IVF Refund Programs: Every US Clinic That Offers One (2026)

Every IVF refund, shared-risk and money-back program posted by a US fertility clinic, read on each clinic's own website on October 6, 2026.

An IVF refund program is insurance sold by your clinic: you pay more up front, and you get some or all of it back if treatment ends without a baby. We checked the website of every one of the 452 US fertility clinic locations that report to the CDC, and read every refund, shared-risk, guarantee and multi-cycle offer on the clinic's own pages. 128 locations (28.3%) offer a program that pays money back when treatment fails, 123 of them for IVF. Only 20 post the price of the IVF program, and no two programs share the same terms: how many cycles you get, how much comes back, what counts as success and who is allowed to enroll all vary.

That is why this page lists every program with its own terms instead of an average. The question a refund program answers is not "what does IVF cost" but "what if it takes three tries, or never works", and the answer depends on your age, your clinic's success rates and the fine print. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), which has published an ethics opinion on these programs since 1998, puts the trade plainly: patients who succeed early "will often end up paying more for IVF treatment than when they had not chosen" the program, and "in effect, the higher initial fee to enter a financial risk-sharing program subsidizes the refunds for patients who are unsuccessful."

Key findings

• 128 of 452 clinic locations (28.3%) offer a program that returns money if treatment fails: 119 for IVF with your own eggs, 4 for donor-egg IVF only and 5 for egg freezing only. Another 19 name a refund program without posting any of its terms, 15 offer guarantees that refund only unused cycles or give extra cycles free, and 36 sell multi-cycle packages with no refund. 240 (53.1%) offer none of these; 14 websites could not be read.
• Big clinics offer them, small ones rarely do. Among the largest quarter of clinics (1,130 or more treatment cycles a year in CDC data), 51.3% offer a money-back program, against 15.9% of the smallest quarter. 47 of the 54 locations of the ten large networks in our data do, against 81 of 398 other clinics.
• Half are run by a third party. 66 locations run their own program; 62 offer only another company's: Sunfish at 31 locations, BUNDL at 14 and Fertility Access at 9.
• Prices are rarely posted. 20 locations post the price of an own-egg program. Where the program covers more than one cycle, posted prices run from $16,000 to $39,900 before medications, and 11 of 16 fall between $20,000 and $27,810.
• "100% refund" is common, not universal. Of 36 distinct clinic-run programs, 16 promise a full refund, 13 return 50% to 90%, and 7 do not say how much.
• Medications are excluded. 20 of the 36 programs exclude them in writing, none includes them, and 16 do not say.
• Most patients who succeed need fewer cycles than they prepay. In national data for 2023, patients under 35 who had a baby needed 1.23 egg retrievals on average (SART), while a typical program prepays three to six.

Contents

1. What an IVF refund program is
2. How many clinics offer one
3. What refund programs cost
4. How much comes back, and when
5. Who qualifies
6. Programs run by other companies
7. Does a refund program pay off?
8. Questions to ask before you sign
9. Every clinic that offers a refund program or package, by state
10. How we checked

1. What an IVF refund program is

Clinics call these offers shared risk, IVF guarantee, money-back guarantee, success or refund or outcome-based pricing. ASRM's ethics committee describes the common structure: patients "pay a higher initial fee for a package of multiple cycles that is discounted over the per-cycle fee, and patients may receive a partial or complete refund when they do not become pregnant or deliver an infant." When treatment works, "the provider keeps the entire fee" (ASRM Ethics Committee, Fertility and Sterility 2024).

On clinic websites, that one idea comes in five different shapes, and the name on the page rarely tells you which one you are buying:

Egg freezing has its own version. Spring Fertility's Spring Promise covers patients who freeze 20 eggs before age 35, or 30 before 38: "if you're unable to achieve a successful pregnancy from those eggs in the future, we will refund all money paid to Spring for your egg freezing cycle."

One thing a refund program is not: a cancellation refund. Many clinic price lists return part of the fee when a cycle stops early. Aurora Health Care, for example, refunds $8,750 of a single-cycle package if the cycle is canceled before egg retrieval. That is a refund for services not performed, and we did not count it. We also did not count loans, payment plans, price-match promises or medication discounts, even when a page calls them "guarantees".

