How Much Does IVF Cost in 2024?

• In the news: IVF treatments have been paused by about half of Alabama’s IVF clinics, after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF should be considered children. After the Feb. 16 ruling, clinics expressed concern over legal or criminal consequences for accidentally damaging embryos or discarding them.

• Potential ramifications of the ruling are still murky, but state legislatures recently proposed a bill to protect IVF providers from civil or criminal action in these instances.

Updated on February 29, 2024 with the most recent information and statistics.

On average, a single cycle of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, can cost more than $20,000 when including the costs of treatment and medication, according to FertilityIQ, a health care education platform. Some states require insurers to cover fertility treatments, including IVF, but most people pay large sums out of pocket.

What is IVF?

IVF is a process by which a human egg is fertilized outside the body and developed into an embryo before being transferred into a person’s uterus. The process involves medically induced ovulation, egg and sperm retrieval, fertilization and embryo transfer. IVF success rates vary depending on a number of factors, including age and health.

As a type of assisted reproductive technology, IVF can help infertile couples, same-sex couples or single people have children. IVF isn’t always necessary to treat infertility — most cases can be treated with medication or surgery, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

In 2020, almost 80,000 babies that were conceived using IVF or similar technology were born, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks IVF success rates.

How much is in vitro fertilization?

While the average cost of in vitro fertilization can exceed $20,000, according to FertilityIQ, the exact price depends on each patient’s circumstances, including whether they have insurance coverage. Requiring donor eggs or sperm, or using a surrogate or gestational carrier, makes the process much more expensive.

A review of fee charts on several fertility clinic websites shows an IVF cycle generally involves paying a base fee plus additional fees for other services. Those services might include consultations, tests, medications and other procedures that occur throughout the process.

It can take multiple IVF cycles to successfully deliver a baby, which means the total amount you pay can multiply quickly.

For the most accurate estimate, review and compare prices at individual facilities. Many facilities include price information on their websites.

If you're wondering how to pay for IVF, there are financing options. Consider loans, including those facilitated between a lender and hospital, as well as more traditional loans. For those who qualify, there are also IVF grants offered through foundations, organizations and some treatment centers.

Is IVF covered by health insurance?

In most cases, IVF is not covered by insurance. It’s estimated that as many as 70% of U.S. patients don’t have their IVF treatments covered and have to pay out of pocket, according to IVF Options, a fertility clinic database and website.

Whether you have health insurance coverage for fertility treatments, including IVF, depends on where you live and your insurance plan. Lower-priced services, like testing, are more likely to be covered than more expensive services like IVF, according to a 2020 review of fertility services coverage and use in the United States by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Twenty states have laws mandating that fertility treatments be covered — sometimes fully, sometimes partially — by insurance, according to The National Infertility Association. Fourteen of those states require coverage of IVF treatments. 

Even in states where insurance coverage is mandated, restrictions might force patients to pay for fertility services or possibly birth control out of pocket. Some employers are exempt from state mandates based on their size or if they’re self-funded. It’s also common for states to limit eligibility for treatment, requiring couples to have a diagnosis of infertility or set caps that allow insurance companies to quit covering costs after a certain threshold.

Could state abortion bans impact IVF?

So far, it doesn’t appear that state abortion bans affect procedures like IVF in those states. But in Alabama, a recent ruling from the state’s supreme court declared that frozen embryos created through IVF should be considered children. Since then, several IVF clinics have paused services, and the ramifications of the ruling are still unclear.

Overall, reproductive health professionals and advocates remain concerned that current or future state laws could place restrictions on assisted reproductive technology because it involves human embryos.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine analyzed 13 state laws that triggered abortion bans once Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ASRM found that the potential impact of state laws on procedures like IVF depends on how terms like “embryo,” “unborn child” or “fertilization” are defined.

Most of the state laws analyzed specifically refer to the treatment of embryos inside a pregnant person. However, Utah’s law is written broadly enough that it could apply to embryos created in a lab setting. IVF often leads to the creation of multiple embryos, some of which are not transferred into a patient’s uterus. Some of the remaining embryos are discarded or donated for research.

“One could argue that discarding an embryo or donating an embryo for research use is an intentional or attempted killing of a live unborn child and constitutes an abortion under [Utah’s] definition,” the report states.

The report also states that while abortion laws may not impact IVF yet, they open the door for additional legislation that could have a more direct effect.