Choose a surrogacy agency that respects your choices and can explain how you’ll get your own lawyer, receive your payments and find help with the day-to-day demands of the journey.
A higher advertised compensation package can’t tell you who will help when an appointment changes or a payment needs checking. Use the checklist below to compare the same things across two or three agencies, then decide if you’re ready to apply, need a few more answers, or want to pause.
How can I compare agencies fairly?
Start with what would make the journey workable for you: your own lawyer, money you can plan around and help when family plans change. Ask each agency the same questions.1
If you’ve been waiting without updates—or an agency has told you it won’t continue—starting another round of calls can feel exhausting. You can use this checklist to compare your next options at your own pace. If this is your first application, I would start with the questions that matter to your family; you don’t need to learn the whole process before making that call.
Speaking with several agencies gives you more to compare, but means more calls and repeating your story. Starting with a single agency leaves more room for follow-up and may suit you if another round of calls feels exhausting, though you won’t yet know what another agency would offer. You can use the same checklist either way and widen your search if important answers remain missing.
Label your shortlist A, B and C. Fill each blank with the actual contact, arrangement or document you were given; mark unanswered items as “not answered.”
| Question | What you need to know | Where to find it | Agency A | Agency B | Agency C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who is my lawyer? | Your own independent attorney; choice process | Attorney identity and representation terms | |||
| Who clears me medically? | Clinic and evaluator responsibilities; your consent | Screening steps and consent forms | |||
| What say do I have in matching? | Your preferences and time to consider | Matching process and profile-sharing consent | |||
| Who handles money and expenses? | Named administrator; expense approval process | Payment schedule and expense policy | |||
| Who arranges appointments and travel? | Booking, advance-payment and local-monitoring arrangements | Coordinator contact and travel plan | |||
| Who answers after hours? | Routine contact, backup and urgent contact | Contact instructions | |||
| What support can I use? | Counseling, peer and language-help access | Provider, cost and participation terms | |||
| What happens if I pause or leave? | Privacy, exclusivity, costs and records policy | Agency agreement and privacy policy |
Keep important answers with the relevant agreement or policy, so you can compare what was offered with what you’ll be signing. You can enjoy a friendly call and still take time to think through the details.
At LittleBee, we let you choose your own independent attorney or one of the independent attorneys we work with; either way, that attorney represents you.
Check the agency’s legal business identity and established contact details separately from its advertisements. The FTC warns that sponsored search results and displayed phone numbers can be misleading.2
For any claimed credential or membership, identify the issuer, check its current listing and ask what it actually covers. Membership, an award and a professional license mean different things. Reviews can suggest questions about communication or support; they won’t tell you exactly what help you’ll receive.
Who represents me, and who makes medical decisions?
You should have your own independent attorney, and consent to your medical care remains yours.
ASRM recommends separate legal counsel for the carrier and intended parents before they enter a gestational-carrier agreement, with counsel licensed in the relevant state. That is professional guidance; the applicable legal requirements depend on the state.3
An agency’s legal team isn’t automatically your lawyer. Ask who would represent you if your preferences differed from the agency’s or intended parents’ wishes. The answer should identify an attorney whose client is you, explain how you can contact them privately and say how their fees are handled. A referral from the agency doesn’t answer the independence question by itself. Using an agency’s referral gives you a starting list, but you still need to check that the attorney represents you and can speak with you privately. Finding your own gives you more say over whom you approach, with the extra work of checking relevant experience, state licensing and fees. If you already know a suitable attorney, that can be a comfortable starting point; if you don’t, a referral can help you begin the search.
Bring that attorney questions about the agreement’s practical effect on your family: work restrictions, travel, medical decisions and what happens if plans change. You need a chance to understand the arrangement before deciding to sign, including the agency’s own service agreement if one applies to you.
Medical consent is a different responsibility. ASRM identifies the gestational carrier as the person who consents to her medical care, from transfer through pregnancy, delivery and aftercare.4
If you’re told you’ve been accepted, you need to know how far along you actually are. Initial recruitment screening, the clinic’s medical evaluation and the psychological evaluation are different steps. “You’re accepted” needs context: does that mean an initial application was accepted, or have the required professional evaluations been completed? Ask what remains, who explains the findings and who tells you the next step if an evaluator cannot clear you.
