A single IVF cycle costs about $12,400 on average in the United States, not including medications or genetic testing. Once you add fertility drugs, lab fees, and other common extras, most people pay between $15,000 and $25,000 per cycle out of pocket. That range can climb significantly higher if you need donor eggs, genetic screening, or multiple rounds of treatment.
The Base Procedure Fee
The $12,400 national average, cited by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, covers the core clinical work: ovarian stimulation monitoring, egg retrieval, fertilization in the lab, and embryo transfer. Some clinics bundle all of this into a single package price that includes ultrasounds, bloodwork, and one year of embryo storage. Others bill each of those as separate line items, which can make comparison shopping confusing. Before signing with any clinic, ask whether the quoted price is “all-inclusive” or whether monitoring visits, lab draws, and freezing carry additional charges.
Medication Costs
Fertility medications are one of the biggest variables in IVF pricing. The injectable hormones used to stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs typically run $3,000 to $7,000 per cycle, depending on the drugs prescribed and the dosage your body needs. Higher doses mean more vials, and costs add up quickly. A single cartridge of one common stimulation drug costs around $1,050, while a higher-dose pen of another brand runs close to $4,600.
On top of the stimulation drugs, you’ll need a “trigger shot” to finalize egg maturation before retrieval. These range from roughly $170 to $300 depending on the brand. Your clinic may also prescribe supplemental hormones after embryo transfer to support early pregnancy, adding another few hundred dollars. If your insurance doesn’t cover fertility medications at all, ask your clinic about specialty pharmacies or manufacturer discount programs, which can sometimes cut drug costs by 20 to 40 percent.
Common Add-On Procedures
Several additional procedures are routine enough that you should budget for them from the start. ICSI, a technique where a single sperm is injected directly into the egg, adds $1,500 to $3,000 per cycle. It was originally developed for severe male-factor infertility, but many clinics now recommend it as standard practice to improve fertilization rates.
Preimplantation genetic testing screens embryos for chromosomal abnormalities before transfer. This typically costs $2,000 to $6,000 per cycle depending on how many embryos are tested. It’s especially common for people over 35 or those with a history of miscarriage. Embryo freezing (if you produce more viable embryos than you transfer) is sometimes included in the base price and sometimes billed separately.
Embryo Storage Fees
If you freeze embryos for future use, you’ll pay an annual storage fee for as long as they remain in cryogenic storage. At the University of Michigan, for example, annual embryo storage runs $2,550 per year, and sperm storage costs the same. Fees at other clinics range from about $500 to $2,500 annually. These charges continue every year until you use the embryos, donate them, or have them discarded, so they’re worth factoring into your long-term budget.
Donor Eggs and Third-Party Reproduction
Using donor eggs adds a substantial layer of cost. The clinic fees alone for a donor egg cycle start around $9,650 at some programs, and that figure doesn’t include the donor’s stimulation medications, compensation, or agency fees. Donor compensation typically ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 or more depending on the agency and the donor’s profile. Agency matching fees, legal contracts, and psychological screening can add another $5,000 to $8,000. All told, a donor egg IVF cycle often lands between $25,000 and $40,000.
If you’re using a known sperm donor rather than a sperm bank, you’ll also need a legal agreement outlining parenting rights before treatment begins. Attorney fees for these contracts generally run $1,000 to $3,000.
How Many Cycles You May Need
The total cost of building a family through IVF often extends beyond a single cycle. Success rates vary widely by age: people under 35 have the highest per-cycle live birth rates, while success rates decline progressively after 37 and drop more steeply after 40. The Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology offers an online calculator that estimates cumulative live birth rates across up to three cycles, and for many people, two or three full cycles are realistic to plan for.
A frozen embryo transfer, where a previously frozen embryo is thawed and transferred without a new egg retrieval, costs significantly less than a full cycle. Typical frozen transfer fees range from $3,000 to $6,000 including monitoring. If your first retrieval produces several viable embryos, subsequent attempts using those frozen embryos cost a fraction of the original cycle.
Insurance Coverage by State
Whether your insurance covers any of this depends heavily on where you live and what kind of plan you have. As of late 2025, roughly 20 states have some form of fertility insurance mandate, though the details vary enormously. States with relatively broad IVF coverage requirements include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. Colorado and New Hampshire have newer mandates covering large group plans, and California’s large group plan requirement takes effect in January 2026.
Several important caveats apply across the board. Most state mandates exempt self-insured employer plans, which is how many large companies structure their benefits. Religious employers are frequently exempt as well. Some states, like Texas, only require insurers to offer IVF coverage rather than include it automatically. Others, like Maine, limit their mandate to fertility preservation related to cancer treatment. Even in states with strong mandates, coverage caps and lifetime maximums are common. Your best move is to call your insurer directly and ask specifically about IVF coverage, cycle limits, medication coverage, and any dollar caps before you begin treatment.
Grants and Financial Assistance
Several national organizations offer grants specifically for fertility treatment. The Baby Quest Foundation awards grants of $2,000 to $16,000 (a combination of money and donated medications) twice per year, open to all U.S. residents regardless of marital status or gender. The Cade Foundation provides up to $10,000 per family through its Family Building Grant, also awarded twice yearly. The Hope for Fertility Foundation and the Starfish Infertility Foundation each offer grants up to $5,000. Most of these programs charge a $50 application fee.
Beyond grants, many fertility clinics partner with financing companies that offer low-interest or zero-interest loans specifically for IVF. Some clinics also offer “shared risk” or “refund” programs where you pay a higher upfront fee covering multiple cycles, with a partial refund if treatment doesn’t result in a live birth. These programs typically cost $20,000 to $35,000 upfront but can reduce your financial risk if you anticipate needing more than one cycle. Not everyone qualifies, as clinics usually require certain age and health criteria to participate.
A Realistic Budget Breakdown
For a single IVF cycle paying entirely out of pocket, here’s what to expect:
- Base procedure: $12,000 to $14,000
- Medications: $3,000 to $7,000
- ICSI: $1,500 to $3,000
- Genetic testing (optional): $2,000 to $6,000
- Annual embryo storage: $500 to $2,550 per year
That puts a single cycle with common add-ons in the range of $16,500 to $30,000. If you need donor eggs, add another $15,000 to $25,000 on top of the base cycle cost. Planning for two to three cycles brings the potential total investment to $35,000 to $75,000 or more, though frozen embryo transfers from a previous retrieval can keep subsequent cycle costs much lower.