diff --git a/spacy/matcher.pyx b/spacy/matcher.pyx
index d321218b8..ba3559966 100644
--- a/spacy/matcher.pyx
+++ b/spacy/matcher.pyx
@@ -421,52 +421,67 @@ cdef class PhraseMatcher:
     cdef int max_length
     cdef attr_t* _phrase_key
 
-    def __init__(self, Vocab vocab, phrases, max_length=10):
+    cdef public object _callbacks
+
+    def __init__(self, Vocab vocab, max_length=10):
         self.mem = Pool()
         self._phrase_key = <attr_t*>self.mem.alloc(max_length, sizeof(attr_t))
         self.max_length = max_length
         self.vocab = vocab
         self.matcher = Matcher(self.vocab)
         self.phrase_ids = PreshMap()
-        for phrase in phrases:
-            if len(phrase) < max_length:
-                self.add(phrase)
-
         abstract_patterns = []
         for length in range(1, max_length):
             abstract_patterns.append([{tag: True} for tag in get_bilou(length)])
         self.matcher.add('Candidate', None, *abstract_patterns)
+        self._callbacks = {}
 
-    def add(self, Doc tokens):
-        cdef int length = tokens.length
-        assert length < self.max_length
-        tags = get_bilou(length)
-        assert len(tags) == length, length
+    def add(self, key, on_match, *docs):
+        cdef Doc doc
+        for doc in docs:
+            if len(doc) >= self.max_length:
+                msg = (
+                    "Pattern length (%d) >= phrase_matcher.max_length (%d). "
+                    "Length can be set on initialization, up to 10."
+                )
+                raise ValueError(msg % (len(doc), self.max_length))
+        cdef hash_t ent_id = self.matcher._normalize_key(key)
+        self._callbacks[ent_id] = on_match
 
+        cdef int length
         cdef int i
-        for i in range(self.max_length):
-            self._phrase_key[i] = 0
-        for i, tag in enumerate(tags):
-            lexeme = self.vocab[tokens.c[i].lex.orth]
-            lexeme.set_flag(tag, True)
-            self._phrase_key[i] = lexeme.orth
-        cdef hash_t key = hash64(self._phrase_key, self.max_length * sizeof(attr_t), 0)
-        self.phrase_ids[key] = True
+        cdef hash_t phrase_hash
+        for doc in docs:
+            length = doc.length
+            tags = get_bilou(length)
+            for i in range(self.max_length):
+                self._phrase_key[i] = 0
+            for i, tag in enumerate(tags):
+                lexeme = self.vocab[doc.c[i].lex.orth]
+                lexeme.set_flag(tag, True)
+                self._phrase_key[i] = lexeme.orth
+            phrase_hash = hash64(self._phrase_key,
+                                 self.max_length * sizeof(attr_t), 0)
+            self.phrase_ids[phrase_hash] = ent_id
 
     def __call__(self, Doc doc):
-        matches = self.matcher(doc)
-        accepted = []
-        for ent_id, start, end in matches:
-            if self.accept_match(doc, ent_id, start, end):
-                accepted.append((ent_id, start, end))
-        return accepted
+        matches = []
+        for _, start, end in self.matcher(doc):
+            ent_id = self.accept_match(doc, start, end)
+            if ent_id is not None:
+                matches.append((ent_id, start, end))
+        for i, (ent_id, start, end) in enumerate(matches):
+            on_match = self._callbacks.get(ent_id)
+            if on_match is not None:
+                on_match(self, doc, i, matches)
+        return matches
 
     def pipe(self, stream, batch_size=1000, n_threads=2):
         for doc in stream:
             self(doc)
             yield doc
 
-    def accept_match(self, Doc doc, attr_t ent_id, int start, int end):
+    def accept_match(self, Doc doc, int start, int end):
         assert (end - start) < self.max_length
         cdef int i, j
         for i in range(self.max_length):
@@ -474,7 +489,8 @@ cdef class PhraseMatcher:
         for i, j in enumerate(range(start, end)):
             self._phrase_key[i] = doc.c[j].lex.orth
         cdef hash_t key = hash64(self._phrase_key, self.max_length * sizeof(attr_t), 0)
-        if self.phrase_ids.get(key):
-            return True
+        ent_id = <hash_t>self.phrase_ids.get(key)
+        if ent_id == 0:
+            return None
         else:
-            return False
+            return ent_id
diff --git a/spacy/tests/test_matcher.py b/spacy/tests/test_matcher.py
index 651707019..1b9f92519 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/test_matcher.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/test_matcher.py
@@ -101,7 +101,8 @@ def test_matcher_match_multi(matcher):
 def test_matcher_phrase_matcher(en_vocab):
     words = ["Google", "Now"]
     doc = get_doc(en_vocab, words)
-    matcher = PhraseMatcher(en_vocab, [doc])
+    matcher = PhraseMatcher(en_vocab)
+    matcher.add('COMPANY', None, doc)
     words = ["I", "like", "Google", "Now", "best"]
     doc = get_doc(en_vocab, words)
     assert len(matcher(doc)) == 1