Tawkify Reviews

You'd be well within reason to be wary of online dating. Although many people have successfully built lasting relationships through platforms like eHarmony, Match, Tinder, and Bumble, many others lament those platforms' lack of safeguards and quality controls — to say nothing of certain opaque and misleading marketing strategies.1

For those who are jaded by the more well-known dating sites and mobile apps, Tawkify may be a refreshing alternative. Instead of a user-facing algorithm, it deals in real human-to-human interfaces with matchmakers to gather users’ dating preferences, match them with promising prospects, and curate the whole dating experience. In this review, we examine how Tawkify works, how it differs from other dating sites, and why you may (or may not) want to give it a closer look yourself.

Tawkify has the potential to be more effective and more enjoyable than other dating platforms. Client-level subscriptions involve working with a dedicated matchmaker who identifies and filters matches based on parameters that you define. The cost is high (for many, it's prohibitive), but the trade-off is a dating experience curated and refined precisely to your needs. While Tawkify does offer a low-cost subscription option, all it does is add you to the dating pool and allow only a passive level of engagement on the platform. In either case, when you’re matched with a prospect, you can take some solace in knowing that your date has been screened not only for their suitability to you but also their criminal background — a safety measure absent from more popular platforms such as eHarmony, Match, and Tinder.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

Because interpersonal relationships are so critical to human happiness, they profoundly affect our health and well-being. As such, our testing team has been reviewing and comparing both mainstream and niche dating sites and apps for years. We tried Tawkify for ourselves so that we could root our findings in firsthand knowledge and compare its features and pricing to alternatives. We also consulted relevant literature to aid in these assessments.

To assess whether Tawkify is a viable option for date-seekers, we focused on the following criteria:

• Methodology: How does the platform identify matches?
• Cost: How much do you pay for the service?
• Features: How does the platform facilitate your dating experience?
• Transparency: How forthcoming is the company about key deciding factors like pricing and features?
• Customer support: How quickly, effectively, and conveniently does the company respond to user inquiries?

Here's how Tawkify performed in each category:

Methodology

The Methodology criterion relates exclusively to Client-level subscribers since they're the only ones for whom any methodology is executed.

And that methodology is fairly solid — a 21st-century spin on the centuries-old profession of matchmaking — although there are limitations.

Notwithstanding some of the finer details, the process goes like this. Tawkify pairs every Client with a dedicated matchmaker, and only after determining whether someone is even viable as a Client (grounds for rejection include but are not limited to a positive criminal history and personal bankruptcy filings). The matchmaker's job is to familiarize themselves with the Client, gather the Client's specifications, and identify matches that meet them. Those matches may be other Clients, Members in the dating pool, or recruits (a non-customer invited to join the Tawkify database).

Before the Client meets a prospect, their matchmaker will have carefully interviewed and vetted each potential match, effectively "dating" them before the Client does. In doing so, the matchmaker can report important qualitative data that informs a prospect's suitability for the Client. Other online matchmakers (e.g., Vida Select, Three Day Lunch, and It’s Just Lunch) carry out basically the same process.

When the matchmaker finds what they consider a suitable candidate, that counts as one of the Client’s matches. The matchmaker will then introduce the Client to the match, coordinate schedules, and plan a date. Clients typically get one match per month, but that’s not consistent across the entire Client base; some may receive matches faster or more slowly.

You can see, then, that Tawkify does the legwork for you. Your effort is limited to your initial consultation with your matchmaker (about one hour) and post-date check-ins. Outsourcing the effort to a professional means you can go about your regular schedule without worrying about finding a profile that seems to align with your romantic needs.

But about those limitations we mentioned: Yes, Tawkify is theoretically more efffective than a dating app, but there are key variables that can lower your success rate. Maybe your particular matchmaker isn't attentive enough to your specifications, maybe they're willing to inject their own preconceptions about romance into their match search, or perhaps they have little knowledge about your city’s dating scene. Tawkify’s human element may be its greatest strength, but it’s also a potential weakness.

To Tawkify’s credit, it does allow you to change your matchmaker. If you feel that your matchmaker isn’t a good match for you, take charge and request a new one. Your success with the service may depend on it.

