How Does Anketta Work? Manuscript, Match, 48 Hours

How does Anketta actually work?

Anketta matches you on what you write, not on a photo grid or a fixed intake form. You write a free-form manuscript, the app filters candidates on the basics — age, gender, intent, city — then learns what lands with you from the lines you highlight, not from a quiz you fill out once and forget. One-in-ten partnered adults already met their current partner through a dating site or app, one-in-five for people under 30, per Pew Research Center (2023). The format works — the question is which mechanic gets you there.

That's where Anketta breaks from the template. Most dating apps run on a fixed intake schema — height, job, three prompts, six photos — because a schema is easy to sort and fast to swipe through. Anketta has no schema at all: no question count, no length floor, no photo field to fill. The structural bet is that someone writing freely, at whatever length they choose, gives a matching system more to actually go on than anyone can fit into six checkboxes and a selfie. (For the fuller case, see the text-based dating guide.) Here's what that looks like in practice, start to finish.

What do you actually write when you join?

You open a blank manuscript, not a form. There's no question count, no length requirement, no template to fill in — just headings and paragraphs you write yourself, in whatever order you want. A longer, more specific manuscript gives the highlight-based matching more to work with; a thin one just narrows your own results. Every manuscript is checked for authenticity before anyone else can read it.

Concretely, the editor:

1. Starts empty. No onboarding form, no five-prompt bio — you write your own sections in your own order.
2. Has no length target. Nothing forces a minimum, and nothing caps you at a maximum either.
3. Saves as you go. Leave mid-sentence, come back later, and it's exactly where you left it.
4. Gets checked before it's visible. A moderation pass confirms it's a real, genuine manuscript before it enters anyone else's queue.

That's the writing half. But nobody reads a manuscript by accident — the app decides whose queue you land in before a human ever does. If you want to feel how blank the page actually is, open one yourself — it takes less time than reading the rest of this.

Why doesn't Anketta show you a photo before you match?

Because nothing resembling a photo enters the product before that point — not the feed, not the readers tab, no badge, nothing. You're matched entirely on what you write, and neither of you can see the other's face while deciding. That's not because photos don't exist on Anketta — they're optional, capped at three, and what happens to them is its own story, covered further down. Before a match, though, the removal is total: a photo is the fastest first-impression shortcut there is, and Anketta's pre-match structure is built to keep that shortcut out of reach long enough for something else to matter.

A tenth of a second is roughly all a face needs. Willis and Todorov (2006) found that trait judgments — attractiveness, trustworthiness, competence — formed after a 100-millisecond glance at an unfamiliar face correlated highly with judgments made with no time limit at all. More viewing time didn't change the verdict; it just made people more confident in the snap one they'd already reached.

"Judgments made after a 100-ms exposure correlated highly with judgments made in the absence of time constraints." — Janine Willis & Alexander Todorov, Psychological Science (2006)

There's nothing dishonest about that speed — a photo grid is built to move fast, and it does exactly what it's built for. Anketta is built for the opposite bet: keep the photo out of the decision, and the hundred-millisecond verdict has nothing left to run on until there's already a match. What's left to judge someone by, before that point, is only ever the writing.

How does Anketta actually decide who you match with?

Hard filters run first — age range, gender, intent, city — the same basics any app checks. After that, the system learns from behavior, not from a quiz: every phrase you highlight as something you like teaches it to surface more manuscripts with that same thread running through them, and every cross-out steers it away. You show interest by highlighting a line that actually landed, then pressing the heart — there's no swipe gesture on Anketta at all.

A single highlight doesn't move much on its own. It's after you've highlighted a similar phrase twice — or crossed one out three times — that the system stops treating it as a coincidence and starts using it to shape your queue. That behavioral signal is worth more than it sounds like: Zhao, Sidari, Lee, and Zietsch (2025) found little evidence in speed-dating research that what people say they want in a partner predicts what they're actually drawn to once they're in the room. Stated preferences and revealed preferences are, more often than not, two separate lists. Anketta's matching model skips the stated list and works from the second one — what you highlight, not what you'd check on a form.

Two mechanics, side by side:

Neither mechanic is dishonest about what it optimizes for — a grid of photos is built to be fast, and Anketta is built to be slow enough that the fast read never gets a turn. So what happens once two people have actually highlighted and hearted each other?