Why this matters: two programs with the same name can differ by tens of thousands of dollars in what you get back. How to apply this: before comparing prices, find out which of these five shapes you are being offered, then read the refund condition word for word.

2. How many clinics offer one

We read the website of every US clinic location in the CDC's IVF success-rate data, the same 452 locations behind our census of clinic IVF prices and our census of egg freezing prices. A program counts when the clinic's current website offers it, or when the company that runs it names the clinic on its own site.

About one clinic in four offers money back, and about four in ten offer some kind of multi-cycle plan. Adding the programs named without terms and the weaker guarantees, 162 locations (35.8%) offer some form of refund or guarantee, and 198 (43.8%) offer something other than paying cycle by cycle. The other 240 sell IVF one cycle at a time, at least on their websites.

The biggest divide is size. The CDC's clinic data counts how many treatment cycles each clinic performs a year, and the share offering a money-back program climbs steeply with it:

The pattern makes sense once you see how these programs work. A clinic that refunds fees is pooling risk across many patients, and ASRM notes that the higher fee paid by every participant is what funds the refunds of the few who are unsuccessful. That only works with enough patients in the pool, which is why national networks dominate: all 15 Kindbody locations, all 9 Shady Grove Fertility locations and 7 of 8 CCRM clinics in our data offer one. Across the ten networks we track, 47 of 54 locations do, against 81 of 398 other clinics (20.4%).

Location matters less than you might expect. Clinics in 31 states and DC offer at least one money-back program, including 22 of 85 clinic locations in California, 12 of 44 in New York, 11 of 44 in Texas, 7 of 11 in Virginia, 6 of 11 in North Carolina and 4 of 5 in Minnesota. A state's insurance mandate does not stop clinics from offering them, though ASRM notes that these programs mostly appeal to, and are most often only available to, people paying for IVF themselves. If your plan covers IVF, a refund program may require you to give that coverage up: the RMA Network says patients in its CareShare program "will be required to waive insurance coverage for any service(s) provided as part of the CareShare package" (RMA Network).

Why this matters: if your clinic does not offer a refund program, the nearest one that does may be in a larger practice or network. How to apply this: check the state tables in section 9, and remember that a program offered by a network may not be offered at every one of its locations. CCRM, for example, lists eight participating locations for its Assure refund program (CCRM).

3. What refund programs cost

Only 20 of the 119 locations with an own-egg refund program post its price. Most say the price depends on age, diagnosis and treatment plan and is quoted after a consultation. Shady Grove Fertility, which offers its Shared Risk 100% Refund Program at every location, says pricing is "dependent on age and services."

These are the 16 own-egg programs covering more than one cycle whose price is posted on the clinic's own page, listed by state. Each covers different services, so compare the terms, not the amounts:

Two clinics also post single-cycle prices with stage refunds. Labryo's $13,500 Performance Value Package returns 95% if no viable egg is retrieved, 50% if no blastocyst develops and 25% if no chromosomally normal embryo results. Washington Fertility Center offers one cycle for $9,985 "for a limited time", with $5,000 back if the retrieval is canceled for a poor response, $2,000 if no eggs are found and $1,000 if no usable embryo results.

What the price leaves out matters as much as the price. ASRM notes that "pretreatment screening and the cost of medication, both of which can be considerable, are ordinarily not included in these plans." In our census, 20 of the 36 distinct clinic-run programs exclude medications in writing and none includes them. Atlantic Fertility's own estimate for IVF medications is $2,000 to $6,000 per cycle, so a three-cycle program can carry several thousand dollars of drug costs outside the guarantee, and those are not refunded. Our guide to IVF medication costs after TrumpRx shows the lowest cash prices for each drug. Genetic testing of embryos (PGT-A), anesthesia and ICSI are also often extra, as the Virginia Fertility & IVF and Valley Hospital terms above show.

Why this matters: the program fee is the refundable part; the costs around it are not. How to apply this: add the medications for every cycle the program covers, plus any excluded procedures, to the program price before comparing it with paying per cycle.