Cost

Client-level subscriptions with Tawkify aren’t cheap. Prices for pre-set packages range from $4,900 to $15,000. For many people, even Tawkify's least expensive Client option is cost-prohibitive.

That said, Tawkify actually leans toward the more affordable end of the online matchmaking service spectrum. The price you pay depends on how many matches you want — three matches for the lowest-tier package and 12 matches for the highest — and you can adjust your match number at discounted or pro-rated prices after your package is complete. In comparison, subscriptions with competitor Three Day Rule start at $5,900, and the more boutique matchmakers (those that serve an exclusive clientele, such as wealthy executives or even celebrities) can cost upwards of $100,000.

Tawkify's comparative value is primarily why its Cost rating is as high as it is. Also, if you're willing to take a much more passive role in your search for love, then its $9.99/year cost for dating-pool Members can't be beat even by the most popular dating apps.

Features

Apart from the standard concierge relationship and date-night planning offered by other matchmaking platforms (Vida Select, Three Day Rule, and It's Just Lunch), Tawkify boasts a suite of features that none of its competitors offer all together:

Perhaps the one area in which Tawkify lags behind the competition is styling, a feature offered by Three Day Rule. By guiding your clothing and accessory choices, a stylist could help a Client look their best on date night and, therefore, be a useful extension to Tawkify's coaching resources. At the same time, we didn't deduct too many points from Tawkify's score for that one absence alone; after all, an individual's fashion sense can be deeply personal, and expressing one's own style may help them put their best self forward on a date.

Transparency

Dating sites tend to be cagey about things like pricing and features, although (or maybe because) these are factors that determine whether someone does or doesn't sign up for their platform. Tawkify, however, is markedly more transparent about itself compared to competitors, but some details are still difficult to verify.

For example, without forcing you to embark on a hair-pulling quest for information, Tawkify makes clear its user base statistics, the differences between Client and Member subscriptions, and at least some of its pricing on prominently displayed navigation links from its home page. Other matchmaking platforms, like Three Day Rule, offer no such details anywhere on their websites until after you've signed up; and even then, you may have a tough time finding the information you want.

Even so, Tawkify does obscure some important information. Namely:

• You won't find exact pricing details for most of its pre-set Client packages unless you contact customer support.
• There’s little information about Premier subscriptions, Tawkify’s VIP-level package.
• Based on certain pages embedded in the Tawkify website, you wouldn’t know whether Tawkify still offers its Video Connect program, a lower-cost package that lets subscribers meet matches through video chat. (Answer: It has been discontinued.)

All in all, we appreciate that Tawkify, for the most part, doesn't make users go through a whole enrollment process just to discover whether the platform can meet their expectations. Its relative openness allows prospective customers to make better-informed consumer choices, which isn't just refreshing but also goes a long way toward creating a positive user experience.

Customer support

Our user experience has shown us that Tawkify's customer support is fairly responsive, to the point, and friendly, but the way in which it conducts customer support may not be ideal for everyone.

Your contact options are limited to telephone. There’s an email option, but that’s really only to notify Tawkify that you have a question; the real response will come by way of a phone call.

To illustrate: We initially contacted Tawkify through email to clarify its Client pricing structure. A response email came a couple of hours later, but it only said that a more knowledgeable representative would be calling us later. In fairness, the call came just a few hours afterward (the second took about a day), but we'd rather have kept the communication within the email thread because it would've:

• Let us communicate on our own time
• Minimized miscommunication
• Left an easy-to-retrieve record

We do want to applaud Tawkify’s client advisers, though. Every time we spoke with one, they thoroughly answered our questions and illuminated points about the Tawkify process. So Tawkify seems to have excellent support quality. It’s the support methodology we think could disappoint some people.

Tawkify is like a cross between an online dating platform and a traditional matchmaking service. Tawkify’s matchmakers may use databases to identify matches, but it’s really not a “dating site” in the vein of eHarmony or Match. Rather, it’s a convenient online medium through which you interface with a real person who works on your behalf to find romantic prospects who meet your criteria. Notably, unlike many matchmaking services (e.g., Selective Search, Kelleher International, LUMA), Tawkify does not market itself exclusively to executives, the wealthy, and other “high-profile” clients.

