Lucy Solie-Vilker
October 17, 2026
If you are deciding between fresh and frozen donor eggs, national data now shows the two paths have nearly the same live birth rates, which means the choice usually depends on your timeline, your upfront budget, and whether you hope to have siblings from the same donor.
Fresh vs. frozen donor eggs at a glance
| What we compared | Fresh donor eggs | Frozen donor eggs |
|---|---|---|
| Live birth per recipient cycle start | 38.5%1 | 37.9%1 |
| Eggs per chromosomally normal embryo | 3.1 mature eggs | 3.8 warmed eggs |
| Warming survival | Not applicable | 90.7% |
| Typical timeline | About 4 to 6 months | About 4 to 6 weeks |
| Upfront cost | Higher, because it includes a full donor cycle | Lower at the cohort level |
| Number of eggs | Donor Nexus donors average 28.9 eggs retrieved and 22.6 mature | A standard cohort of 6 eggs |
| Same-donor siblings | More opportunity to create and store embryos from a single retrieval | Depends on whether further cohorts from the same donor are available |
| Additional genetic testing | Easier to arrange, because the donor is actively cycling | Depends on whether she is still available and willing |
| Cycle delay or cancellation | More likely than frozen, since medical, genetic and psychological screening begins after you choose a donor, and a result or a change in her plans can delay or cancel the match | Low, since the donor finished every screening evaluation and her retrieval before the eggs were offered |
Live birth figures are SART's final 2023 national data for all donor egg cycles.1 Everything else comes from Donor Nexus internal program outcome data.2 Each row is explained below.
Watch: Miranda Stomp compares the two programs on timing, cost and egg count: a fresh retrieval averages about 28 eggs over four to six months, while a frozen cohort of six can reach your clinic in about four to six weeks.
Do fresh or frozen donor eggs have higher success rates?
Fresh and frozen donor eggs have nearly identical live birth rates, with 38.5% for fresh and 37.9% for frozen per recipient cycle start in the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology's final 2023 National Summary Report.1 The American Society for Reproductive Medicine reaches the same conclusion for pregnancy rates per transfer, while noting that the evidence is not yet strong enough to call live birth rates equivalent.3
In Donor Nexus data it takes roughly 3.1 mature fresh eggs or 3.8 warmed frozen eggs to reach one chromosomally normal embryo.2
The stage-by-stage numbers behind that, what the research says about whether freezing harms eggs, and how storage time factors in, are all covered in our guide to fresh vs. frozen donor egg success rates.
Are embryos from fresh donor eggs frozen too?
Often, yes. Many clinics now grow embryos to the blastocyst stage, freeze them, and transfer one later in a prepared cycle, which is why national data report thawed embryo transfers separately from fresh ones.
How long do fresh and frozen donor egg cycles take?
A frozen donor egg cycle usually takes about 4 to 6 weeks, because the eggs have already been retrieved and banked, so most of the timeline is shipping them to your clinic and preparing for your transfer. A fresh donor egg cycle usually takes about 4 to 6 months, since your donor still has to finish her screening, legal agreements, and her own stimulation and retrieval before any eggs are available.
Watch: Miranda Stomp, Senior Manager of Donor Programs, breaks down where the time goes in each program, from shipping frozen eggs to the screening and legal steps that take up most of a fresh cycle.
outside the us?
If you live outside the U.S., you can still choose any U.S. fertility clinic, and our Frozen Egg Bank ships to clinics throughout the United States. International rules have made shipping donor eggs across borders, or arranging a fresh cycle abroad, increasingly difficult, so most of our international intended parents now travel to the U.S. for their transfer. If your clinic is outside the US, ask about timing, because arranging an international shipment can take longer.
What can delay a fresh or frozen donor egg cycle?
A fresh cycle has more points where the schedule can change, because most of the donor's medical, genetic and psychological screening happens after you match. A screening result, a medical issue during stimulation, or a change in the donor's circumstances can push the cycle back by weeks or end the match, which is why it helps to ask your case manager which evaluations are still ahead. With a frozen cohort, the donor's screening and retrieval are already complete, so those delays largely don't apply, and the main remaining question is how many of the eggs survive warming.
Watch: Haley Pleasants, Intended Parent Case Manager, explains why the key step is confirming your clinic will accept eggs from the Donor Nexus egg bank, and the extra state waiver step for clinics in New York.
What drives the cost difference between fresh and frozen donor eggs?
A fresh cycle costs more upfront because you're paying for a retrieval that hasn't happened yet, along with everything the donor's cycle requires. That includes her compensation, monitoring, travel and accommodations if she doesn't live near your clinic, temporary medical insurance, a psychological evaluation, genetic counseling, legal representation, escrow management, and the agency fee.
With frozen donor eggs, the donor's cycle is already complete, so the program fee covers a defined number of eggs, including the donor's compensation, screening, and shipping to your clinic, at a lower upfront cost.
On either path, your fertility clinic's IVF fees, medications, PGT-A testing, and the embryo transfer itself are billed separately.
Since a fresh cycle and a frozen cohort give you different numbers of eggs, the most useful comparison looks at what each path would cost to reach the number of embryos you hope to have, which is where the per-egg numbers earlier in this article come in.
