Successful marriages: | ~78% |
Average bride cost: | $9,274 – $29,324 |
Average bride age: | 24-35 y.o. |
🔥Best Russian brides website: | SofiaDate |
👍Best Russian dating site: | BravoDate |
Divorce rate: | ~22% |
Russian mail order brides have always been one of the symbols of the international marriage market. No matter what happens, the demand for Russian brides remains high, so we decided to do deeper research on this phenomenon. Our team collected a lot of statistics, interviewed Russian mail order wives and their husbands, and tested the best sites with Russian ladies, and now, we’re going to share the results in this guide.
Russian Mail Order Brides & Dating Sites in 2024
🔥 Best choice | 🎁 Get free credits |
SofiaDate | |
Best mobile experience | 🎁 Get free credits |
GoldenBride | |
Best reply rate | 🎁 Get free credits |
UkraineBrides4you |
Russian Mail Order Bride Cost: Online & Offline Expenses
Obviously, you cannot just buy a Russian mail order bride—the only way to marry a Russian woman one has met on one of the niche sites is to start an authentic romantic relationship and most importantly, meet her in real life. Online dating services, however, as well as trips to Russia or third countries aren’t free. We estimated all the costs, and though a lot depends on the choices that a particular man makes, below, you can find the average price of meeting, dating, and marrying one of the Russian mail order wives.
Popular Russian Brides Profiles
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Cost of Online Dating Services
There are 8+ thousand online dating sites on the web, and though the number of platforms where a man can meet a Russian lady seeking a relationship with a foreigner is lower, it’s still important to divide them into categories. There are the two largest categories, which are global sites and regional sites with Russian/Slavic/European women only. Regional dating sites, in turn, fall under two subcategories—dating websites that sell premium plans and dating websites where members looking for single Russian women can buy credits. The approximate average costs for using each category of platforms are in the table below.
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$10-50/mo. |
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$0.2-1.5/credit |
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$30-60/mo. |
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Usually, it takes around 2 months for most online daters to find a partner, but men looking for Russian women for marriage or dating should consider that they'll need to spend more time getting closer online. It takes around a year for most men to find a special woman and build an emotional connection before they schedule a date in real life. If a man chooses one of the niche dating sites with credits (these are the most effective websites for those who want to marry Russian ladies), he's likely to spend around $100 per month, $1,200 a year in total.
Also, there are ways to reduce costs. On sites like Tinder, there may be some special offers, and on sites like TheLuckyDate, all new members get complimentary credits to test premium features. Finally, on platforms like UkraineBride4You, newly registered users get discounts and free chat vouchers.
Cost of Meeting a Russian Mail order Bride in Real Life
Men can't mail order Russian brides since, according to the law in most Western countries, a citizen can't marry someone he's never met. Just a year ago, we'd recommended men go to Russia to meet their future wives in person, but today, it's not as safe and cheap. Nonetheless, we'll provide the costs of a 2-week trip to Russia below. Take a look and compare them to the costs of trips to other countries (you can find a lot of other options from the Philippines to Brazil on this website) to make the right choice.
*Prices provided according to BudgetYourTrip.com.
Hence, one trip to Russia will cost a traveler around $2,892, and considering that most men prefer to meet a mail order bride at least twice, the expected cost of trips will be around $5,784. As we've noted previously, the total cost of online dating services for most men is around $1,200, and a groom usually pays for a K-1 visa too, which, with an adjustment status, costs around $2,290.
If a couple decides to celebrate a wedding, too, they can expect to spend $20,000 more. So, the total cost of the meeting, dating, and marrying a Russian woman will be around $9,274 without a wedding ($29,324 with a wedding including the cost of wedding license, around $50 on average).
Stories of Men Who've Married Russian Brides
How to Find a Russian Bride Offline or Online
All the ways to meet foreign brides, including Russian women for marriage and dating, fall under two main categories—offline and online options. However, in the case of Russian women, there are even more aspects to consider to make the right choice, and we explain the most important of them below.
How to Meet Russian Mail Order Brides in Real Life
There was a time when men who'd like to meet Russian girls seeking serious relationships with foreign men could meet them in real life, just by buying a so-called romance tour. Now it's impossible for plenty of reasons—the industry started to slowly fade away since the beginning of the pandemic and now it doesn’t exist in Russia anymore due to the political situation and safety level in Russia. We would not recommend going to Russia to meet Russian brides in real life as it's more dangerous than ever before. Hence, the only relatively good option for those who want to meet Russian singles in real life is to go to one of the third countries with the largest number of ethnic Russians, like Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, or even Germany. Obviously, this option may have both pros and cons.
Note that the services may vary depending on the policy of the company (marriage agency), but in most cases, they are not cheap—the cost of group tours starts from around $3,000 for 7 days.
