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Here’s why structured per-date compensation makes sense:
The Core Problem with Current Norms
Right now, most shadchanim only get meaningfully compensated when a couple gets engaged. That means:Dozens of hours of work can go completely unrewarded
The risk falls entirely on the shadchan
People who could make good introductions don’t bother because the odds of seeing any return are lowWhy Per-Date Pay Makes Sense
A first date is a real accomplishment. Researching both sides, convincing two families, coordinating schedules, and making a viable suggestion is genuine skilled labor – regardless of outcome.
Compatibility is hard to assess from the outside. The fact that two people even agreed to meet and followed through is a win that deserves recognition.
It separates effort from outcome. A shadchan shouldn’t be penalized because one person had cold feet on date three, even though the research and suggestion were excellent.
It values the process, not just the result. Marriage is the goal, but the path to marriage is built date by date.a Tiered Structure is Smart
Date Suggested Minimum (each side)1st$50.00, 2nd$75.00, 3rd+Escalating (e.g. $100, $125…)
The escalating scale reflects that deeper dates require more shadchan involvement – follow-up calls, coaching, managing concerns from both sides.
The Incentive Effect You’re Describing is Real
People who casually think “Hmm, these two might be good together” currently have almost no reason to act on that instinct. A modest guaranteed payment per date changes the calculus entirely. It could unlock a whole informal layer of community matchmaking from people who know both sides well but aren’t professional shadchanim.
The Bottom Line
Shadchanus is a service, not a lottery ticket. Paying per date treats it that way – and would likely bring more people into the parshah faster.Absolutely categorically NO
“even tho the Research was excellent” Research is not reality lol. Nobody will ever know if they are compatible until they meet. Maybe there shouldn’t be such gatekeeping and there would be no need for so much “checking” and so much “work”
It’s so fabricated my goodnessWhile I hear your point and it’s a good idea. On paper, this is like mamdani, people will actually just stop using the shadchan as fast as they are currently moving out of New York.
While we are at it lets pay all brokerage professionals the same way
Imagine paying RE Brokers per showing
We do pay for reasonably good matches. And many shadchanim expect or hint to that. some object though if the amount is too high.
If someone professional does something for you, it is simple sevorah that you should compensate them.Obviously, you need to look at the effort – when someone simply matches by height and ratio of hat diameter to skirt length – he is not deserving much of compensation.
And Sephardim do not charge for the mitzvah at all. (like with rabanut, you should be able to charge for the missed professional time).
This is quite amusing. It is actually intriguing. I mused about this for a bit, and just imagined a conspiracy to prolong dating to milk the system. Shadchanim would abandon Chassidishe shidduchim, as fewer dates would hurt their bottom line, and go with Litvish/Yeshivish ones where extended dating is more acceptable. Perhaps there could be surcharges for disclosing information held secret. If we get creative, we could come up with a huge scenario of entertaining ideas. If this thread would take this direction, it would provide some good humor.
If a Real Estate Agent shows you a house,
and you do not buy the house,
do you pay the Real Estate Agent?No, you only pay the Real Estate Agent if you buy the house.
Shadchanim are like Real Estate Agents;
they should only be paid if they make a wedding.Many of us struggle financially,
so we do not need is a new system
where shadchanim get paid for every date.Rabbi Chananya Weissman suggested that
shadchanim should pay Jewish singles
$20 per date, to avoid wasting their time
on inappropriate random dates.As someone who has tried to set up a number of people, I don’t think this is a good idea. It is hard enough to get people to even go out on a first date (and to try a 2nd date, if possible). If they had to pay per date, I believe people would be less likely to actually agree to a date.
If you look at the statistics on the 10kbatayyisroel site right now:
34,235 SHIDDUCH SUGGESTIONS
3,820 FIRST DATES — 11.1% of shidduch suggestions led to a first date — that means of every 100 suggestions, almost 90 don’t even get to a first date
331 ENGAGEMENTS — 8.6% of first dates led to an engagement, 0.97% of shidduch suggestions (less than 1%)Nonsense. I’d gladly pay for my daughter who is in shidduchim for 3 – 4 years to go out on a date. And I assure you that hundreds if not thousands of other parents with older daughters would gladly do the same
@square root
Your logic is so farkrumpt, its scary. If you can’t afford to pay a shadchan $100 per date to marry off your dearest child, how do you expect to make a wedding which cost $30k – $60 k????????
@wackyway
In my experience, most times girls are more likely than boys to say no when it comes to deciding whether to go out or try a 2nd date…
BTW, what type of boy is your daughter looking for? What age range? Location?“Chananya Weissman suggested that shadchanim should pay Jewish singles$20 per date, to avoid wasting their time on inappropriate random date”
Getting dating advice from an alter bucher Chananya Weissman is like getting advice of fire suppression from arsonist or like getting defensive driving advice from someone who was never behind a wheel, or for that matter advice on how to be a good zoinist from neturai karta.
