Canadian Model – Shauna Baker (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Here is the quick list of my top five dating sites and apps in Canada. I’ll go into more detail in my reviews later in this article.
If you live in one of the bigger cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, you’ll be happy to know that any one of those sites/apps above has a large membership base. Having spent a lot of time in Toronto and Vancouver, I’ll tell you that dating sites and apps are incredibly popular in Canada, just as they are in its southern neighbor, the United States. In fact, if you’ve dated in the U.S., the sites and apps that are among the most popular there are also popular in Canada.
What makes a great dating site or app? It needs to have a lot of members, a clean interface, and a decent male-to-female ratio to make it worth your time to sign up.
Like the United States, Canada is a melting pot of cultures and races. You’ll find a lot of hot men and women of all shapes, sizes and colors.
Each of these sites has its own character. Some are better if you’re looking for a long term relationship, and others are more geared towards short term hookups.
A Couple in Canada (Banff)
Without further ado, here are my detailed reviews of the top five dating sites in Canada.
If you’re in Canada, eharmony is the first site I would sign up for. It’s specifically geared towards those looking for serious relationships. If you’re looking for a quick hookup, don’t sign up for this site (do Tinder or OKCupid instead…I’ll discuss these in a bit).
eharmony was founded by Neil Warren, a professional psychologist and accomplished author of 10 books on love and marriage. It has around 33 million members worldwide.
eharmony
eharmony’s design and features are some of the best, and a hefty price-tag comes along with them. If you’re seriously looking for a long-term relationship, one that might lead to marriage, you’d be hard pressed to find a better site than eharmony. I have a few friends that found their spouse on there.
Sign up Process
Sign-up starts out easily enough, with your name, gender, match gender and location. Next, enter your email, password and how you heard about the site. Now for the personality test, which will take you 30-40 minutes to complete.
Most of the questions you answer by choosing on a scale of 1-7. Sections include: how applicable a word or phrase is to you, how often you’ve felt an emotion in the past month, how much skill or passion you have in/for a certain activity and your style and values in a relationship.
After these questions, you write what you’re passionate about and what you’re most grateful for, and wrap things up with your partner preferences and some more basic details like your education, occupation, etc.
Finally, upload a profile photo (optional), and you’re registered. At this point you are only 50% done with your profile however, with many different sections to fill out if you choose, including favorite interests, life skills, and an OkCupid-like question system.
How to Locate Potential Matches
Much like other personality test-driven sites (e.g. EliteDating), eharmony has no typical browse or search features. Once you’ve completed the sign-up process, eharmony will compare your test results with other members’ to find and present you with matches, which can be filtered by age-range and location. You can view your matches’ profiles but not their photos.
How to Communicate with Other Members
eharmony has a basic messaging feature, with only text supported. You can also send Smiles, or work your way up to a standard message with eharmony’s awesome Guided Communication feature, detailed below.
Premium members also gain access to the Secure Call feature, which allows you to call other members with your phone, while keeping your number and information private.
Unique Site Features
eharmony’s most unique and, in my opinion, best feature is the Guided Communication system. This feature helps you break the ice and establish connection in 4 steps:
- Quick Questions: Send 5 questions, chosen from 55 options, such as What’s your philosophy on travel? and What’s your opinion of traditional gender roles?. Your match chooses pre-written options as answers and replies with 5 questions of their own.
- Makes or Breaks: Share what would make or break a relationship for you. “Make” examples include: sense of humor and affectionate. “Break” examples include: racist and cheating.
- Digging Deeper: Ask some of eharmony’s questions (e.g. Describe some personal habits that are important to you) or write your own.
- eharmony Mail: The final step is the basic eharmony messaging feature, which you can skip right to if you want.
What is Included in Each Membership Level
- Free – View your matches’ profiles, access the Book of You personality report
- Basic – See your matches photos, see who has viewed your profile, send/receive unlimited messages
- TotalConnect – Access to Secure Call feature, premium Book of You (deeper personality analysis)
Hinge
I have had good experiences with Hinge. It is quite popular in Canada. I did a full review of this dating app here.