- Adventurous men who don’t mind living in another country for a rather long period of time
- Men who don’t mind uploading Tinder in a third country to meet Russian brides
- People who have remote jobs and want to see the world
- Those who want to have the best chance of meeting a Russian woman in the near future
- Singles who don’t want to overcome multiple cultural and language barriers to meet a Russian lady
- Men who don’t want to spend too much on just a chance to find a Russian mail order wife
How to Meet Russian Mail Order Brides Online
For most men who'd like to meet a Russian bride, online dating remains nearly the only good option. However, from our own experience, we know that not all mail order bride sites are worth using. It's crucially important to distinguish high-quality mail order bride services from low-quality or even scam sites and to use them effectively, so we developed a certain algorithm that allows us to do it pretty quickly. Below, you can see some of the most important points our strategy is based on.
❗️The more options the better. There are a lot of Russian bride sites in the market, and one of the most common mistakes of men looking for a Russian wife is just to choose the first random website claiming to help them find a "legit Russian girl". We recommend finding at least 5 dating sites that meet the basic criteria and can connect men with Russian mail order brides, do a background check and then move on to deeper analysis. It's crucially important to analyze the quality of profiles, features, and pricing policy before you pay for the dating service.
❗️The pricing policy must be transparent. Speaking of pricing policies, most websites that can connect men with single Russian girls usually use credit systems. Dating Russian women online can be more or less expensive, but there must be no hidden costs. Otherwise, it's just a scam or a low-quality website. Even such sites usually provide information on the prices, they just use fine print, so everyone who's going to find a Russian bride should analyze the price list carefully and read the Terms & Conditions.
❗️Not all communication features work equally well. On good niche websites, like TheLuckyDate, SofiaDate or LoveForHeart, where men can meet Russian mail order brides, there are many different communication tools, from live chat to video chat and phone calls. The costs are different, so we recommend you test all the features and choose and use only the services that work for you personally and aren't too expensive.
❗️Search filters and matchmaking algorithms are very helpful on mail order bride sites. There's another mistake that a man looking for a Russian lady on a niche platform can make. There will be a lot of attractive Russian women, but contacting random Russian females hoping that one of them will turn out to be the one is expensive and takes too much time. Focusing on bios more than on photos and using special tools allows one to find a good match and spend much less on online dating services.
- Men who are 100% motivated to find a Russian bride and marry her
- Singles who’d like to reduce “Russian brides’ cost” and pay less for online dating
- Those who want to find a Russian mail order wife within the shortest time possible
- Men looking for completely free mail order bride sites
- Singles who aren’t sure if they can build an emotional connection with a Russian girl without meeting her
Read also: Find Filipino Mail Order Brides—Best Sites & Average Costs
Russian Bride Statistics: Important Figures to Consider
There are many myths about Russian mail order wives, but the figures can help everyone who's ever considered the idea of finding a wife from this country understand who a typical Russian wife really is.
- In 2019, there were 815 Russian brides who applied for K-1 visas to the US. In 2020, there were only 277 marriage immigrants from Russia, but such a decrease can be explained by the COVID restrictions. In 2021, the number of Russian marriage immigrants was 246, which proves that these girls are popular at all times.
- The average age of a Russian mail order bride looking for a husband overseas is 22-23 years old.
- The average age of Russian brides who marry local men in Russia is 24.9 years old.
- In 2019, the fertility rate in Russia was 1.5 per household.
- The age difference between a Russian bride and a foreign husband ranges from 2 to 9 years.
- Over 80% of marriages with Russian women are successful.
So, typical Russian brides are young women who are usually motivated to start families and don't mind if their husbands will be older. Unlike women in some other countries and regions, for example, in Latin America, Russian females usually don't expect families to be very large. Also, most of them succeed and build healthy families with foreign husbands.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Getting a Russian Mail Order Bride
- One of the largest numbers of single brides in Europe
- Women get married at a pretty early age
- Some of the strongest motivations to start a family compared to other countries
- Natural attractiveness and strict beauty standards in the country
- Desire to immigrate and the ability to assimilate into a new society & culture easily
- Political & economic difficulties, higher costs of trips
- Many scam websites with fake mail order brides
Our Experts' Opinions
Russian Mail Order Bride Scam
In 2021, consumers all over the world lost over 500 million dollars to romance scams, which is around 200 million more than the previous year. However, though the scam schemes, including the schemes with fake Russian brides, still work, if a user knows them, they have a good chance to save their time and money.
Final Thoughts
Russian mail order brides are more westernized than most people think in terms of education and self-development, but they are still more conservative than Western ladies, especially when it comes to family values and gender roles. If that's what a man is looking for, he has a good chance to start a happy family with one of the Russian women, but if he's looking for more passion and emotions or, by contrast, for more modesty and calmness, maybe, he should look for a perfect match in Latin America or Asian countries, respectively.