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Q: I’m 69 and have been divorced for 30 years — a few boyfriends here and there, but my last relationship was over a decade ago. I recently moved to support my family. While I’m loving the grands and being close to my daughter, I’m lonely.

I’ve tried dating apps, but I’m not interested in the people who reach out to me, and I feel bad telling them that. And the ones I reach out to don’t respond.

I recently made an inquiry with a dating service that would select matches for me and make all the arrangements. It’s very expensive: $6,000-plus. The well-experienced dating coach said it’s worth it to land a secure, top-rate man. She also told me since I’m almost out of my 60s, I’d better hurry up because I’m not getting any younger, and she doesn’t have many men in their 70s and older who are dating.

The sum is doable for me financially but such a gamble. Do you think it’s worth it?

A: Finding love … sigh. It might seem logical that the amount of money we spend will correlate with success. But in talking with older daters all over the country who’ve shelled out various sums for a variety of ways to find potential partners, and with mixed results, one thing seems certain: We don’t necessarily get what we pay for.

Like you, a lot of us have turned to the apps. While some are completely free — here’s looking at you, Facebook Dating — others require users to pay for additional features. On Match, for example, you pay more for unlimited messaging and boosts to increase your profile’s visibility.

The main difference between a dating app and a service like the one you’ve described is that basically, you’re hiring someone to do all the scrolling, reaching out and vetting you’d otherwise do on your own.

But there’s another key difference: The services usually turn to their existing pool of clients to make love connections. Dating apps typically offer a more robust pool of potential partners. Dating services claim to offer quality over quantity.

I can relate to “app fatigue” on the one hand and the desire for romantic companionship on the other. But I’m turned off by your prospective dating coach’s doom-and-gloom attitude about finding love after a certain age. Even if I had $6,000 to gamble —  because that’s what it is, a gamble — I’d probably look to invest in a service with a more positive outlook.

Before committing to spending a significant sum on any dating service, I’d want answers to the following questions, preferably in writing:

• How large is the service’s existing pool of daters in my specified parameters, including geographic location, age and education level?

• How many dates is the service promising to deliver, and in what time frame?

• What information is shared by the service before the actual date? (Will we each know what the other looks like, for example, or how we fit each other’s desired qualities?)

• Do no-shows count toward the total number of dates promised?

• Am I able to cancel within a certain time period and get money refunded if I’m dissatisfied?

For a wider perspective on the invest-to-find-love topic, I asked my podcast listeners to take an informal survey on how much they’d spent, and whether they felt the cost was justified. Here are excerpts from some of the responses:

• “I spent a total of $1,730 on seven different apps. Now that I see the numbers, I am embarrassed and disheartened by the money I spent. My current relationship status is domestic bliss with a man found on an app.”

• “I spent $6,000 for three months on a dating service — absolutely worthless. My partner is someone I’ve known since college. Longtime friends, and we started dating a few years ago. I couldn’t be happier!”

• “Two apps, total of $30? I spent hardly any money, but I spent time, and that has value.”

• “I spent nothing for a free week with one app, met someone, and we were together until he died. Four years later, I got on a different app for a month and met a man I eventually married. I don’t remember what I paid, maybe $75 to $150? But it was well worth the cost. I was always on a budget so was cautious about spending too much on dating sites.”

Laura Stassi is the host of the podcast “Dating While Gray: The Grown-Up’s Guide to Love, Sex, and Relationships” and author of Romance Redux: Finding Love in Your Later Years. Send your questions to Laura at newloveafter50@gmail.com.