How Much Does a Mail Order Bride Cost: Complete Guide

Ann Young
10 min readMar 26, 2024

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Mail Order Bride Cost

There are a lot of myths around the mail order bride pricing. Some people still assume that a man can literally choose a bride among single women from a catalog and pay a fixed price. Of course, that’s not true. Some say that it’s now entirely free, which is partially true. Some note that a mail order bride will cost you tens of thousands of dollars, which, again, is partially true.

So, how much is a mail order spouse? How can a man who only considers the idea of finding a foreign girlfriend estimate an average mail order wife price? You’ll find all the answers and calculations in this in-depth guide on mail order bride pricing.

  • Average cost of online dating services to find a wife — $100 a month
  • Average cost of mail order bride — $7,000
  • Mail order bride price range — $5,000-$30,000+
  • What bride pricing includes — Online dating services, trips to a bride’s country, cost of visa
  • Cheapest countries to find a bride — Vietnam, Costa Rica, Ukraine
  • Most expensive countries to find a bride — Japan, Brazil, South Korea

Best mail order bride & dating sites

How much is a mail order bride?

How much is a mail order bride

Let’s start with some basic estimations that will help you understand some of the main rules of mail order brides pricing:

  • Online dating services. If you want to meet a foreign bride without leaving the country, you’ll need to join a good niche website, and usually, they aren’t free, or at least entirely free. Most men spend around $100 a month on such platforms, and the total amount spent on online dating services is usually $1,000-$1,500.
  • Trips to a bride’s country. How much does it cost to mail order a bride? The answer will largely depend on where your foreign girlfriend is from, the frequency of your dates, and how you spend your money on such vacations. The minimum costs of two 2-week trips to most countries range from $3,000 to $7,000.
  • Visa. The cost will depend on the country and sometimes on the type of visa, but for Americans who meet foreign brides and want to marry them in the US, it’s typically $1,200.
  • Dates and gifts (partially optional). In this case, everything depends on the person and his personal choices. The amount can vary from $100-$300 to thousands of dollars.
  • Wedding (optional). This is also one of the optional expenditures. As for the cost, it can vary from $50 for a wedding license to $50,000 and more for a big wedding ceremony.

As you can see, the mail bride cost depends on multiple factors. If you want to make calculations and estimate the mail order brides price for yourself, keep reading — we provide more information on what exactly affects the total cost below.

What does the mail order bride price include? Major expenditures explained

How much does a wife cost? Or more importantly, how much will it cost to find her, and what exactly will you spend your money on? We answer these and some other questions below.

💻 Mail order bride cost: The price men pay online

As we’ve noted previously, mail order brides prices largely depend on the cost of online dating services. Let’s take a closer look at how things actually work in the international dating market.

Cost of communication

First of all, consider that there are two types of websites where you’ll have the best chance of finding a mail order bride:

  • Niche dating sites with premium plans. On such platforms, members pay a fixed price for a premium plan that usually includes a set of specific premium features.
  • Niche dating sites & mail order bride sites with paid credits. On such websites, members can buy credits and spend them the way they want on special services like chatting, calls, etc.

The truth is, most websites with mail order brides and foreign women for dating and marriage fall under the second category. So, how much does a wife cost for someone who chooses such a platform? It depends on how a man spends credits on the paid features, which are as follows:

  • Live chat
  • Video chat
  • Phone calls
  • Sending files

There may be extra paid services like paid search filters or advanced matching, but on most trusted sites, members pay only for communication.

So, the total amount will depend not only on the pricing policy of the site but also on the frequency of communication, tools you are using, the number of women you contact, etc. That’s why it’s so important to develop a good dating strategy considering the pricing policy of the specific website.

Optional expenses: gifts & compliments

Some men say that a mail order bride costs a lot as women constantly ask for gifts and you have to send them. That’s actually a scam if it’s common on the site, and if a particular woman is constantly asking you for virtual or real gifts, it’s a good reason to block her or at least stop communicating.

Giving gifts and sending virtual compliments is entirely optional. In our opinion, it makes sense only if you’ve already met someone special on the site. The thing is, items in such stores are more expensive (they include the cost of delivery services, though), so sending bouquets to every attractive woman will just cost too much. So, a man can spend $0 or $1,000 on such compliments, and in this case, it totally depends on you.

✈️ Mail order bride cost: The price men pay in real life

Contrary to popular belief, getting a mail order wife isn’t just about meeting someone online and marrying this person. Your future spouse will need a K-1 visa, and she won’t get it without proving you’ve met in real life within the previous two years. So, you’ll need to pay for the trips, and here’s what affects the price.

Trips to a bride’s country

Of course, the main thing that affects the mail order brides cost is the country itself. There are more affordable countries like Vietnam and less affordable countries like South Korea. How to learn how much will a mail order wife cost in a particular country? Just estimate the amounts that you’ll spend on the following things:

  • Hotel
  • Food
  • Entertainment
  • Local transportation
  • Flights

Also, consider the duration and number of trips. If you want to cut costs, for example, you can visit a bride twice and stay in the country two times. Again, the total mail order wife cost will depend on your travel style, too.