Bumble
As another option, I recommend you sign up for Bumble. I did a full review of Bumble here.
EliteSingles.ca
EliteSingles.ca is the fourth best dating site/app in Canada.
Many of today’s dating apps have earned a rap for being an easy connection for young adult hookups. This is where EliteSingles, a dating site marketed as a long-term solution for single educated and working professionals, sets itself apart.
As noted on their website, EliteSingles claims that over 85% of its users have an above-average education and most users are professionals between the ages of 30-55. However, it does come at a price. Users must pay for a membership to join the site, so I have reviewed the functionality and features of the site to see if it’s really worth it.
Sign up Process
The signup process is straightforward and should only take about 10-20 minutes to complete depending on how detailed you want your responses to be. While signup does go through many of the basic and important questions for compatibility testing, there are not many unique prompts that guide you to detail distinctive stories or qualities about yourself.
Be aware that you must pay for your membership before the site will allow you to complete the signup. You will not be able to view profiles, match, or message people without a membership.
How to Locate Potential Matches
EliteSingles takes the results of your preference questions from the signup stage to automatically match you with those who are the most compatible. You can locate this list simply by clicking the “Matches” tab in the navigation menu. From there, you have access to go ahead and communicate with your matches.
While the automatic matching feature definitely makes it easier to get matches, don’t let it mislead you. You still have to do some sorting of your own to determine who you want to communicate with. EliteSingles’s algorithm may be strong, but it cannot read bios, short answer questions, and sort through attractive profile photos.
How to Communicate with Other Members
As you’re sifting through the list of users who are compatible with you, there are a couple of different ways you can go about communicating with the ones who interest you most: smiles and messaging.
A smile is similar to liking someone’s profile. If you decide to send one of your matches a smile, they will be notified and may send you a message. This is a low-effort way to get the attention of your matches, but use caution — some users might be offended if you send a smile but don’t take the time to send a message. If you want to be more thoughtful or just feel like being the one to strike up a conversation, you also have the capability to send your match a message.
Unique Site Features
EliteSingles has a few unique features that set itself apart from other dating apps. Most notably, the “Have you met?” suggestion feature. “Have you met?” shows you profiles that you may also be interested in but didn’t meet one or more of your preferences. This is a great way to broaden your search if you are more open-minded.
The automatic smiles and messaging capability is also a feature not seen on many other dating sites. Typically, sites want users to manually match with each other before communication is permitted, but since EliteSingles matches for you, you can skip this step!
What is Included in Each Membership Level
EliteSingles currently offers three different memberships.
- Premium Light – A three-month subscription that gives you access to the intelligent matchmaking feature and unlimited messaging.
- Premium Classic – A six-month membership that includes intelligent matchmaking, unlimited messaging, access to all member photos, access to see who views your profile, and read receipts for messages.
- Premium Comfort – Includes the same as Premium Classic but for a twelve-month membership.
OkCupid
OkCupid wasn’t the first date app, but it has been around for a long time— since 2004. There’s a reason for its longevity. It’s not as superficial and disheartening as the swipe lifestyle of Tinder while not being as serious as eHarmony.
It’s the perfect balance for people aged 25-34 who want more than a casual hookup but still want to have fun. OkCupid also does a great job of matching people you’re actually compatible with.
That’s because it uses a fancy algorithm and your responses to questions like “how long after you meet somebody do you follow them on social media” or “is it okay to answer your cell phone while on a date?” to put the right profiles in front of you.
OkCupid was founded by Harvard math students—who incidentally also created SparkNotes. If SparkNotes saved you a time or two in school, you might owe it to yourself to check out OkCupid for that reason alone.
What makes OkCupid stand out from Tinder and Bumble is the personality assessment questions OkCupid asks you when you sign up. Don’t worry; they’re not too involved nor require serious introspection. It’s actually best if you answer them without thinking too much.
Likewise, you will have to put a little work into personalizing your profile if you want to really attract questions. However, you can start browsing profiles right away and “like” the ones you find compelling. You’ll be able to start messaging as soon as the other person likes you back.
