Spark Twice Launches Matchmaking Service as 78% of Dating App Users Report Burnout

ATLANTA, GEORGIA (September 4, 2026) Nearly four in five American dating app users say the apps leave them exhausted. Spark Twice, a matchmaking membership that opened applications today, is built on the opposite premise: that the problem was never too little choice. It was too much.

Founded by Margaret Ellison, who spent 15 years in executive search before turning to matchmaking, Spark Twice replaces the endless feed with a person. Members apply. Every application is read by a human matchmaker rather than scored or ranked. Accepted members are then introduced to one carefully chosen person at a time, with a written note explaining the thinking behind the introduction. There is nothing to browse.

"Dating apps want to be a habit," Ellison said. "We would rather be a sentence: the one you say for the rest of your life when someone asks how you met."

The evidence behind that position is not subtle. A Forbes Health survey of 1,000 American dating app users, conducted by OnePoll in 2024, found that 78 percent felt emotionally, mentally or physically exhausted by them. Research from the Pew Research Center found that 46 percent of online dating users described their overall experience as negative, and that 52 percent had come across someone they believed was a scammer. Spark Twice verifies the identity of every member, including a liveness check, before any introduction is made.

Its commercial model is an argument in itself. A member's billing period does not begin when they join. It begins on the day their matchmaker sends the first introduction. Membership is $57 a month for Classic and $97 a month for Premier, with a three month option at roughly ten percent less, and there are no setup fees, introduction fees or success fees. Members can pause for up to 60 days, cancel at any time, and take a full refund within seven days of a first payment if no introduction has yet been made.

"Charging someone from the day they join, before we have done anything for them, is the easiest money in this business and the fastest way to lose people's trust," Ellison said. "If we have not introduced anyone, we have not earned anything."

The company is equally deliberate about what it will not promise. It does not commit to a number of introductions, and it makes no claim about the outcome. "Some weeks a member hears from us more than once," Ellison said. "Some weeks they hear nothing, because nothing worth their time came up. I would rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise."

The application takes around ten to fifteen minutes and covers values, lifestyle and what a person is genuinely looking for. Applicants hear back within seven days. Membership is by application only, and applications are open now at sparktwice.com.