Beyond plasma, you can donate whole blood, platelets, bone marrow, stem cells, a kidney, stool, breast milk, sperm, eggs, hair, and even bone tissue removed during surgery. Some of these options pay well, others are purely voluntary, and the time commitment ranges from a quick blood draw to a multi-week medical process. Here’s what each one involves.
Whole Blood and Platelets
Whole blood donation is the most common and simplest option. The needle is in your arm for about 10 minutes, and you can donate every 56 days. You need to be at least 16 or 17 (depending on your state), weigh at least 110 pounds, and be in generally good health. Most blood banks don’t pay for whole blood, though the Red Cross and similar organizations sometimes offer gift cards or small incentives.
Platelet donation uses an apheresis machine, similar to the one used for plasma. Blood is drawn from one arm, the machine separates out the platelets, and the remaining blood components are returned to you. The process takes up to two hours, and you can donate more frequently than whole blood. Platelets are critical for cancer patients and people undergoing major surgeries, so demand is constant.
Granulocyte Donation
A less well-known option is granulocyte donation, which collects a specific type of white blood cell. The NIH Blood Bank runs a granulocyte donor program for patients with life-threatening infections and severely compromised immune systems. The process is similar to platelet donation and takes two to three hours. This is a niche need, so you’d typically be recruited for it rather than walking in off the street.
Bone Marrow and Stem Cells
Bone marrow donation has a reputation for being painful and invasive, but most donors today actually give peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) instead. This is a non-surgical outpatient procedure. For five days before collection, you receive daily injections of a medication that pushes blood-forming cells from your bone marrow into your bloodstream. Then an apheresis machine collects those cells, much like a plasma donation. The collection itself takes four to eight hours depending on whether it’s done in one or two sessions.
The injections can cause flu-like symptoms: headaches, bone pain, muscle aches, nausea, and fatigue. These side effects typically disappear shortly after donation. During the apheresis procedure, some donors feel tingling around their mouth or fingertips from the blood thinner used in the machine, but this is managed easily by slowing the process or taking calcium.
To get started, you join a registry like Be The Match. You may wait months or years before being matched with a patient who needs your specific cell type. There’s no direct compensation, but the registry covers all medical costs and travel expenses.
Living Kidney Donation
You can donate one of your two kidneys to someone with kidney failure. This is a major surgical decision with real long-term implications, but for most donors the outcome is positive. Quality of life after donation is generally similar to or better than before, and the 15-year risk of kidney failure for most donors is less than 1%.
That said, the risks aren’t zero. About 12% of donors have moderately reduced kidney function after an average of 10 years. The risk is higher for certain groups: young Black men, people with higher BMI, and men in general show greater rates of protein in the urine after donation. Recovery from surgery varies, and some donors report it taking longer than expected. Time away from work can create financial strain, particularly for people in physically demanding jobs.
Selling a kidney is illegal in the United States, but recipients’ insurance typically covers the donor’s medical expenses.
Sperm Donation
Sperm donation is one of the better-compensated biological donations. Fairfax Cryobank, one of the larger U.S. sperm banks, pays $100 to $120 or more per visit, with donors earning an average of $4,000 over six months by donating once or twice per week. Each visit takes about one to two hours including paperwork and wait time.
Screening is thorough. Banks test for genetic conditions, sexually transmitted infections, and family medical history. Most require donors to be between 18 and 39, though exact age ranges vary by bank. You’ll need to commit to a regular schedule for several months, which is the part many people underestimate.
Egg Donation
Egg donation pays significantly more than most other biological donations, but the process is far more involved. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine considers payments up to $5,000 standard and states that amounts above $10,000 are not appropriate, though in practice compensation varies widely by clinic and region.
The process involves hormone injections over several weeks to stimulate your ovaries to produce multiple eggs, followed by a minor surgical retrieval procedure. Side effects from the hormones can include bloating, mood changes, and in rare cases ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. Most programs require donors to be in their 20s or early 30s, in good physical health, and willing to undergo extensive genetic and psychological screening.
Stool Donation
This one surprises most people, but donated stool is used in fecal microbiota transplants to treat serious gut infections, particularly C. difficile. Stool banks screen donors rigorously for infectious diseases, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and a long list of health conditions. In one Dutch screening program, only 38 out of 393 applicants (about 10%) passed the screening process.
Qualified donors are rescreened every 60 days for certain infections and undergo a full rescreening every four to six months. Compensation varies, with European programs paying roughly €10 to €50 per donation plus travel expenses. U.S. programs like OpenBiome have historically offered around $25 to $75 per sample, though availability of these programs fluctuates. The bar for eligibility is extremely high, so don’t count on this as a reliable income stream.
Breast Milk
If you’re a breastfeeding parent producing more milk than your baby needs, non-profit milk banks affiliated with the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) accept donations for premature and critically ill infants. This is unpaid donation, though some for-profit companies do compensate donors.
The disqualification list is extensive. You cannot donate if you smoke, vape, or use nicotine replacement therapy. Recreational drug use within the past 12 months rules you out, and marijuana is included even in states where it’s legal. Other exclusions include recent tattoos or piercings from unregulated facilities, blood transfusions within the past three to six months, organ transplants within the past year, chronic infections like HIV or hepatitis, and cancer treatment within the past three years. Even moderate alcohol use is restricted: North American guidelines allow no more than one standard drink in 24 hours, with 12 hours of abstinence before pumping.
Hair Donation
Donating hair to make wigs for cancer patients or children with hair loss is free, painless, and something you can do with a single haircut. Most organizations require the ponytail to be at least 8 to 14 inches long, clean, dry, and free of styling products at the time of cutting. Hair should be braided or secured with multiple rubber bands before cutting.
Organizations like Wigs for Kids, Locks of Love, Hair We Share, and Children With Hair Loss each have slightly different rules, so choose your organization before your haircut and follow their specific guidelines. Most require hair to be mailed within a year of cutting. Policies on dyed, bleached, or chemically treated hair vary by organization, so check before you commit.
Bone and Tissue During Surgery
If you’re already scheduled for a hip replacement, you may be able to donate the removed femoral head (the ball of your hip joint) for use as bone graft material in other patients’ surgeries. A review of over 6,000 donated femoral heads found that tissue banks routinely accept and process these donations, using histological screening to ensure quality. This isn’t something you seek out on its own. It’s an option your surgical team may offer when you’re already undergoing the procedure, turning what would otherwise be medical waste into material that helps someone else heal.