Field notes
Guides for choosing a donor program
Practical, source-backed explanations from the same verified research as the directories. Sperm guides use the blue pages. Egg guides use the pink pages.
Sperm
How Much Do Sperm Donors Make? Sperm Donor Compensation, Decoded
How much do sperm donors actually make? California Cryobank's advertised monthly ceiling is $2,400. That is a near-perfect-attendance ceiling, not cash in hand. Per-donation labels for 29 programs are in the table.
Read the guide 02Highest Paying vs. Easiest to Join: What the Numbers Actually Say
"Highest paying" now has two answers — the walk-in bank with the biggest monthly wage, and the directed agency writing a five-figure check per donation. We map advertised pay against the barriers you can actually check across all 29 US programs DonorIndex tracks.
Read the guide 03Sperm Donor Requirements: Height, Age, Education & What Disqualifies You
How tall do you have to be to donate sperm, and which banks have no height minimum at all? Age, height, and education bars across 29 US programs — verified September–October 2026.
Read the guide 04Sperm Bank vs Known Donor: The Real Numbers
A bank visit and a known-donor match pay in different shapes. Cryos International lists $90 per donation. The Sperm Bank of California lists $200. The Seed Scout lists $5,000 per family across 11 directed agencies. The tables use each program's directory label.
Read the guide 05Which Banks Accept Gay Men as Donors? Blood vs. Sperm, and What the FDA Actually Requires
The FDA's 2023 blood-donation change did not change the sperm rules — anonymous banks still exclude MSM. But there are now real routes for gay men, because known/directed donation runs on a different regulatory path. Here's the current state as of September 2026.
Read the guideEggs
How US egg donor pay works: flat rates, ranges, ceilings and what's reimbursed
Programs state egg donor pay in four different ways. This guide explains how to read each one, quotes figures from named clinics and agencies, and flags what each page leaves out.
Read the guide 02Highest-paying vs. easiest egg donor programs: published pay compared with published gates
In the DonorIndex directory, the highest first-cycle ceiling is $50,000, at Asian Egg Bank ($10,000–$50,000 per cycle) and Lotus Donor Bank ($10,000–$50,000 per cycle). Programs that are not in the directory are not given a figure on this page.
Read the guide 03Egg Donor Requirements in the US: What Programs Actually Publish
Age, BMI, nicotine, cycles, screening, location and work status, quoted line by line from the programs' own pages. Where they disagree, we show the disagreement instead of averaging it away.
Read the guide 04Egg program vs. known donor: anonymity, contact, contracts, and who pays
How donating through an agency or clinic egg program differs from donating to someone you already know, using only what the programs themselves publish.
Read the guide 05Which Egg Donor Programs Accept LGBTQ Donors? Most Don't Say
Donor pages for 17 US programs were checked in October 2026. Two publish an LGBTQ-inclusive statement. Eleven publish nothing on orientation or gender identity.
Read the guide