Best Sperm Donor Banks

California Cryobank is a well established company with a vast catalog of donors, international shipping, extensive donor profiles, and unique features.

Founded in 1977, California Cryobank is one of the largest sperm banks in the world. The Los Angeles-based company focuses its patient-centered care on sperm donation, sperm and egg storage, and cord blood banking. 

A unique service of California Cryobank is its Donor Look-a-Likes program. Prospective parents can search for their desired sperm donor by choosing one or more celebrities, athletes, or other public figures that they want the donor to resemble. The desired look-a-likes must have photos published on the Internet. It’s worth noting that Fairfax Cryobank has a similar program.

Donors can choose whether or not to be anonymous at California Cryobank. Additionally, childhood photos are available for an additional fee. General sperm donor profiles are free to access and read through. Each profile features a clever name like “Skateboarding Scholar” or “People Person” along with a short narrative biography. The left-hand side of the screen immediately displays the cost-per-vial as well as how many units are available. If applicable, the donor’s Look-a-Likes are listed, too. As you scroll down, you can quickly view whether or not the donor is anonymous as well as their height, weight, eye color, hair color and texture, and skin tone. Additionally, donors’ ethnic origins, religions, and self-reported ancestries are available. Below their heritage, you can read the donor’s education level, areas of study, blood type, and whether they have opted in for further genetic testing.

When prospective parents register for a free account (Level 1), they can also access the donor’s genetic test summary, medical history, and DNA ancestry. Other information available at this level includes a personal essay from the donor along with an overall profile listing talents, hobbies, likes, and dislikes. Another unique piece of information available at this level is staff impressions. At this level, you can read comments from California Cryobank employees who worked directly with the donor.

A Level 2 account costs $145 and includes childhood and adult photos if available, as well as extended donor profiles. The extended profile includes information about three generations of the donor’s family. Furthermore, Level 2 includes the “Express Yourself” feature, which the company states “allows a donor to present himself in a manner that best captures his personality including original poetry, songs, essays, photographs, drawings, recipes, and more.”

Level 3 costs $250 and includes the features of Level 1 and Level 2 along with an illustrated example of the donor’s facial features and the Keirsey Report, a personality test, if applicable. Additionally, prospective parents can access and keep a voice recording of the donor talking about their biography and personal interests.

Cryos International Sperm Bank prioritizes prospective parents with its reputable customer service and large donor database.

Headquartered in Florida, Cryos International prides itself for being “The World’s Largest Sperm and Egg Bank.” The company’s founder, Ole Schou, had a dream one night about freezing and storing sperm and started the company soon after in 1981. Since then, the company’s vision has been “to help people make their dream of having a child come true.”

Cryos International’s customers generally report high satisfaction with service and prices. Some customers report delays in shipping, but it's important to note that third-party shipping companies are responsible for these delays.

Cryos International is home to hundreds of sperm donors and ships donations to more than 100 countries worldwide. Donors can choose whether or not to be anonymous. Prospective parents can read donor profiles after creating a free account on the company’s website. From there, you can access the donor’s biography, photos (if applicable), academic history, information about their family tree, and even photos of their handwriting.

Still, the company might be too large for prospective parents who want a local donor or a donor who has the same culture as their family.

Pride Angel was created with the LGBTQIA+ community in mind. It connects prospective parents with potential sperm donors.

Pride Angel provides an affordable option for the LGBTQIA+ community, single parents, and couples struggling with infertility to access sperm donations. Founded in 2009 by a lesbian couple, the company serves as a “connection service” for potential sperm donors and prospective parents. 

The company’s user-friendly website allows users to read profiles for sperm donors, egg donors, and potential co-parents, depending on the parenting situation they desire. Along with the search feature, the website contains a shop for fertility kits and artificial insemination kits. Donors and prospective parents can view one another’s profiles and send messages through the website. However, the company encourages donors and parents to meet in person when deciding whether to help each other.

Each profile for donors and prospective parents includes a photo, first name, age, location, short narrative bio, and other demographic information, such as height, weight, eye color, and body type. Donors can also indicate whether they already have children, whether they’ve donated before, as well as how much contact they desire with a future child.

It is important to point out that the company does not provide its own donor screening. Pride Angel encourages prospective parents to research legal matters regarding sperm donations and to use a fertility clinic once they have found their ideal donor. It is against Pride Angel’s policy for a sperm donor to charge intended parents a fee, which creates an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ parents to access artificial insemination.