Our financial breakdown lays out what each path includes.
What about siblings and leftover embryos?
A fresh cycle gives you everything the donor produces. Across the Donor Nexus program, the average fresh retrieval yielded 28.9 eggs, 22.6 of them mature, and in cycles where PGT-A was performed, the average was 7.2 chromosomally normal embryos.2
That often leaves embryos beyond a first transfer, which is what makes same-donor siblings and backup embryos for a second or third transfer possible from a single retrieval.
A frozen cohort is a known quantity instead, usually six eggs, so it produces fewer embryos and leaves less room for siblings from one purchase. How many eggs to plan on for each embryo you hope to have, including for a second child, is covered in our guide to how many donor eggs you actually need.
If siblings matter to you and you are using frozen eggs, ask whether more cohorts from the same donor would be a possibility.
Can you request additional genetic testing?
If the sperm provider is a known carrier of a genetic condition, you may want the donor screened for that same condition. This is one place where fresh has a practical edge: the donor is actively participating, so additional genetic screening is usually straightforward to arrange. With a frozen cohort, the donor completed her screening before the eggs were banked. Further testing may still be possible, but it depends entirely on whether she is reachable and willing, and some donors decline or are no longer available.
Which path is right for you?
For some families, frozen eggs are the right choice because speed and a clear cohort size matter most. For others, a fresh cycle may make more sense because they want a larger number of eggs or hope to build a family with siblings from the same donor. Neither route is automatically better, and the right one for you is whichever fits your timeline, embryo goal, and budget.
For one family's perspective, Erica shares why she chose frozen donor eggs over a fresh cycle.
Cost and timeline were part of Erica's decision, but what mattered most was not going through another retrieval, since frozen eggs are already retrieved and stored and the next step is shipping them to the clinic. This video is a paid partnership with Donor Nexus.
Both programs under one roof
You also don't have to pick a path before you pick an agency. Donor Nexus offers both the Fresh Matching Program and a Frozen Egg Bank, managed by the same team, so you can compare both options with us before deciding.
If you're exploring donor eggs, our guides to using donor eggs, how our egg donor agency works and our frozen donor egg bank walk through each path, and you can create an account to search the egg donor database whenever you're ready.
Common questions
How long does a fresh donor egg cycle take compared with frozen?
A fresh cycle typically takes about 4 to 6 months, while a frozen cohort is usually ready in about 4 to 6 weeks because the eggs have already been retrieved and banked.
Are fresh or frozen donor eggs better if I'm using a gestational carrier?
Both can work well. Because most donor egg transfers now use frozen embryos, neither path requires your carrier's cycle to line up with the donor's. Frozen eggs usually offer a faster start and a defined cohort size, while a fresh cycle may create more embryos for future transfers.
When is a fresh donor egg cycle worth the higher cost?
A fresh cycle may make sense despite the higher upfront cost if you hope to have more than one child from the same donor, need additional genetic screening because the sperm provider is a known carrier, or want the larger number of eggs a full retrieval provides.
How we calculated our numbers
The Donor Nexus figures in this article come from our internal program outcome records for the fresh donor cycles and frozen egg bank cohorts we have coordinated.
- Warming survival: 90.7%, covering all Donor Nexus donor eggs thawed from 2012 through 2025. This is the program-wide figure reported on our success rates page.
- Fresh outcomes: 414 completed Donor Nexus cycles from 2017 through 2026 with every stage recorded, covering 11,873 eggs retrieved and 9,371 mature eggs.
- Program-wide fresh averages: 28.9 eggs retrieved and 22.6 mature eggs per retrieval, with 7.2 chromosomally normal embryos per cycle where PGT-A was performed, from Donor Nexus program data 2012 through 2025.
- Frozen stage outcomes: 120 completed cohorts in which thaw, fertilization, blastocyst, and chromosomal-testing results were reported back to Donor Nexus, covering 1,002 warmed eggs. Fertilization, blastocyst, and euploidy rates come from this set and are applied to the program-wide warming survival rate above. Cohorts in this data set averaged about 8 warmed eggs each.
- Both pathways in the comparison begin with 100 mature eggs, because only mature eggs are frozen.
Find the donor option that fits your plan
Choosing between fresh and frozen donor eggs comes down to time, the number of embryos you hope to create, the chance of future siblings, and how much certainty you want before starting.
Sources
- Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Final National Summary Report for 2023. Donor egg cycles, live birth per recipient cycle start.
- Donor Nexus internal program outcome data: fresh donor cycles, 2017 through 2026; program-wide averages and egg warming survival, 2012 through 2025.
- Practice Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Evidence-based outcomes after oocyte cryopreservation for donor oocyte in vitro fertilization and planned oocyte cryopreservation: A guideline. Fertility and Sterility. 2021;116:36-47.
Disclaimer
This article is general information and is not medical advice. Talk with your physician and fertility clinic about your own care.
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Lucy Solie-Vilker
Lucy Solie-Vilker is the CEO of Donor Nexus, where she's helped build one of the most established platforms in egg and embryo donation. Since 2012, her work has contributed to more than 2,000 babies born to Don…
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