"Modern-day matchmaking services work by bringing back the human element that is lacking in dating apps, rather than placing the burden of curating a profile and swiping through a seemingly endless number of singles onto the end user."

— ConsumerAffairs.com, Best Matchmaking Services Guide 2026

⚠️ Safety Alert

According to a 2025 Pew Research study, 46% of online daters say they've had a negative experience related to safety or privacy. And 52% of online dating users say they've encountered someone they believed was trying to scam them.

Bumble, once the darling of feminist dating apps, reported its total paying users fell 8.7%, from 4.1 million to 3.8 million in 2025, and its revenue dropped 7.6% in that same period, according to Medill Reports Northwestern. The apps are losing people. And those people are going somewhere.

Dating apps promised us love at our fingertips. What they delivered, for many, was a carousel of ghosting, catfishing, and the slow creeping suspicion that the "doctor working in Syria" who wants gift cards is not, in fact, a doctor working in Syria.

Meanwhile, something interesting has been quietly happening: curated, human-led matchmaking is having a renaissance. And the numbers back it up.