How Compatibility Works on Fazool

Fazool now shows an alignment percentage on profiles. Answer questions about faith, family, money, and daily life at your own pace, and when you and another person have answered enough of the same ones, a gold number appears on their card.

Let's be clear about what that number is before anything else. It measures how well your stated answers line up. It does not predict a successful marriage, and no algorithm on any app can. What it can do is surface the conversations worth having, faster.

How It Works Step by Step

1. Pick a pack: Questions live in themed packs: deen and practice, family and in-laws, money and work, lifestyle, personality, and more. Start anywhere. A short Foundations set gives you the highest-signal questions first.
2. Answer with one tap: Each question is a single card. Tap your answer and you're done; the next card slides in. If a question deserves more nuance, tap More to also choose which answers you'd accept from a spouse and how much the question matters to you: a little, somewhat, very, or non-negotiable.
3. Both sides count: Your match's percentage isn't how similar you are. It's two-directional: how well their answers satisfy what you're looking for, and how well yours satisfy theirs. Both directions have to be strong for the number to be high.
4. The badge appears at 50% or higher: Once the two of you share enough answered questions and the number clears 50, it shows on their card, on your matches list, and on their profile.

Not Every Question Weighs the Same

You don't need to study a formula to use this, but you should know the shape of it:

• Must-haves weigh the most. These cover things like divorce history, children, relocation, and living with in-laws. If you mark one as non-negotiable and someone's answer isn't one you'd accept, no percentage is shown for that pair at all. A single true dealbreaker outweighs a hundred pleasant agreements, so the math treats it that way.
• Values weigh fully. Questions about faith, family roles, money, and how you want to live carry full weight.
• Personality and fun questions barely register. Whether you're a morning person or love horror movies adds color to a conversation, but it moves the number very little.
• Your deen fields count automatically. Denomination, madhhab, community, and practicing level from your profile are compared without you answering anything, so a well-aligned pair carries some signal from day one.

Why the Number Starts Low

Here's the part most apps hide. When two people have only answered a few questions in common, any percentage computed from them is mostly noise. Instead of showing you that noisy guess, Fazool shows a lower bound: the raw agreement minus a margin of error that shrinks as you share more answered questions.

Take Ayesha and Bilal. Their answers agree extremely well: the raw math says 94%. What Ayesha actually sees depends on how many questions they've both answered:

At 5 shared answers the margin is huge, so the display sits at 44 and the badge stays hidden. At 16, the same agreement shows 78%. At 40, it shows 88%. The displayed number only ever goes up as evidence accumulates, never because we got more optimistic. If two people match perfectly on their deen profile fields alone and nothing else, the display sits in the 30s: real signal, honestly labeled as thin.

So when you see a high number, it means two things at once: your answers genuinely line up, and there's enough shared ground for that agreement to be trustworthy.

What Can't the Score Tell You?

Whether a marriage will work. Character, chemistry, timing, family dynamics, and barakah are not in anyone's dataset. That's why the badge says aligned and never "compatible": aligned is a claim about answers, compatible is a claim about people. Treat a high percentage as a well-founded reason to have a real conversation, and a low one as a prompt to check the comparison and see exactly where you differ. Istikhara, family counsel, and meeting with a chaperone do the rest, as they always have.

Can Anyone See My Answers?

Not before a match. While browsing, other users only ever see the percentage, never your individual answers. Some question packs cover sensitive topics; those never influence the visible percentage at all. After you match, there's an answer comparison screen, and it shows only the questions you both answered, with sensitive ones always excluded. You can also skip any question or choose "prefer not to say", and it's simply never asked again.

Do I Have to Answer Questions?

No. The whole feature is optional. Profiles without answers show no badge and lose nothing: discovery, likes, and matches work exactly the same. Answering just adds information for people who want it. If you do answer, ten focused minutes on the Foundations set does more than an hour of personality trivia, because those questions carry the most weight.

After You Match

Once matched, the percentage becomes practical. Open the comparison from your chat and you'll see your answers side by side: where you agree, where you differ, and what each of you said matters most. Those differences make unusually good first questions. "You said you'd want to live near your parents, how are you picturing that?" is a far better opener than another salaam into the void.

The percentage gets you to the right conversations. What you build from them is up to you.

Related: How dealbreaker disclosures work | Marrying within your madhhab | Finding a practicing Muslim partner