EliteSingles Dating Site Review

Overview

EliteSingles.com is an online dating service designed to help people looking for long-term commitment. They offer an intelligent matchmaking platform that strives to deliver compatible partner suggestions based on your own personal search preferences. They take care to offer their members a guided communication path and manually verifies all new profiles to ensure everyone a safe and easily useable environment to meet other like-minded singles. EliteSingles boasts itself as the dating site where you’ll find singles that represent the cream of the crop. More than 67% of the members of this site have university degrees and their incomes are well above average. If you’re tired of visiting average dating sites for average people then Elitesingles.com hopes to be exactly what you’re looking for.

Signing Up

When you first start the sign up process, you are asked to fill in the basic personal information like education, physical characteristics and a username, password, etc. Additionally, as pretty much all EliteSingles reviews will reveal, you will also be required to complete the personality test before you really gain access to the site. At first glance, it may seem lengthy and time-consuming.

EliteSingles.com describes their personality test as follows: “Our personality test has been developed by experienced psychologists in cooperation with EliteSingles. It analyzes 29 unique personality traits. Answering the questions takes about 20 minutes and helps us find the most compatible partners for you. Please take your time and answer as honestly as possible. You can always save your progress and continue again at a later date.” It’s rather apparent that a portion of your experience will be weighted by the results of personality test. It took me a bit longer than 20 minutes to walk through the 200 or so questions but I did approach the exercise thoughtfully, so your completion time will vary.

The 200 or so questions found in EliteSingles’ personality test are based on the Five Factor Model which measures a person’s “openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.” Some people use the acronym OCEAN to help them remember each of the factors. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight. People who are high in this trait tend to be more adventurous and creative and tend to have a broad range of interests. People low in this trait are often much more traditional. Conscientiousness: Standard features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors and also tend to be organized and mindful of details.

• Extroversion: People who are high in extroversion are outgoing and tend to gain energy in social situations. Conversely people who are low in extroversion (or introverted) tend to be more reserved and have to expend energy in social settings.
• Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, and kindness. People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more cooperative while those low in this trait tend to be more competitive and even manipulative.
• Neuroticism: Individuals who are high in this trait tend to experience mood swings, anxiety, moodiness, irritability and sadness. Those low in this trait tend to be more stable and emotionally resilient.

Each of the five personality factors represents a range between two extremes, and in the real world, most people lie somewhere in between those ends of the spectrum for each dimension. Be aware that, once you’ve completed your test, you won’t be able to go back and repeat it or change your answers at a later date. Fortunately, you can save your progress, log out, and return to finish at a later time, although it will need to be completed within fifteen weeks of beginning it. EliteSingles.com recommends answering as honestly as you can the first time around.

While an EliteSingles member, you’ll be able to view the results of the test under your own profile. More specific information is provided when you read through your own Personality Profile page providing commentary on what your answers said about you and how you stack when compared to the rest of the EliteSingles’ member population. An excerpt from my own “Openness” evaluation reads, “You are an adventurous, open-minded individual who looks forward to a change of direction in your professional and private life. Your healthy curiosity has you always on the lookout for new challenges. You love diversity, change and inspiration. In short, you are trying to discover unknown impulses and integrate them into your own life.” I appreciate that these evaluations are written very specifically and avoids any air of fortune-telling mumbo jumbo.

EliteSingles also considers demographic data like gender, age, location, profession and level of education. In order to match personal preferences they also explore various aspects that could be significant for long-term relationship prospects. Sample questions include, "How important is your future partner's religion?", "How important is your partner's level of Education?", and "Do you want children?” Questions like these are answered on a flexible scale system and not as binary as a simple yes or no, which allows for more nuanced replies.

The Matching Process

After completion of your tests, Elite Singles will use the results to help connect couples who are particularly compatible to offer the best chance at having a long and happy relationship together. They accomplish this by sending you 5-10 matches per day, which use 3 main criteria: your personality results from above, your relationship preferences (like kids, distance, preferred age, etc.), and your location. In fact, there's no traditional search feature at all. If you're short on time, the setup is a perk. If you prefer to surf profiles yourself, or would like to see more per day, EliteSingles may not be the right choice.