If parents want to incentivize shadchanim by offering payment for dates, they are free to do so without an official system. Likewise, if a shadchan chooses to make it his official policy to be compensated for setting up dates, he is free to do so as well. It’ll either work for him or not.
It’s not going to happen as a system. The halachos of shachanus gelt are the same as a broker – you get paid for success, not for effort. Anyone who wants to do otherwise can try their mazel.The first problem with that is, shadchonim won’t be as particular with the information because there’s a paycheck for every date. logic 101. Second, after spending 2k on first dates, people will stop paying. It’s solving a problem with another.
I know many people who pay shadchonim who are on their case once every 3 or 4 months, no matter if that shadchen will find them the final one. This is basic common sense. You must give the shadchin a feeling of gratitude and obligation. Something has to motivate them in your direction. I thought this was common but apparently it’s not. If people would use common sense it’ll save them from agony.Maybe that might be a good thing. To stop being so particular about information. Information doesn’t get to the heart of compatibility, meeting does maybe we should skip over the checking situation just a smidge maybe people will get more dates and more opportunity towards their ultimate goal.
That’s a whole new topic.
It’s a topic nobody seems to think is important….the blind leading the blind “this is what we do”
Just a pathetic excuse at misery and controlIt’s not an excuse, everything has a reason. You could start a topic of changing the entire dating system, but i think you’ll get a lot of backlash. As for you point, the reason there are guidelines in the dating system is for obvious reasons. The only way to test true compatibility is usually either to live with the other party, or to date them for months. Lot’s of boundaries could be broken in the process. It’s too risky.
Of course Ill get a lot of backlash people don’t like change. But the system is very degrading and people don’t see how much we are causing our own misery by trying to control every aspect of life.
When we have a little more faith there will also be more opportunity.
It’s the blind leading the blindOr you can actually meet them instead of degrading everybody and treating them like they have to conform to impossible standards before we allow them to meet each other.
It’s not too risky to have a little more faith in people. If most people in the system had a bais yaakov upbringing why the extreme scrutiny?
“First we need to check everything to make sure it’s perfect till we let them meet” that’s a coallasal lack of faith in God who places the opportunities in your life, and in the people who are involved. And also a collasal lack of faith in the education system lol. Why educate anybody in the system if you can’t trust the system already.
we can have a little more trust in our singles who went through the system already.
Compataility is when you meet. It doesn’t take long to assess all that. And no it doesn’t take “months”.
The only thing control does, is give us less opportunity in the guise of control (humans are not good at assessing things because we don’t know the plans hashem has for us all the time)
I think people should trust themselves more and trust the people involved. The more information you get the more control you feel you have but it’s an illusion of control. Until you meet the person you can’t actually know who they are trulyAnd also in the name of “selfish ideals” of “I need to check to make sure 100 percent” how much humanity are we losing in the process. Maybe ask people, I’ve never heard someone who said “ye its such a good system”
I’ve heard people say “I have extreme PTSD” “it’s so humiliating”
If that’s the byproduct of our actions, shame, then how is that righteous, it’s self serving. And I don’t think good things come out of that
Yes there are plenty of people that get married despite the system but how many people are hurt and dehumNizing along the way.
I don’t think, doing bad things for a “good” cause leads to good things. I think it leads to a collasal lack of faith in people and in hashem and a collasal lack of opportunity that could be mitigated if we do the right thing despite the “norms”Hmmm. You have a point there, but again, your method of changing the system is by telling people to have more faith. You need a better way to impliment it.
Yes telling people to have more faith will translate into action. Hello. And I mean have more faith in people, have more faith in the process. Stop making everything up to how much you control the situation. This leads to abject cruelty and dehumnizition of others for political, selfish gains. It’s wrong full stop. Where else in life is it ok to dehumanize people for personal gain. I think we think oh its ok now cuz I’m getting my own ends. It’s still not ok
Also doing bad things in the name of good causes comes with alot of suffering. We reap what we sow and it translates to a lot of internal suffering, missed opportunities etc etc.
The system is as difficult as we have made it. We, chose this. By lack of faith. And by lack of humanity. Sorryok. so you wanna make a massive campaign telling people to have more faith. It doesn’t seem to be realistic. Listen to yourself. You have ideas that are true with no way of practically implementing them.
Every community “askan” or “shtadlan” will have the agenda or angles that they focus on, those of us who deal with multiple of them on regular basis will see how they often are unintentionally undermining each other’s goals.