Overall, OkCupid is easy to use, has a lot of great features, and puts a more human touch on the dating process.
Sign up Process
Sign up on OkCupid is straightforward. You enter basic information like your email address, names, location, and birthday, or you can register with Facebook to skip these questions.
After this, you begin the questionnaire that includes questions about your likes, dislikes, personality, sexual orientation, gender identity, and relationship goals. This helps OkCupid’s algorithm connect you with more compatible users. You’ll see this percentage of compatibility in the match suggestion feature later.
After this, you’ll be ready to start browsing. You can immediately add pictures to your profile from Facebook or Instagram. You can also upload photos, but they won’t be posted to your profile until approved by OkCupid’s admin bots (which doesn’t take very long).
How to Locate Potential Matches
After sign-up, you can locate other users through three main ways: Quick Match, Double Take, and Match Search.
Quick Match
Similar to Tinder. You quickly swipe through user profiles.
Double Take
Double Take shows you different profiles one match at a time. It focuses on personality instead of just appearance. You’ll also see members’ interests and key things that match up with your profile.
You’ll also see the types of relationship they’re looking for. When available, they’ll show people who have a higher match percentage with you.
To like a profile, you either swipe right or tap the star icon on mobile and desktop.
Match Search
Match Search filters users to show you what you’re looking for. Aside from age and location, you can search by categories like pet owner, smoker, religion, and others.
After setting your parameters, you’ll see a grid of photo thumbnails. If one catches your eye, you can tap on the profile to see more and like the user if you’re interested.
How to Communicate with Other Members
After you match with another user, you can begin to exchange messages. All initial messages are shown next to the sender’s profile to give members a better idea of who they’re chatting with.
The goal of this was to separate regular messages from crude ones and encourage users to spend more time getting to know different users.
OkCupid is designed toward more substantial conversations. Since you have much more profile information to look at and have a compatibility report right at your fingertips, you have a more solid foundation for communication. You can chat about favorite books or hobbies and get to know each other better.
As with any dating app, it’s best not to spend too much time chatting with someone before meeting up. You don’t want to become overly invested only to discover you can’t stand each other in real life!
Unique Site Features
The most unique feature about OkCupid is the profile questionnaire and the compatibility matchup based on their results and algorithm.
Other excellent free features include:
- Easy setup and browsing within minutes
- Free membership still has plenty of features
- Three different ways to match
- Social media aspect allows you to discover matches in a more casual and fun setting
- Basic search filters
- OkCupid blog: great tips on how to use the platform and dating in general
In addition to the free features, premium membership also unlocks:
- Unlimited likes
- Use advanced search filters
- No ads
- See who likes you
- Read receipts on messages
- Daily auto boost (raises your profile to the top of the queue)
- Message priority
- See answers to public questions
- Incognito Mode: browse anonymously and like profiles or remove your profile from being seen by some users.
What is Included in Each Membership Level
OkCupid has three membership levels: basic, A-List, and Premium A-List.
A-List
- No ads
- See who likes you
- Unlimited like
- More search filters
- Sort by attractiveness
- Incognito Mode
A-List Premium:
- All A-list features plus:
- One auto boost per day
- See public answers to questions
- See and been seen by more attractive matches
*OkCupid bases attractiveness on the number of users who’ve liked a profile.
Further Reading
Worldwide Online Dating Site Reviews: Be sure to check out my country-by-country reviews of the best online dating sites in the world.
Worldwide Moving Guide: Everything you need to know in order to plan your move to 65+ countries around the world.
Worldwide Jobs Guide: If you are interested in working in this country, be sure to check out my posts on how to find jobs in this country and other countries around the world.
Worldwide Apartments Guide: If you are interested in renting an apartment in another country, take a look at my articles on how to find an apartment in various countries around the world.
About Addison Sears-Collins
Hey! I'm Addison Sears-Collins, the founder of Visa Hunter. You can learn more about me here. Connect with me by liking my fan page on Facebook, connecting with me on Twitter, or check out my website Automatic Addison where I build robots and embedded systems.
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