Tawkify’s user base consists chiefly of two paid subscription tiers: Clients and Members. (There’s also something called a Premier level, which is the only subscription tier that’s geared toward those “high-profile” sorts we mentioned above; we discuss the topic in later sections, “How much does Tawkify cost?” and “Tawkify’s features”) Your personal Tawkify experience depends on which of the two tiers you choose to purchase:

You can see there's very much a human element to how Tawkify arranges matches. A Client's matchmaker might use algorithms for their initial search and screen, but the process otherwise relies on a concierge level of personalization and expertise.

Tawkify’s brand reputation

Tawkify has profiles with both the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Trustpilot, two of the most widely used consumer-review websites.

Tawkify's BBB profile (unaccredited) currently bears a B- Bureau grade but only a 2.24 (out of 5) customer rating based on about 60 reviews. Many of the customer complaints concern low-quality matches or matches located outside of customers' location radii. On the other hand, the positive customer reviews praise Tawkify's safety protocols (e.g., background checks), uplifting relationships with Tawkify's matchmakers, and overall positive experiences on dates.

Tawkify's Trustpilot profile (verified) shows a more overwhelmingly sunny perception: 4.4 stars (out of 5) based on more than 6,580 reviews. The positive and negative reviews largely relate to the same upsides and downsides described on BBB. The more neutral 3-star reviews speak of positive dating experiences tempered by factors such as location restrictions and mildly inattentive matchmakers.

Our takeaway is what we discussed under the evaluative criteria. Tawkify demonstrates good potential to connect Clients with promising prospects but can be limited by location-specific dating pools and the individual quality of one's matchmaker.

Let’s break down Tawkify’s process into its component parts to explain how it works.

Onboarding

Whether you want to be a Member or a Client, your Tawkify journey begins with an onboarding process that comprises a nine-question intake form:

• What’s your gender?
• Who are you open to dating?
• When’s your birthday?
• What age(s) are you open to dating?
• What’s your zip code?
• How would you describe your professional situation? (Plus annual income)
• What’s your full name?
• What’s your email address?
• What’s your phone number?

(As you can see from the image, Tawkify includes options for trans, intersex, non-binary/non-conforming, and other. The inclusivity is a sure plus.)

After intake, you’re taken to a screen that breaks down details about Member-level subscriptions. It’s blessedly thorough, presenting to you everything you need to make an informed decision about your next steps.

Members

If you decide to move forward, you pay the $9.99 and verify your phone number. Just like that, you’re added to the Tawkify dating pool. You don’t actively participate in your dating journey, but you can add photos and complete your profile to increase your visibility to matchmakers.

To become an active participant, you have to upgrade to a Client subscription, for which you have two simple routes:

Clients

At the Client level, you work with a dedicated matchmaker whose responsibility is to understand your dating preferences, determine your must-haves and dealbreakers, and search the Tawkify database for candidates who meet your specifications. This concierge approach, common to all matchmaking services, is theoretically a major step up from dating app algorithms. It allows you to consider critical qualitative data that you’d need to determine whether someone is a promising prospect (e.g., not just “do they want kids?” but all the gray areas and nuances related to one’s desire to have or not have children).2

Tawkify typically takes 2-4 weeks to find each match, and its client advisers say to expect one match/date per month. After each date, you check in with your matchmaker to provide feedback — what you liked or didn’t like about the person, the setting, and anything else relevant to the experience. Your matchmaker uses the feedback to refine your future matches, and they will not make a new match until they’ve gathered the feedback. Having this iterative procedure baked into the whole process helps ensure an increasing likelihood of matching you with the best candidates (at least in theory).

After you complete your Client package, you have a few options:

• End your Client subscription but have the option to be made visible in the Tawkify database — no extra charge
• Add matches to your plan at pro-rated prices
• Repeat or change your plan at a discount

Tawkify vs. dating apps in a nutshell

Compare Tawkify’s concierge approach to a common dating app, which has you viewing static profiles. Dating app profiles can reveal only so much about the account holder, who may have carefully curated their details to create an unrealistic and flattering self-portrait. Consequently, every prospect you agree to see through a dating app potentially represents a significant risk — a risk that a professional matchmaker aims to minimize.

