Comparison · updated 30 October 2026
Rishta, compared with the big matrimonial sites, for Indian families in Australia and New Zealand
The big matrimonial sites were built for India, and the largest of them is the biggest matrimonial platform in the world. This page is about what it is like to use that site from Melbourne or Auckland, which is a different question from using it in India, and what we built differently because of it.
We do not name the other sites here. Everything below about the largest of them is either its published product design or what our founder observed on a paid plan over six months in 2026 (Sikh, ages 22–27, Australia, New Zealand and Punjab). Products change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
What a search on the largest site returns from here
Its search prints a live count beside every filter value, so there is no need to guess. On 19 September 2026, logged in on a paid plan, our founder ran one ordinary search, a Sikh woman, Punjabi or English speaking, never married, aged 18 to 26, and read the numbers off the site’s own filter rail:
Country living in
- India
- 2,000+
- Australia
- 51
- New Zealand
- 8
State living in
- Punjab
- 2,000+
- Chandigarh
- 92
- Victoria
- 48
- Auckland
- 8
Country grew up in
- India
- 2,000+
- Australia
- 14
- New Zealand
- 4
- Canada
- 4
- USA
- 2
Eight women in all of New Zealand, four of whom grew up here. Fifty-one in Australia, fourteen of whom grew up there. The site is not hiding them; they are not on it. For a Sikh family in Auckland or Melbourne that is the whole comparison, and everything else on this page follows from it. The counts are for one search on one day and will have moved since; run your own and you will see the rail.
| The largest site, as we found it | Rishta | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | India first, with a page generated for each country of the diaspora | Australia and New Zealand only |
| Does it cost anything? | A free profile; in our experience free members could not read messages or see contact details without paying | Free until 31 December 2026 for everyone who joins now, with nothing held back; then the same price for women and men |
| Photos | Visible to every member by default; a privacy setting exists | Hidden by default; each man sees them only after she approves him |
| Who can browse | Any member can search any other | Women choose: all approved men, only men who match their preferences, or nobody but their matchmaker |
| Verification | Phone and email; an ID badge is optional | Every profile is ID-checked (document and live selfie) before anyone can see it, and our quality team reviews each new one |
| Interests | One pre-written line, sendable in bulk, unlimited for paid members | No cap, but every one carries a personal message, so bulk-sending is impossible |
| Contact details | Shown to paying members after acceptance, with a monthly quota | Never displayed on any profile at any tier; shared only by her, in a conversation, if she chooses |
| Human matchmaker | A paid assisted service, sold separately, with its own sales calls | Also a paid service, for women and men alike, and we never phone to sell it: Icebreaker $29, Personal Matchmaker $1,199 for 3 months |
| Men per woman (our test) | About 10 : 1 for Sikh profiles aged 22–27 in Australia, New Zealand and Punjab, six months in 2026 | We are new; we will publish real numbers once there are enough members to count |
| Price | Various plans, typically from around A$40–A$70 a month depending on duration | $39/month for Search, or $99 for 3 months paid once; $1,199 for 3 months for Personal Matchmaker |
The number that matters
The census says Australia’s Sikh community is close to evenly split between men and women. On the big platforms, our founder’s account saw roughly ten men for every woman in the segment he searched, and a control account set up as a woman received inbound interest from around the world within days. That gap is not demographic. It is women who exist, are looking, and have decided those platforms are not for them.
Every design decision on Rishta comes back to that: free until 31 December 2026 for everyone who joins now, with nothing withheld, photos hidden until she says yes, every interest a personal message, contact details never on the page, and a matchmaker who is never from her own city. If that brings the ratio anywhere near what the census says it should be, a reply here means something, which is the only thing men are actually paying for.
The smaller sites run from this side of the world
A couple of services are run from Australia and serve New Zealand because it is next door. When our founder looked in September 2026, the Punjabi one showed 31 women in Australia and 7 in New Zealand for a comparable search; it checked members by text message and an admin’s say-so rather than an ID document, charged women as well as men, and listed everyone who had just joined on a public page. A more relevant pool than the India-based sites, and a much smaller one, with the gallery problem intact.
For someone in New Zealand
Search for any of the big sites with “nz” after the name and every result is a page they generated for New Zealand, down to pages for communities that barely exist here. Behind them is the database above. Rishta’s New Zealand site, rishta.co.nz, is the same site as the Australian one with New Zealand first: the people on it are in New Zealand and Australia, or are overseas members who chose to be seen here, whom you can include or leave out. The pages for Indian, Sikh and Punjabi matrimony in New Zealand say what that looks like from here, and the guide to matrimonial sites in New Zealand covers the rest of the field.
What we are not claiming
We do not publish member counts, because a new site’s counts would be small and because we have watched what “35 million members” does to people’s expectations. We do not claim to be bigger, older or better known. We claim that everyone here has passed an ID check and been reviewed by a person, that nobody’s photo or phone number is on display, and that a woman who joins decides who sees her. Those are things you can check on your first day.
What we are
New, small, and only for Australia and New Zealand. A large pool is not what we are offering; a pool where every person is real, lives here or has chosen to be seen here, and decided for themselves who can see them is. If that is what you were looking for and could not find on the big sites, this is the other way.
Try the other way.
Join now and it’s free until 31 December 2026. After that, Search is $39 a month or $99 for 3 months, the same for women and men.