Your coordinator can arrange appointments and pass along confirmed instructions; clinical questions and treatment decisions belong with your medical team. Ask how the agency will help you reach that team if you’re worried, rather than treating a coordinator’s reassurance as medical advice.
How will my money and necessary expenses be handled?
Your payments commonly come through escrow; you should also know who helps when an expense needs sorting out.
You need the name of the person or company handling those funds, its relationship to the agency and a way to reach it. Ask who sends the money and who will follow up if you’re still waiting. Our surrogacy escrow guide explains the account’s operation in more detail.
Work through an ordinary expense before considering an attractive total package. If the clinic requires an overnight visit, who books the hotel and transportation? Does a vendor receive payment directly, or do you pay first and submit receipts? If an expense needs approval beforehand, who gives it? These answers show whether you can manage the trip without stretching your household budget.
We coordinate reasonable expenses at LittleBee under your agreement, with receipts and reimbursement through escrow; necessary expenses aren’t yours to bear. Also ask each agency what insurance arrangements will apply to your journey.
For each agency, find out which costs are covered, whether you can afford anything you’re asked to pay first and how to get help if a request gets stuck. Those answers matter when you still have groceries, rent and your children’s needs to pay for.
If more information is needed before a payment can be sent, find out who tells you and helps you supply it. You shouldn’t have to keep retelling the same problem to a new person.
For the details, see our guides to surrogate compensation and expenses and when surrogate payments arrive. Here, the comparison is whether each agency can explain the people and steps behind the offer.
Who will help with appointments, travel and urgent questions?
Agencies commonly assign a coordinator or case manager to help with the practical arrangements. You also need someone you can reach when that person is away.
A name helps, but knowing what that person does is more useful. Ask whether they arrange appointments, help resolve scheduling conflicts, organize travel and follow up on expense requests. If another team handles one of those tasks, put that contact in your comparison table too.
Try a situation you could actually face: your clinic moves an appointment to a day when you work and your usual childcare isn’t available. Who helps you find an alternative time, checks the travel plan and sorts out the related expense request? Ask who would help you work through that situation, rather than stopping at “someone will take care of you.”
For local monitoring, ask which locations the treating clinic can approve, what tests they can perform and who sends the results. For trips away from home, establish who books, who pays in advance, whether a companion is included and whom you contact if a booking changes. The answers need to fit your job and family commitments, not just the clinic calendar.
If another call has left you unsure whom you could actually turn to, Marisol’s experience shows what to ask next. Marisol felt cautious after a conversation with another agency left her with vague answers about money, her lawyer and support after delivery. She took time to speak with our coordinator, review the program materials and ask follow-up questions, including questions for her clinic and independent attorney. By the time she chose to move forward, she knew who was responsible for each part of her journey. Her concern wasn’t getting the biggest package; it was knowing whom she could turn to. For your own shortlist, I would use those names to work out whom you could turn to when plans change at home.
When the treating IVF clinic agrees to monitoring near your home, we help arrange it at LittleBee, with a colleague accompanying you. We also have an on-call coordinator for nights and urgent situations.
For every agency on your shortlist, put the usual contact, their backup and the after-hours contact in your table. Ask whether “available” means answering directly or returning a message, and which questions they can handle. After-hours coordination and clinical emergency instructions serve different needs; save both sets of contacts.
What emotional and language support can I use?
Agencies often offer counseling or peer support. What matters day to day is being able to use it when you need it, with language help for the conversations you find difficult.
A psychological evaluation and ongoing support have different purposes. Ask whether you can request counseling during a difficult stretch, how it’s arranged, who provides it and who covers the cost. ASRM recommends access to counseling during and after participation, with its terms, limits and cost responsibilities defined in the agreement.4
Peer groups can give you space to talk with people familiar with the experience. They aren’t the same service as counseling with a qualified professional. Ask whether participation is optional, who runs the group, whether sessions are recorded and what privacy expectations apply. If you’d rather skip group meetings, ask how else you can get support and stay in touch with your coordinator.
