Essentials

Essentials is our foundational surrogacy program. Every medical and legal standard we hold is inside it, without exception, and so is every dollar your surrogate receives. What changes at this level is how much of the coordination we do for you, and how much you do yourself using our guidance and our providers.

What your $105,000 covers

• Her full compensation and protection package, $43,050, the same in every program
• Her major medical insurance to $200,000, and her life insurance
• Her own attorney and her own counsellor, both chosen by her
• All surrogacy medical, from screening through to delivery
• A private Mexico City hospital, with honorarios médicos included
• Mexican legal, the judicial parentage order before transfer, and the birth certificate
• Independent United States escrow, with an open ledger you can see at any time
• One embryo transfer, and a case manager you share with other families

What you pay other providers directly

• Embryo courier and COFEPRIS import permit, $5,000 to $15,000
• Your travel, accommodation and meals, about $10,000
• Your own lawyer at home, which we require you to retain, about $3,500
• Newborn health insurance, bound before the birth, about $1,400
• A neonatal reserve we advise you hold, $15,000, unspent in most journeys

We tell you what each of these should cost and who to use. You pay them directly, never through us, and we take no fee and no commission on any of them.

Your typical total

About $144,900, all in, from your first call to the flight home. $105,000 of that is your program price. The rest is paid to other providers, shown at the midpoint of each published range.

Transfers and rematching

• Your first embryo transfer is included
• Every transfer after it, with the same surrogate, is $4,500 at our cost
• If your surrogate cannot continue we rematch you, and never charge an agency fee for it
• Her new package on a rematch, net of what returns to your escrow, is typically $14,000 to $40,000

We never charge to rematch you. That work is real and it is ours to absorb, because taking a fee at the moment your surrogate withdraws is not something we are willing to do. What we cannot absorb at this level is her package, because she is a real person and she is paid. Signature caps that exposure at $25,000. Keystone removes it entirely.

How you pay

• On signing your Agency Agreement: $16,800. Half our fee, and nothing to escrow
• When your surrogate is matched and medically cleared: $24,230
• At legal clearance, before transfer: $63,970. Escrow funded in full

Your agency fee of $33,600 is paid to Families Without Borders, and it is the only money that reaches us. Everything else is held by Seed Trust, an independent escrow administrator in the United States. It is not our account and we cannot withdraw from it. Escrow is funded in full before your transfer, because your surrogate should never begin a pregnancy on a promise that the money will arrive later.

What protects you at signing

• If we have not matched you with a medically cleared surrogate within nine months, you may withdraw and we return your entire fee less $5,000 of documented intake cost
• If you withdraw before your transfer, half of the fee you have paid is returned, and every dollar in escrow not already committed to your surrogate comes back to you in full
• If the journey ends at any point, escrow is reconciled line by line and returned within thirty days