Storing frozen eggs costs between $500 and $1,000 per year at most U.S. clinics, though the exact fee depends on the facility and its location. That annual charge is just one piece of a larger financial picture. The upfront egg freezing cycle, medications, and the eventual cost of using those eggs later all add up, and understanding each layer helps you plan realistically.
Annual Storage Fees
The recurring yearly fee for keeping your eggs in a cryopreservation tank runs $500 to $1,000. Some clinics include the first year of storage in your initial cycle cost, so you may not see a separate bill until year two. Others charge storage from day one. When comparing clinics, ask whether the quoted price for the freezing cycle includes any storage time or if it’s billed separately.
These fees cover the liquid nitrogen tanks, monitoring, and facility maintenance needed to keep eggs viable at extremely low temperatures. Eggs stored this way don’t degrade over time, so there’s no biological deadline for how long you can store them. The only ongoing cost is the annual fee itself.
For context, egg storage sits in the middle of the range for reproductive tissue preservation. Sperm banking runs $200 to $500 per year, while embryo storage can range from $2,000 to $15,000 annually depending on the facility and number of specimens.
The Full Cost of Egg Freezing
Storage is a relatively small fraction of what you’ll spend overall. The initial egg freezing cycle, which includes hormone stimulation, egg retrieval, and lab processing, averages around $16,000. Of that, roughly $11,000 goes to the clinic and about $5,000 covers the fertility medications you inject at home for 10 to 14 days before retrieval.
Most people who freeze eggs go through two retrieval cycles to bank enough eggs for a reasonable chance of a future pregnancy. That means the upfront investment often lands in the $30,000 range before storage fees even begin. As a rough breakdown of total long-term costs, treatment accounts for about 70%, storage about 20%, and medications about 10%.
Costs When You Use Your Eggs
Freezing and storing eggs is only part of the expense. When you’re ready to use them, there’s a separate set of fees for thawing, fertilizing, and transferring the resulting embryo. This process is essentially a partial IVF cycle, and it typically adds $4,000 to $9,000 or more to your overall costs. The price varies based on the clinic, how many embryos are created, and whether you need multiple transfer attempts.
If your eggs are stored at a different facility than the one performing your transfer, you’ll also face shipping costs. Transporting frozen reproductive tissue between clinics involves specialized cryo-shipping containers and coordination fees on both ends. Clinics commonly charge $500 to $1,500 just to prepare specimens for shipment, and the receiving clinic may charge a similar processing fee. Total shipping costs, including the transport itself, frequently land between $1,000 and $2,500 depending on distance.
Clinic Storage vs. Third-Party Facilities
Your eggs don’t have to stay at the clinic where they were retrieved. Dedicated long-term cryobanks exist specifically for storing reproductive tissue, and some people transfer their eggs to these facilities for safekeeping. The reasons vary: your original clinic may close, you may move to a different state, or a third-party facility may offer lower annual rates.
Pricing between clinic-based storage and independent cryobanks overlaps significantly, so there isn’t always a clear savings advantage either way. The more important consideration is what each facility includes in its quoted price. Some bundle monitoring, insurance on the specimens, and administrative services into the annual fee. Others charge à la carte. When comparing options, ask specifically what the storage fee covers and whether there are any additional charges for things like account maintenance or specimen handling.
Insurance Coverage and Employer Benefits
Insurance coverage for egg freezing and storage is expanding but still inconsistent. A handful of states mandate that insurers cover fertility preservation, though the rules vary in scope. Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island all require coverage for both IVF and fertility preservation. Massachusetts added its own mandate in 2024, requiring fully insured health plans to cover procurement, cryopreservation, and storage of eggs, embryos, or other reproductive tissue when a diagnosed medical or genetic condition threatens fertility.
The key distinction in most state mandates is the reason for freezing. Coverage is far more likely when egg freezing is medically necessary, such as before cancer treatment or surgery that could impair fertility. Elective egg freezing, where you’re preserving eggs for personal timing reasons, is less commonly covered by insurance.
Employer-sponsored fertility benefits have filled some of that gap. Large companies increasingly offer coverage through specialized platforms that may cover part or all of the egg freezing cycle and several years of storage. If your employer offers a fertility benefit, check whether it covers only the retrieval cycle or also includes ongoing storage fees, since some cap storage coverage at a set number of years.
How Costs Add Up Over Time
The long-term math matters because storage is a recurring expense with no fixed endpoint. If you freeze your eggs at 32 and use them at 40, eight years of storage at $750 per year adds $6,000 to your total. Freeze at 28 and use them at 38, and you’re looking at $7,500 in storage alone. Combined with one or two retrieval cycles and the eventual cost of thawing and transfer, the total lifetime expense of egg freezing commonly falls between $25,000 and $50,000.
Some clinics offer prepaid multi-year storage plans at a discount, bundling five or ten years of storage into a single upfront payment. These can reduce your per-year cost, but they also mean committing a larger sum of money with no refund if you end up using the eggs sooner or deciding not to use them at all. Whether a prepaid plan makes sense depends on how long you expect to store and how confident you are in that timeline.