Dating Sites	Ease of Use	Auto Matching	Chat	IM	Voice or Video Ads	Profiles matching	Start Up Cost
Yahoo Personals	Good					Good	$26
Lava life	Good					Fair	$30
Friend finder	Fair					Good	$22
Dream mates	Good					Fair	$20
Match.com	Good					Great	$34
Matchmaker	Fair					Fair	$30
Date.com	Good					Fair	$24
I want u	Fair						$24
eHarmony	Good					Fair	$60
Absolute agency	Fair						$10

The plethora of dating sites indeed makes it very difficult for you to choose a particular one that you may find suitable for your requirement. Given the fact that most of them advertise similar services and boast of excellent membership, you are really in no position to make an informed decision on which one to join. Moreover, there are subtle differences between sites on what one site would like to charge as opposed to the other for the same service or benefit and that really complicates things further.

The other constraints are money and time. If you have to try out each site for their effectiveness, it is going to cost you money for enjoying some of the more personalized and special features and you also need to spend time as a member at each site to fully understand and experience the benefits. Both these are at a premium for everybody and that is why a quick idea about the different factors along with the prices that some of the more prominent and reputed dating sites charge is required. If you can manage this at a glance, then you are in a much better position to take a call  about the site you wish to join and can go ahead secure in the fact that you have done some groundwork in this matter, rather than taking a blind approach.

Given below is one such chart that gives you at glance information on the services offered by some of the well known dating sites along with their charges to help you find a partner on line. This will provide you with a good understanding of the start up cost that you are required to shell out based on which you can take your decision on which site to join.

All the sites mentioned below offer the facilities of free trial, profile searching and posting of photographs on their sites.

Additional Information

Lava life has three separate divisions – dating, relationships and intimate encounters and it does not cost you anything extra to browse through all three.

E Harmony pioneered the system of putting the member through an extensive questionnaire and interview process to screen its members and ascertain whether they are of the serious type. It uses a 500 item exhaustive questionnaire to screen and match profiles. Depending on the responses if the questionnaire pronounces you as emotionally not very healthy, you could be disqualified.

E Harmony does not offer its membership to the gay community which has caused it some problems with the civil rights people.