Also, dating apps require some serious effort. The user must put in the time to like this profile, swipe on that profile, and go through the whole DM song-and-dance; it's really just transporting aspects of real-world dating to a digital space.

Prospective Tawkify Clients and Members are likely to have at least two things in common: a desire for a long-term relationship and a lack of success with dating apps. According to Pew Research, that accounts for 44% and 46% of online daters, respectively.3 4

However, because of Tawkify's distinct subscription tiers, its suitability for the two audiences will depend on the financial investment one is willing to make. Below, we discuss the populations for whom Client- and Member-level subscriptions are best suited.

For Clients

A Client-level subscription is best suited for people who:

• Have enough disposable income to put toward matchmaking, and
• Are seeking long-term relationships.

Often, matchmaking platforms market their services to busy professionals, but that doesn't mean you have to be a high-powered executive. Indeed, Tawkify (and the competitors we discuss throughout this guide) appear careful not to limit their audiences to the "elite" the way certain other services are wont to do.

While you could certainly become a Tawkify Client for hookups and flings, we feel that would be an excessively extravagant use of your money. Particularly when you consider the people in the Tawkify dating pool probably use the platform to find lasting partnerships, you'd be better off paying for premium subscriptions to dating apps.

Also, probably in most cases, Client-level subscriptions will work out best for those who are open to being patient about their matchmaking journey. Ideally, you want to put considerable thought into your consultation and feedback, and then equal amounts of effort toward getting to know your matches.

For Members

The Members tier may appeal to those who want long-term relationships but don't want to drop four to five figures on finding "the one." Necessarily, that means being willing to take a passive role and an even more patient approach.

The most suitable audience, then, would be people who aren't keen on dating apps and want to add a low-cost (if lightly used) tool to their love-life toolbox. Ideally, they’re people who direct their dating efforts to real-world environments but are happy to meet someone through the internet.

With regard to cost, we must again distinguish between Clients and Members.

Members pay a low annual fee of $9.99, due in full at the start of service, which is lower than what you'd pay for a subscription to a common dating app (e.g., a year's worth of Match at the lowest subscription tier is nearly $80). In exchange, you get added to the Tawkify dating pool but don't actively participate in your search for a partner.

For Clients, Tawkify currently has four pre-set packages at significantly different price points:

• 3 matches: $4,900
• 6 matches: $8,000
• 9 matches: $12,000
• 12 matches (a.k.a., the full program): $15,000

The packages differ only in the number of matches your matchmaker finds for you; otherwise, they offer identical services and features.

Now, imagine that you’ve completed an entire Client package, aren’t pleased with any of your matches, but want to keep trying. In that case, you can either add matches at pro-rated prices or take on a new plan at a discounted price. The pro-rated or discounted prices aren’t set in stone, so you’d have to work out an arrangement with Tawkify.

In addition to the above, Tawkify has a Premier level that caters to Clients who are willing to pay a premium. Tawkify keeps details about the Premier close to the vest, so you'll find nothing on its website about pricing, but our interactions with customer support have revealed that prices range from $50,000 to $70,000. For that price, you get a beefier set of services, discussed in a later section (“Tawkify’s features”).

Whichever subscription tier you choose, you can pay for it via:

• Credit card
• Debit card
• Wire transfer
• Automated Clearing House

How to pay for Tawkify Client packages

As a Client, you may have a few payment options:

Tawkify's services are generally non-refundable, but there are important exceptions and caveats, as outlined in the following subsections:

Full refunds

Residents of the following states may cancel their subscription for a full refund within three business days:

Those in Iowa, New York, or Ohio must formally submit a Notice of Buyer's Cancellation to initiate their cancellation and receive their refund. All others need only to email Tawkify customer support.

Full refunds are also given to those who have purchased Client packages but are rejected after screening.

Partial refunds

Partial, pro-rated refunds are available in the following instances:

When discussing features, we once more have to draw a line between Members and Clients.

