Will this be a Steve Harvey hit, or a flop? We can only hope that matches on Delightful are made with greater accuracy than Mr. Harvey’s style for announcing Miss Universe pageant winners. Here is our delightful.com review.

— Pros and Cons of Delightful.com —

Pros

• Part of the larger Match.com network
• Robust mobile apps for Android and iPhone
• Easy and intuitive registration process
• Access to the Match.com matchmaking algorithms

Cons

• Requires a paid membership to get full functionality
• Little differentiation from other Match.com network sites
• Steve Harvey “tips” on profile building and messaging are generic rehashes of common sense dating

— In Depth Delightful.com Review—

Imagine a popular TV and radio personality launching their own online dating site. Better still, imagine a TV/radio persona, author, producer, and comedian launching his very own dating site. Yes, it may sound like some intense multi-tasking, but that is exactly what happened back in 2014. That’s the year that TV’s very own Steve Harvey “launched” Delightful.com. For Steve Harvey fans out there that might be worried about Steve hunching over a computer terminal crunching code into the wee hours — fret not. Harvey functions more as the chief ambassador and spokesperson for Delightful — not as its technical creator.

Delightful, in terms of operational upkeep and functional design, is maintained by Match.com, one of the largest presences in online dating. The site, however, does implement the vision for dating set forth by Harvey. In other words, Harvey was retained to identify the “problems” that men and women (especially women) face with online dating — and makes an effort to solve them. In Harvey’s own words, Delightful’s goal is to make women “more dateable.”

You might ask yourself, “what is this magic formula?” Well, we asked ourselves the same thing. This is why we conducted this comprehensive Delightful.com review.

— First Impression —

Depending on how you arrive at Delightful for the first time, you may see a generic welcome page, or one with Mr. Harvey’s image predominantly displayed. For those of you who cannot get enough of Mr. Harvey’s broad smile, then we suggest you access Delightful via one of his promotional links for the site.

Regardless of the welcome page variation that you land on, there is very little information offered on these pages. The only action that you can take on them is to initiate the registration process. If you arrived at the site because of Steve Harvey’s endorsement or Match.com’s reputation, you might not need to access further information about the site. After all, you are basing your interest off known entities. However, what if you are new to online dating and Match.com doesn’t mean much to you, or what if — heaven forbid — you don’t know who Steve Harvey is? We always find it disturbing when online dating site welcome pages do not offer transparent information, such as brief explanations of their service. We don’t mind registering on dating sites to learn more about them, but then again — that’s what we do for a living. The majority of you out there would probably like some insight before using your valuable time to register — but we digress, the review continues.

— Delightful.com Registration —

Delightful provides you with two ways to register. If you are already a member of Match.com — or one of its affiliated sites — you can copy your profile information from one of those sites and automatically become a Delightful member. Unfortunately, no instructions are given on how to do this — it is only mentioned that you can.

During our test, we used old fashioned trial and error to learn how. We discovered that you must first be logged into your Match.com account when you visit the Delightful welcome page. This is what triggers the “do you wish to copy your Match.com profile” sequence. If Delightful would only mention this small detail up front, it would save a ton of headaches.

If you do not have an existing Match.com account — or if you do not wish to associate that profile with your new Delightful account — you can also register manually. This is made easy thanks to the intuitive graphical interface used by Delightful. Manual registration is a simple process of answering a few basic questions about yourself and what you are looking for via a series of advancing slides.

During the manual registration process, you are also given the option to upload a profile picture and to enter a 1,250-character text-based description of yourself. Both of these steps can be skipped and done later from the membership section. You can also greatly expand your profile details and the criteria that you have for matches from the “my profile” section of the membership area.

You are also given the option to take a leap of faith and sign-up for a paid membership to Delightful during the registration process. This too is optional, initial registration is free.

— User Experience —

Once you register, you are immediately redirected to the membership area. If you have joined a Match.com associated site in the past, Delightful will look very familiar to you in that it is laid out like all Match.com sites. You will be served with tiled images of other members that are matched to you based on your profile information and prior searches. You will also be served with daily matches under the “matches” section of the navigation bar. These are other members that have been algorithmically matched with you and whom you can approve by clicking “yes,” enabling you to send that member a greeting — or you can click “no” to remove them from your potential matches in the future.

On the right-hand sidebar, you can send winks to other members. Winks allow you to let someone know that you find them interesting without having to fully engage with that member. On this same sidebar, you are also shown those members that are currently online and available for instant chats.

The search function on Delight uses the full power of the Match.com system. That means that all searches, as well as all member profiles that are displayed throughout the site, include not just Delightful.com members, but also all members of the vast Match.com network. This creates a database of potential matches that numbers in the millions. It, however, also makes us ask ourselves, if you are already a registered member on another Match.com site, why even bother to join Delight at all?

The only presence of Steve Harvey is found in the profile building and messaging sections in the form of pop-ups that emerge containing “tips” from Steve Harvey on how to write a profile or message. Most of these tips are generic rehashes of what is common sense for most of you.

— Cost of Delightful.com —

While initial registration is free, Delight requires members to upgrade to a paid subscription model in order to get full use of the site’s features. Free members cannot initiate or respond to messages. Likewise, the search functionality is limited under the free plan. A one-month membership has a cost of $29.99. This can be averaged down to $14.99 per month if you pay for six months in advance.