's worn you down, that is the specific problem a matchmaker solves.
You're Choosing a Product, Not Just a Price
Whichever product you're actually looking for, the details are worth checking rather than assumed. A dating service site and a matchmaker were never competing for the same dollar; they are answers to two different questions about how you want to spend your time. If you decide a matchmaker is the product you want, our own process, consultation, verification, curated introductions, and coaching after each one, is laid out in full on our How It Works page.