What you can control is your own profile, so it's rather important to spend time on it. In addition to everything you answer during signup, you can fill out additional questions that are much more open-ended and allows you to fill out your answers in a text field. Uploading photos is common on all dating sites but they even let you link with your Facebook account as an option if there are some photos you want to copy over. Of course, you can also view your personality profile, and they also added a feature that allows users to indicate their likes and dislikes in a partner. They list a bunch of likes and dislikes to choose from but you’re limited to choosing ten likes and ten dislikes.

Another factor that can impact the number of matches EliteSingles sends to you is how often you’re active on the site. In other words, the more you log on, the more matches you’ll receive. If you’re not active enough, and I point it out because the specifics on this are not really transparent, you might lose your recommendations and stop being recommended to others altogether. It’s all in service of their mission to provide members with a selection of the best and active users of their site, those serious about finding a match. If you’re the prone to wandering off to other distractions or are less likely to respond to messages, or just the type that needs to take a long break from this stuff from time to time, this may not be the dating site for you.

Member Communication

In a nutshell, EliteSingles provides a generally narrow approach to connecting with other members when compared to most other dating sites. “Smiles” are often the first step, which is basically like sending an emoticon to someone, letting them know you’re interested. Following that, more meaningful communications are guided by a step-by-step process and your progress through those steps is automatically checked off or recorded for you to keep you organized with it all. Step 1: Ask five questions - Here, you’ll be able to select 5 different questions from a list of 50 and send them to your match. Then, they’ll be able to select their answers from a list, or type a custom answer. According to EliteSingles, this can act as a sort of ice breaker to help get the conversation started. Step 2: Compare likes and dislikes - You can send your list of the characteristics and habits you’re looking for, and they can do the same. This can help you compare each other’s answers and evaluate whether or not you want to continue communicating. Step 3: Create your personalized questions – This is a much more open ended step where users can fill in text fields to ask specific questions on whatever is of interest to them and can be replied in the same fashion. This is still considered a step for users to evaluate compatibility. Step 4: Send message - This is a “personalized text message” that can be sent at any time once the previous steps have been checked off. That is if you are a premium member (More on this later) If you're not ready to talk yet, you can add a profile to your favorites list and come back to it later. You can also see your most recently viewed matches and your profile visitors.

EliteSingles’ Membership Pricing

The Basic membership is intended to let users to try out the site’s basic features. It allows you to take the personality test and view your profile, view partner suggestions, and have limited communication with other members. Their Premium memberships provide access to more features on the site. Premium membership includes unlimited site communication, gives information about visitors to your profile, and allows the viewing of all profile photos on people’s profiles.

• 1 Month: $59.95
• 3 Months: $34.95 per month (one charge of $104.85)
• 6 Months: $24.95 per month (one charge of $149.70)
• 12 Months: $17.95 per month (one charge of $215.40)

Premium Plus membership gives more features, offering “Verified Member” status, a more in-depth personality profile, read receipts for messages, and up to 20 extra partner introductions every day via the “Have you met…” feature. EliteSingles describes this feature as, “Unlike your regular partner suggestions, who we introduce to you as a result of our matching process and your search criteria, the ‘Have you met…’ matches are members who missed out on being added to your partner suggestion list because they didn’t meet at least one of your search criteria.” Access to more profiles, I would say, is generally a good thing. You never know who you might generate a spark with. That said, it’ll be up to you to decide whether or not this broader approach to matchmaking is for you, in particular when you consider it’s a feature that you’re required to pay extra for.

• 1 Month: $69.95
• 3 Months: $39.95 per month (one charge of $119.85)
• 6 Months: $29.95 per month (one charge of $179.70)
• 12 Months: $19.95 per month (one charge of $239.40)

Regardless of which option you choose, remember that your EliteSingles membership will automatically renew at the end of the term.

The Bottom Line

Looking for a worthwhile connect online takes effort, it’s not always easy. If you’re a busy professional, it takes some courage to put yourself out there and be open to communicating with complete strangers. Add to that the necessary onboarding process for joining any serious dating site with all the questionnaires and membership costs, makes it all the more important that you start your online dating experience on the right foot. I would say there are a lot of other solid choices compared to EliteSingles. Their pricing model seems in line with many of the other dating sites, but other than their focus of “genuine, professional people”, there doesn’t seem to be anything especially unique about EliteSingles that meaningfully differentiates it from the competition. Of course, if this is your specific need, EliteSingles does aim to fill that.