How to start a matchmaking business: the offer, the price and your first clients

By Zach Schleien

Learn how to start a matchmaking business by picking a niche, building high-ticket offers, and creating a sales process that turns consultations into clients.

To start a matchmaking business, decide who you match, build one high-ticket offer with a clear price, put up a simple site that books consultations, and get your first clients from the people who already know you. Most new matchmakers get the matching part right and struggle with the business part: the offer, the sales call and a steady flow of new clients.

I've built and run matchmaking businesses, and I've helped matchmakers start theirs. At Filteroff, we built high-ticket human matchmaking from zero, and I took the sales calls myself. After the company sold, I ran the matchmaking division across seven dating brands, about 25 people. This guide is the order I'd do it in if I were starting today.

Run a matchmaking business? I build the offer, funnel and sales system that turn your audience into high-ticket clients. Simone did $130K in her first three months. Book a matchmaking call.

Key takeaways

• Pick a clear type of client first. Your offer, your price and your marketing all follow from it.
• Build the offer and the price before the website. One strong high-ticket package, with smaller offers underneath it.
• Don't put your premium prices on your site. Qualify people first and talk price on the call.
• Your first clients usually come from people who already know you. A funnel brings in the ones who don't.
• Write a sales script and practice it. Most of the money comes from people who are already interested and just need to be asked.

Step 1: Decide who you match

"Singles" isn't a niche. Pick a group you understand and can reach: a city, an age range, a faith, a profession, or people who want a serious relationship and are tired of the apps. A clear group makes everything after this easier, from the words on your site to where you find clients.

Local usually wins. At Filteroff, our data showed that locals date locals, so we narrowed from a global app to New York City. Density beat breadth. The same is true for a matchmaking business: a deep pool in one city is worth more than a thin pool everywhere.

Step 2: Build the offer before the website

Before you build anything, write down what you sell, what's included, how long it lasts and what it costs. This is where most new matchmakers stall, and it's where the money is decided.

A few rules that have worked for me:

• Keep it to about three tiers. Think economy, business class and first class. More options than that make people freeze.
• Sell longer packages. Six to nine months is the sweet spot. Don't sell one-month packages.
• Add offers underneath the high-ticket package. Not everyone is ready for your top package on the first call. A smaller offer keeps them in your world until they are.
• Don't fear a high price. People in the matchmaking industry sell $30,000 packages. At Filteroff we sold packages of about $2,000 over the phone, and that matchmaking business hit $50K in revenue in a single month.

When I worked with Simone Grossman, she had nine years of matchmaking skill and a $130K job, but no business of her own yet: no site, no funnel, no offers and no sales script. We built the offer and the pricing together first, then added offers underneath her high-ticket package. Everything else was built around that.

Step 3: Don't trust surveys. Launch.

A few years into Filteroff, I emailed potential customers and asked if they'd want matchmaking from us, and at what price. Almost everyone said no. I launched it anyway, with a thoughtful landing page and a video explaining how it worked. People bought like crazy, including the same people who had said no.

Surveys are bad at predicting what people will buy. Put a real offer in front of real people and watch what they do.

Step 4: Build a site that books consultations

Your site has one job: get the right people to book a consultation with you. It doesn't need to be big. It needs:

• a clear headline about who you help and what you do for them
• a short video of you explaining how it works
• testimonials and any logos or press you have, above the fold if you can
• one button that books a consultation, with a few questions first so you know who's coming

Leave your premium prices off the page. Qualify people first and discuss price on the call, where you can explain the value. Our matchmaking landing page started at a 15% conversion rate, and adding logos, testimonials and a video above the fold helped lift it. For a full list of what to put on the page, see Conversion landing page: what it is and what to put on one.

Step 5: Write the sales script and practice it

The consultation is where the business is made. Write a call structure that finds out what the person wants, digs into what hasn't worked so far, explains how you work, and ends by asking for the sale. The line Simone still uses: "Are you opposed to moving forward today?"

Then practice. Simone and I ran mock calls until she could answer objections in her own words. And when she was scared to make a follow-up call, I told her: "If you don't make this call, your business will fail and you'll go back to your 9-to-5." She made the call, shaking while she did it, and got the sale.

Step 6: Get your first clients

Start with the people who already know you: friends, family, past colleagues, and anyone who has ever asked you to set them up. Tell them you've started a matchmaking business, what it costs and who it's for. Many matchmakers also swap singles with other matchmakers to widen their pool.

Referrals and swaps will get you started, but they won't get you much further. Once your offer and script work, add a steady source of new clients: a funnel with a video, webinars, events, press or ads. If you're new to video funnels, What Is a VSL Funnel? A Plain English Guide for Founders explains how one works. And follow up on every channel. Some people answer email, some answer texts and some only pick up the phone. I call it marketing love languages: reach each person where they actually pay attention.

Step 7: Put real systems underneath it

A matchmaking business runs on information: who's in your database, who's a paying client, who you've introduced to whom, and who needs a follow-up. Spreadsheets and Notion work for your first few clients and break after that.

Rina Patel founded MatchMade without prior experience in the industry. When we worked together, we raised her prices, rebuilt the offer, added new offers, and moved her operation off Notion onto real infrastructure. In her words, what she got most was perspective, and it "saved me from second-guessing myself."

What a strong start can look like

Simone did $22K in her first three weeks, a $60K month, and $130K in her first three months. She's now at $160K in about five months, and she has consistently hit $30K months since launching. In her words: "My business did six figures within the first three months."

That didn't come from a big ad budget. It came from a clear offer, a site that booked calls, a script she believed in, and making the follow-up calls she was avoiding.

Mistakes that slow new matchmakers down

• Building the website before the offer. A nice site can't sell a confusing package.
• Pricing too low out of nerves. Before you blame your price, look at your sales calls, your objection handling, your page and your offer.
• Showing every price on the page. It ends conversations before they start.
• Waiting for referrals. They're slow and you can't control the timing.
• Running the business out of spreadsheets for too long. You'll lose track of clients and follow-ups right when you start to grow.
• Not checking your local rules. Some states have consumer rules for dating service contracts, such as cancellation rights. Check yours before you write your contract.