This is a perfect example, one person wants to focus on keeping shadchanim motivated, so he is pushing a pay as you go shadchanus while the next person is working on simcha affordability and would be horrified at the numbers for the average couple’s aggregate Shadchan fees (eg. if the average bochur dates seven girls for a total of thirty dates with the progressive system of paying more for second, third, etc dates, and the average girl dates five boys for a total of 24 dates on this system, by the time of the engagement the two sides will have spent upwards of ten grand on Shadchanim as opposed to the current $3,000-5,000 norm. These numbers are not solid statistics, but my own observations), towards the overall simcha affordability issues.And this solution is only going to serve to exacerbate issues where shadchanim choose to focus on wealthy families.
Personally, I’m happy to redt a Shidduch when I see something that makes sense to me, but if you gave me $100 for standing a first date, I would be offended. I bill $175-250/hour for my time depending on the nature of the work, and the minimum time that goes into setting up a first date is two or three hours (usually more), so either follow the regular system, or pay me by the hour. Don’t patronize me with $100.
I’m not saying it’s an entirely bad idea, or that there is no place to implement something like this, just that for all of its merits there are many aspects that are left unaddressed.
Reb Yudel,
I was very disappointed to read your post. As a Shadchan you should have been transparent that you stand to gain significantly if this system is ח״ו implemented.
As a survivor of Shadchan abuse I’m going to begin with this disclaimer that I’m very biased against Shadchanim and think that this idea is akin to putting out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
It was a Wednesday night, and after three months of a non-stop harassment campaign against me (including while I was going out with other people), I finally broke down and agreed to go out with her. The final blow that ultimately made me crack was when the shadchan got my friends to join the campaign. They begged and pleaded with me to just go out with her so the shadchan would leave them alone.
This girl lived around 600 miles from where I was in Yeshiva at the time and I immediately began making plans to fly out there the next weekend.
Within an hour or so the shadchan called back informing me that she already booked non-refundable tickets to a location slightly more than halfway to me. This was still around 250 miles away and in a city that I wasn’t familiar with.I told the Shadchan that I couldn’t do it since I needed to rent / borrow a car, find a place to stay, look for places to go as well as having a big report due in college and my good friends Aufruf this coming Shabbos.
The Shadchan shut me down, she wouldn’t hear of any of that. “If she’s the one traveling she gets to decide when and where you’re going to go out”. At that point I had no energy left to fight and gave in. I’m not sure when in the process the Shadchan mentioned that since she was traveling in it’s an automatic commitment to two dates- but whatever.
Anyway- after the dates she thankfully said no (confirming what I was saying for three months- that we’re not for each other) so I didn’t need to come back to a new harassment campaign bringing in my family, Rabbeim and friends pressuring me to give her another chance and criticizing me for saying “no” for trivial reasons.
The return trip was a changing point for me. During the drive I made a decision and I stuck to it. When I got back I made a pact with my friends that we would NEVER take another suggestion from a “professional” Shadchan, no matter what. I’d politely tell them that I no longer take names from them and hang up- before they had a chance to open their mouth and try to get a word in.
Finally it was over, I was able to breathe better, the air was cleaner and I felt an overall sense of relief. I was a free person, no more being burdened by the yolk of vicious Shadchanim and their cruel shenanigans.Guess what- after a short cooling off period their calls became less and less. I was able to pursue names that came in from family, neighbors and friends- people who meant well and weren’t aggressive. People who actually cared about me and wanted to help me.
The next person I went out with (suggested by a neighbor) was the one I ended up marrying. Thank you השם!
When I get asked for shidduch advice the first thing I tell people is to not deal with “professional” Shadchanim and focus on getting people within their circles to introduce them to others that they know.
Reb Yudel-
That weekend cost me a lot. A few hundred Dollars in traveling and dating expenses, missing out on a good friend’s Aufruf and I ended up submitting a partially finished report and it brought my grade down in the class from an A to a B.
Are you insinuating that the Shadchan should have the chutzpah to demand 50 + 75 from both sides?????
Ashregg faith is something you need to implement by being a decent person. Hello.
Choices have consenquences so telling people what they need to hear will allow for introspection
You want to continue the status qoa and then the compounded inherint reactions of those actions?
We are suffering, internally externally, and not for nought
If I act cruelty and justify myself mostly because nobody holds a mirror to my actions I’ll never see what I’m doing or never correct what can easily be corrected
It’s not that hard to respect others.
If I am asked to degrade something to fulfill an agenda I have, it’s not that easy to look inward and make a different decision.
Yes it requires faith. Faith in a higher plan, aren’t we talking about this everyday believing in God? What does that mean. It means having faith in his plan not my plan.
That means when I try to change reality by being cruel and filling my horrid selfish self serving cruel needs, I instead act in a way that is correct and leave the rest to God
Who will take care and fill the gaps where my need for control tried to fill by being cruel.
Faith requires us to do the right the thing and then letting the componanst that God decides to pull together to pull together.
Doing the right thing, takes faith because everything else is an illusion of control.
But cruelty doesn’t serve us. It only harms us….and compounds interest.
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