Member-level features, such as they are, all revolve around the profile, which can increase a subscriber’s visibility to matchmakers. Every Member profile comprises three sections:

• About Yourself: Besides basic details like your name, pronouns, sexual orientation, and occupation, you can divulge your ethnicity, religious identification, income, values, political views, whether you want kids, whether you have pets, what kinds of exercise you do, and more.
• Ideal Partner: The Ideal Partner section is similar to the above, except you detail the qualities and characteristics you look for in a romantic interest.
• Photos: You upload photos of yourself. The minimum is two.

Members can also elect to participate in Tawkify’s Candidate Video Screening, which involves recording video responses to questions that matchmakers use to identify matches for Clients (e.g., “How would your friends describe you?”).

Clients, of course, get to enjoy a much larger suite of features:

Premier Clients have even more features. The Tawkify website doesn’t list many of them but does say the Premier level unlocks “unlimited search locations” and “expanded search criteria.” Fortunately, we were able to discuss the matter with a client adviser, who divulged that Premier Clients also work with a more expert-level matchmaker plus a whole team of support staff to help identify high-quality candidates.

We’ve found Tawkify’s customer support to be simultaneously responsive and inconvenient.

We say it’s responsive because its response turnaround is pretty good. When we called, we were usually on the line with a client adviser within 1-5 minutes, and every adviser we spoke with was friendly and forthright. And when we emailed, a reply invariably dinged in our inbox within hours.

But we also say it’s inconvenient for these reasons:

• Dual-channel process: The reply emails we got only ever said that someone else would get in touch with us. The representative who then contacted us did so by phone.
• Limited channels: Really, then, your true contact options are limited to telephone. We’d have liked an actual email alternative, as well as a live online chat function — consistently the most satisfactory form of customer support, according to Home Business Magazine5 — like Vida Select has.

The online matchmaking market has about a dozen big-name players — not as big as the dating app market, but still fairly large. The thing is, many online matchmakers cater to an exclusive clientele. So, in identifying Tawkify alternatives, we deliberately omitted any platform whose branding is aimed at high-profile and high-wealth users, choosing instead to focus on those that are feasibly accessible to more general audiences. Our recommendations are as follows:

Vida Select

Vida Select differs from Tawkify primarily in two ways:

• Month-to-month pricing: Customers pay as they go, by the month. Vida Select doesn’t openly disclose pricing information on its website, but customers report price points in the $1,195-$2,595 range.
• Unlimited matches: However much you pay, Vida Select sets no limit on your number of matches.

The pay-as-you-go structure poses a comparably low barrier to entry. If you end up paying $1,195 per month and go out with three matches in that time span, you’ll have spent $3,705 less than you would have for Tawkify’s lowest-cost Client package. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you will get three matches within a month (or two months, or three), so the cost advantage depends on your circumstances.

However, one advantage that Vida Select definitely has over Tawkify and the other competitors is online chat support, and that’s on top of the usual email and telephone channels.

Three Day Rule

Three Day Rule is also opaque about its pricing and services, but pricing starts at around $5,900 for a three-match, three-month contract. So, for $1,000 more than Tawkify’s lowest-cost Client package, you get just as many matches plus a time limit. Three Day Rule is also geographically limited, as it currently operates in only 12 cities/regions:

Also, you don’t get the privilege of certain key features that Tawkify provides, namely background checks and feedback opportunities.

It’s Just Lunch

It’s Just Lunch is another online matchmaker that’s secretive about its prices, which normally run anywhere from $2,900 to $4,900. The company’s BBB profile bears a 1-star (out of 5) customer rating and a host of unpromising complaints. The company has even been named in at least two class-action lawsuits for fraud, with the plaintiffs claiming “grossly deficient ... substandard” services and dishonest practices (e.g., random and not hand-picked matches).6 7

If you aren’t put off by the lawsuits, know that It’s Just Lunch operates in a limited number of areas, though many more than Three Day Rule. Currently, it serves more than 100 locations in North America, as well as three cities in Australia (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne), three cities in Ireland (Dublin, Cork, Galway), one city in Northern Ireland (Belfast), and one city in England (London).