If you’d like to talk with other surrogates, we offer a voluntary, confidential, unrecorded peer group at LittleBee. We can also refer you to a qualified mental-health professional without you paying the counseling cost yourself. Whether to share what you discussed is your choice. When needed for matching conversations, we also arrange Chinese–English interpreting and send a bilingual summary afterward.
An agency saying it is “bilingual” still leaves questions. Which conversations can someone interpret? Can you ask questions in your preferred language? Who helps you check that a summary reflects what was discussed? Interpreting a matching conversation doesn’t tell you what language help your clinic or attorney provides. Ask each provider how you’ll be able to discuss questions comfortably.
Finally, ask how support continues after delivery or if the journey doesn’t result in a pregnancy. Identify the contact and any limits on access, duration or cost. An answer about support during pregnancy doesn’t yet tell you what happens afterward, when you’re back at home with your own family.
What say do I have in matching, privacy and leaving the agency?
You have a say in matching and sharing your information. Before you join, find out how you can pause or leave and what that would involve.
Ask how an agency learns what matters to you in a match, what information you receive about intended parents and how much opportunity you have to consider a proposed match. You should know what happens if you have questions or don’t want to proceed. I wouldn’t treat needing more time—or deciding a proposed match isn’t right—as a failure. For the conversation with intended parents themselves, use our questions to ask intended parents guide.
Review privacy in practical terms: who receives your profile, who can access medical records and which permissions cover photos or marketing stories. HHS explains that HIPAA applies to covered entities and business associates; an organization meeting neither definition is not subject to those rules. An agency handling health information isn’t automatically covered.5
SEEDS member standards call for service agreements to explain services, cancellation policies and record retention, and to provide an opportunity for independent legal review. Their accompanying guideline discourages pressuring a participant to sign without that opportunity. These are member standards and guidance, rather than national licensing rules.6
Before changing agencies, find out whether an existing agreement has an exclusivity term, how you give notice, how already-incurred costs are handled and how records can reach another provider. A reassuring promise that you can “leave whenever” leaves those practical questions unanswered.
Now use your completed table to make one of three decisions:
- Apply: The agency identifies your independent lawyer, payment administrator and support contacts; its arrangements fit your household, and you understand the commitments you’re making. Personal warmth can help you choose among agencies that meet those needs.
- Ask a few more questions: A small number of practical details are missing, such as the backup contact or travel-booking process. Send those specific questions to the person who handles them and complete the relevant table cells before choosing.
- Pause: Your representation, medical consent, fund administration or agreement terms remain unclear, or you’re being pushed to sign before you can understand them and obtain independent advice. A compensation headline doesn’t settle those concerns.
The aim is an agency you can work with comfortably, where you know what you’ve agreed to and whom to contact when you need help. An agency can help with coordination, while going independently leaves more of those arrangements for you to organize; weigh the help you want against the work you are comfortable taking on in our agency and independent paths guide.
About this guide
I’m Vivi, a client manager at LittleBee. I’ve worked in surrogacy for 13 years and have helped more than 720 families. I help surrogate applicants understand the early application steps and find the right people for their questions. I used professional guidance and public service information for this checklist, alongside our confirmed services. Marisol’s story comes from our earlier article. Reviewed October 9, 2026.
If LittleBee is on your shortlist, start your LittleBee surrogate application. Tell us your state, pregnancy history and the questions you still have. I’ll review that information with our team and help you understand the application steps and whom to contact for the details you need. Browse more For Surrogates guides for other application questions.
References
- Beyond Standards and Toward Accountability in Surrogacy Practice — iflg.net, accessed 2026-10-09
- Online search results: The good, the bad, and the scammy — consumer.ftc.gov, accessed 2026-10-09
- Recommendations for practices using gestational carriers: a committee opinion (2022) — asrm.org, accessed 2026-10-09
- Consideration of the gestational carrier: an Ethics Committee opinion (2023) — asrm.org, accessed 2026-10-09
- Covered Entities and Business Associates — hhs.gov, accessed 2026-10-09
- Standards of Ethical Conduct for SEEDS Member Agencies — seedsethics.org, accessed 2026-10-09