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The price for a single vial of sperm in the fertility market goes for anything between $370 to $890 dollars. That cost only covers the sperm itself, whereas the browsing, freezing, storing, reheating, inserting, and inseminating all have their own steep costs. While some elements of the process are covered by insurance, the cost of actual sperm always comes out of pocket.
“We screen thousands and thousands of men at our five locations,” says Dr. Michelle Ottey, the Laboratory Director at Fairfax Cryobank in Virginia. “And only about one percent of them actually make it through.Statistically, it’s harder to get into the sperm donor program at Fairfax than it is to get admitted to an Ivy League school.” It’s not just the quality control of the sperm that drives up costs, Ottey adds, the packaging of who the sperm belongs to is also folded into the price point.
“We create profiles, take professional photos, we try to put the audio tapes together and the medical and personal profiles and everything.”
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The Sperm Bank of California charges clients extra for “extended profiles” of their donors. For $40 extra dollars, the Bank will send you three baby photos of the donor along with more detailed information about him. Some websites, such as California Cryobank, offer a 90 day subscription ranging from the mid $100s to the mid $200s. But neither option guarantees that women will find the right donor for them within a sperm bank’s catalogue.
Read full, original post: Why Is Sperm So Damn Expensive?