Seattle Sperm Bank focuses its attention on genetic testing by requiring each sperm donor to participate in an extensive screening of over 502 genes.

Seattle Sperm Bank is a Washington-based company founded in 2008. The company stands out among its competitors for its extensive genetic testing and medical history review practices. The bank serves prospective parents in California, Maryland, New York, Oregon, and Washington. 

At other competitors, donors can often choose whether or not they want to participate in genetic testing. At Seattle Sperm Bank, every donor is required to be tested with an extended genetic panel, which screens carriers of genetic diseases in 502 genes. The screening also focuses on the early detection of these conditions.

Prospective parents can easily search for donors using Seattle Sperm Bank’s user-friendly search feature. You can even enter the name of a donor if you are searching for one in particular. Drop-down menus are available, too, to choose the desired ethnicity, hair and eye color, blood type, and whether or not they have an Rh factor or Jewish ancestry. Users can also adjust scales to choose their desired minimum and maximum weights and heights. A search feature unique to Seattle Sperm Bank’s high standards of genetic testing involves choosing which genetic conditions the donor tested negative for.

The general database is free to access and includes truncated donor profiles. Unlimited access to full donor profiles costs $50 for an all-access pass. Information that’s available in the extended profiles includes baby photos, an audio interview, and the Keirsey personality test of each donor. It’s worth noting that the all-access pass lasts for three months.

Xytex Cryo International provides extensive family medical history information about donors in its free-to-access profile database.

Founded in 1975, Xytex Cryo International is one of the oldest sperm banks in the country. The free donor profiles the company provides include a family medical history for up to three generations. You can access medical records and other information about the donor’s immediate family and extended relatives in easy-to-read tables, without paying or registering for an account. 

Within these tables, prospective parents can read the hair color and texture, eye color, health status, skin tone, year of birth, age of death, cause of death, height, and weight of the donor’s various family members. The tables also include occupations, education levels, body build, dominant hand, and eyesight status. The family member’s title, like “Uncle” or “Grandmother,” is listed at the top of the table. Donors can even choose to include additional comments about each family member, such as “Enjoys reading” or “Loves classical music.”

The Georgia-based company had maintained a positive reputation until 2020, when it was involved in a Georgia Supreme Court case, Norman et al. v. Xytex Corporation et al. The Norman family alleged they used a donation from Xytex to conceive their son, choosing a sperm donor who purportedly held multiple degrees. They later found out that their donor never attended college and had schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness that could be hereditary. This case is one of a few controversies involving Xytex Cryo International.

Fairfax Cryobank makes donor screening a priority with stellar donor criteria, substantial genetic and psychological testing, education reviews, and ongoing physical and infectious disease testing updates years after insemination.

Fairfax Cryobank was founded in 1986 by Joseph D. Schulman, MD, in an effort to bring “human touch” to the process of sperm donations. The Virginia-based company’s mission is to provide customers with empathetic and knowledgeable customer service and care. In 2002, the company acquired the first commercial sperm bank in the U.S., Cryogenic Laboratories, Inc. In 2016, the LGBTQ+-founded Pacific Reproductive Services joined as a partner company. Today, Fairfax Cryobank has grown to provide sperm donations to all 50 states as well as internationally. In addition to sperm donation and storage, Fairfax Cryobank offers genetic services, at-home insemination, and gender-affirming hormone therapy. 

Fairfax Cryobank states that its criteria for sperm donors “far exceed[s] that required by the FDA.” The company offers chromosome testing on every donor, genetic screening tests, extensive health screening, educational transcript reviews, psychological evaluations, and ongoing physical and infectious disease testing while donors are available. Sperm donation recipients can access sperm donor medical updates if additional information becomes available on their donor.

While the company lists its family unit limits as 25 within the U.S. and 15 internationally, it allows same-donor siblings to be born to families even if the limit has been reached.

Another unique feature of Fairfax Cryobank is the Fairfax FaceMatch. The technology involves the ability to choose a sperm donor based on who they look alike. Prospective parents can submit photos of their family, friends, or celebrities in order to receive a list of matches. This program is more advanced than California Cryobank’s Donor Look-a-Likes because users can submit their own photos instead of relying solely on publicly available pictures.

That being said, in comparison to its competitors, the sperm bank’s website is crowded with left-hand sidebars and a footer that is hard to read. Fairfax Cryobank also has some poor customer reviews regarding its consent form for the at-home insemination process and for its overall customer service.