What happens during the 48-hour window after you match?

A mutual heart creates a match with a 48-hour clock attached, not an open-ended thread. Either person can end it during that window, and both return to browsing. If neither of you ends it before the clock runs out, the match becomes permanent — the app collapses down to just that one conversation, and no new manuscripts appear until it ends.

Warning notifications land at 24 hours and again at 6 hours before the window closes, so it isn't a trap — you know exactly how much runway is left. If it does expire without either of you deciding, the same two people can't match again for 30 days. Going permanent isn't a cage, either: either side can end a permanent match later, and browsing unlocks again the moment they do. For the reasoning behind the 48-hour figure specifically, see the full breakdown of the mechanic.

What happens to photos once you match?

Photos are optional on Anketta — up to three, never required, and skippable during onboarding — but none of them exist on any pre-match surface, so this is the first point in the whole arc where a face can appear at all. Two conditions govern whether it actually does.

• Reciprocity. A photo becomes visible only to a match who has offered one of their own — enforced server-side, not just hidden by the interface. Reciprocity-locked viewers see nothing at all, match or not.
• Community moderation. A freshly uploaded photo shows blurred to your matches until two separate members approve it, or an admin does. A match can flag it instead, which sends it to admin review and blocks the blur from clearing; two separate flags auto-hide it.

Photos never influence who you match with in the first place — that decision was already made on the manuscript. And Anketta never calls a photo "verified": blurred and clear are the only two states one has.

What can the other person see about you — and what stays hidden?

Before you match, your phone number, email, and address are blurred for anyone reading your manuscript — the server never sends the raw text to a non-matched viewer, so there's no inspector trick that reveals it. The moment you both match, the same fields unblur automatically on the next read. None of this is end-to-end encryption; it's server-side filtering, on by default, not a setting you have to find and turn on.

Your manuscript also has its own link. Manuscript sharing turns it into something you can hand someone offline — a QR code on a printed card, a DM, a scan at a meetup — and whoever opens it reads the same writing a match would, with the same blur in place if you're still strangers. The page carries a noindex tag, so it's never searchable; only the people you actually send the link to can find it. If you want the mechanics of the blur itself before you trust it with anything personal, the PII blur feature page walks through exactly what gets hidden and when it lifts.

If privacy is the thing you actually care about most, what makes a dating app privacy-first is worth reading next — blur-by-default is one answer to that question, not the only one.

Quick answers about how Anketta works

Does Anketta have swiping?

No. To show interest you highlight a phrase in someone's manuscript as something you like, then press the heart — there's no swipe gesture anywhere in the product. A match only happens once two people heart each other back.

Are there photos on Anketta?

Not before you match. Uploading is optional, capped at three, and invisible everywhere pre-match — no profile photo, no avatar, no gallery, in the feed or the readers tab. Once a mutual heart creates a match, a photo can appear, but only if you've offered one too, and only after two other members (or a moderator) approve it. Matching itself still runs entirely on the manuscript.

What happens if a match expires without anyone messaging?

It's discarded, and both people return to browsing. The same two people can't match again for 30 days, so an expired match isn't a door that quietly reopens the next day.

Can a permanent match be ended later?

Yes. Either person can end it, and browsing unlocks again immediately after. A permanent match isn't a one-way door — it's a state either side can leave.

Is my phone number or email visible to strangers?

No. Contact details are server-blurred for anyone you haven't matched with, and the raw text is never sent to their browser, so there's no way to inspect it out. It unblurs automatically once you match.

What does it actually cost to start chatting?

Reading is free — you get 3 swipes to start, plus 6 more once you publish your own manuscript. Chat opens up on a paid plan; the cheapest runs four weeks at ₽249. See what those weeks actually get you.

Does Anketta use a secret compatibility score?

No. It's hard filters — age, gender, intent, city — plus a preference model built from what you highlight. There's no hidden multi-factor scoring system quietly ranking who you see.

Can I share my manuscript outside the app?

Yes — every manuscript has its own link and QR code you can hand someone offline. The page isn't indexed by search engines, so only the people you actually send it to can ever find it.

The manuscript that already said it

None of this works because the mechanics are clever. It works because by the time two people match, they've already read each other's actual thinking — not a photo, not a six-line summary, the real thing, written before either of them knew who'd be reading it.