Visa

How much are mail order wives? The cost of a visa affects the total price, too. For Americans whose brides apply for K-1 visas, it will cost around $1,200.

❗ Note: this is the cost of a visa alone, and after a woman enters the country and gets married (by the way, you have to do it within 90 days after the arrival), she’ll need to apply for adjustment status, and that will cost $1,200 more.

Just in the case of online gifts, giving real ones offline is also optional, and the total cost will depend on the person. As for the wedding, it’s optional, too. You can spend just $50 (that’s the average cost of a wedding license in different states) or $30,000 on average on the wedding in the US and even more on the wedding, for example, in Italy.

Things that affect the mail order brides cost: How to save money?

How to get a “cheap mail order bride”? Considering that there’s no such thing as a fixed mail order bride cost and that a lot depends on personal choices that a man makes, one needs to follow certain rules to spend less on dating services and trips:

  1. Choose a site with transparent pricing and features that you can afford to use
  2. Focus on the best matches instead of contacting random women
  3. Watch your credits and use only the best communication tools that work perfectly for you
  4. Choose the right time for flights — ensure the tickets are cheap enough now
  5. Send gifts not so often and only to the right person

Generally speaking, try to make more conscious choices and develop a strategy without letting emotions impact all your decisions.

mail order bride

Mail order bride price for different countries

As we’ve noted previously, the average cost of mail order brides largely depends on location. Let’s take a look at some estimations for three top regions — Slavic, Latin, and Asian countries.

Of course, these are generalizations as prices in Vietnam can hardly be compared to the costs in South Korea, but these figures will still help you understand what to expect.

Slavic

  • Flight (round trip) — $900
  • Average cost of staying in the country for 2 weeks — $1,200
  • Total — $2,100

Latin

  • Flight (round trip) — $700
  • Average cost of staying in the country for 2 weeks — $1,500
  • Total — $2,200

Asian

  • Flight (round trip) — $1,100
  • Average cost of staying in the country for 2 weeks — $1,600
  • Total — $2,700

Prices on the best international dating sites

Mail order bride price

Let’s focus on online dating expenses. How much you’re going to spend on a specific platform, and what will you get for the money? Let’s take a look at the examples of a few best niche websites:

Is a paid dating site worth it?

It depends on what kind of experience you are expecting to have. If you are 100% ready to settle down and start a family and know for sure that you want to find a future wife abroad, ideally in a specific country, yes, it’s worth it for the following reasons:

  • You get access to the right dating pool
  • All women on such websites are intentionally looking for foreign boyfriends and husbands
  • All women on such sites are ready to immigrate
  • You’ll be able to use the features that really help build a deep emotional connection with someone online

If you want to find the “cheapest mail order bride,” you have a chance to find a foreign girlfriend on free mainstream dating apps, too, but you should consider that it will take much more time and your success will depend on luck rather than on something else.

meet a bride

Online dating vs. Traditional dating: What’s more expensive?

How much is mail order bride compared to traditional offline dating? At first sight, it may seem that in the best-case scenario, a man will spend much less on dating someone from his city than he will spend on dating sites.

However, there are facts that prove the opposite. In particular, Americans spend around $186 on average on a month of dating, while on the mail order bride prices on dating sites are much lower for men with good online dating strategies. In particular, most men spend around $100 on such platforms.

Conclusion

So, how much does it cost to buy a wife? There’s no answer to this question just because, in reality, a man can’t buy a bride. If so, what is the average cost of a mail order bride or the average cost of getting a wife, to be exact? The truth is, it depends on a person and the decision they make to get mail order bride.

I know for sure that there are multiple ways to cut costs, and in most cases, they are directly related to your self-control. If you don’t contact random women on dating sites, don’t spend thousands of dollars on virtual gifts for hot girls, and choose the right person based on certain criteria to meet her in person, the sooner, the better, you’ll be able not only to cut the mail order wife cost but also to meet the right person in the near future.

FAQ

  1. Can I get a mail order bride for free?

There’s no such thing as a fixed cost of mail order brides, so technically, you can find a wife for free. However, in reality, a man still needs to cover certain expenses, in particular, pay for online dating services and trips to meet his foreign girlfriend in real life. Also, in most cases, a man also pays for a visa for a bride.

2. Which country is the cheapest to get a bride?

“Cheap mail order brides” are women from countries with affordable prices. If you spend less on trips, the total cost will also be lower. Some of the cheapest countries to visit with the US dollar are Vietnam, Costa Rica, and Thailand.

3. What is the average cost of mail order brides?

It’s hard to say what’s the average cost as mail order brides pricing depends on multiple factors, and the range of costs is more than just wide. If you haven’t chosen the country and developed the strategy yet, you can expect to spend around $7,000 if you choose a mid-range country and a mid-range dating site.

This article can contain sponsored content. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and exercise their own judgment before making any decisions based on the information provided in this article.

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