4. How much comes back, and when

A full refund is the most common promise, but far from the only one. Among the 36 distinct programs clinics run themselves:

Some clinics let you choose: the North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine sells a 50% plan from $18,280 and an 80% plan from $23,815, and Poma Fertility sets a refund level between 30% and 90% "based on your past medical history and diagnostic test results."

The definition of success decides when you lose the refund. Of the 36 clinic-run programs, 20 refund only if there is no live birth, 6 use an ongoing pregnancy, 3 a pregnancy, 1 a delivery, and 4 do not say. The difference is not academic. Under a program that ends at an ongoing pregnancy, a later miscarriage can end the program with no refund and no more cycles; Valley Hospital, by contrast, counts success only as an infant surviving to one month, and its diagram sends a patient whose pregnancy is lost back for another cycle. ASRM's first condition for an ethical program is that "the criterion of success is clearly specified in advance of enrollment."

Most programs also run on a clock. The North Carolina Center for Reproductive Medicine and the Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine require all cycles within 18 months, Aurora within 12 months, and Fertility Access says "we ask that the program be completed within 36 months" (Fertility Access). Cycles not used before the deadline are usually forfeited, so a pause for health, work or a move can cost you the guarantee.

Leaving early can cost you, or not. Shady Grove Fertility's Shared Risk program refunds 100% of the deposit "in the event the attempts are unsuccessful, or the patient chooses to withdraw at any time" (Shady Grove Fertility). Many other programs pay only after every included cycle and transfer is used. Ask, in writing, what you get back if you stop after one or two cycles.

Why this matters: "100% refund" is only as good as its definition of success and its exit terms. How to apply this: ask the clinic to show you, in the contract, the event that ends the program without a refund, the deadline, and the refund if you withdraw.

5. Who qualifies

Refund programs choose their patients. A clinic that refunds failures has every reason to enroll people likely to succeed, and the posted rules show it. Of the 36 distinct clinic-run programs, 15 post an upper age limit: 34 at the lowest, 40 at the highest, most often 37 to 39. Many also screen on ovarian reserve, weight, prior failed cycles, smoking and sperm quality. CCRM's Assure program lists "Normal sperm parameters (count >20 million)" and "Must be a nonsmoker" among its criteria; Fertility Center in Chattanooga requires "being a non-smoker of age 39 or younger" and uses the Univfy PreIVF Report, a prediction model, to decide who qualifies; Donor Egg Bank USA requires "a BMI under 40" and a uterine lining of at least 8 mm for its guarantee.

The result is that most people in these programs succeed. In the only US program whose outcomes we found in a peer-reviewed journal, a Minnesota clinic's first 100 risk-sharing patients, all under 35 and "considered to be good autologous oocyte IVF candidates," 82 delivered a healthy baby, 6 had ongoing pregnancies, and 9 finished without success (Stassart and others, Fertility and Sterility 2011). A national survey of fertility specialists found that in programs offering a refund, "58% offered a refund to less than 5% of patients, whereas only 6% offered a refund to more than 25% of their patients" (McLaughlin and others, Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics 2019).

ASRM does not ask clinics to stop screening, but it does ask them to tell patients where they stand: patients who qualify "should be informed by the program whether they are otherwise good candidates for successful IVF treatment outcomes, and their individual per-cycle chances of success. This information will help them determine whether the higher costs are worth the guarantee given their level of risk tolerance."

Why this matters: if you qualify easily, the clinic expects you to succeed, which is exactly when a refund program is least likely to pay you back. How to apply this: ask the clinic for your own estimated chance of success per cycle, and for the share of its refund-program patients who received a refund.

6. Programs run by other companies

62 clinic locations offer only a third party's money-back program, and many more offer one alongside their own. These companies set their own terms, usually on their own websites, and most do not publish prices:

Sunfish is the most widely offered, and its refund is the most limited. Its pages for partner clinics describe up to $15,000 back "if a live birth is not achieved within the cost that Sunfish's software predicted," and its main site ties the partial refund to its Gold tier; Boston IVF's Albany center lists a $200 refund for the standard Sunfish program and "TBD" for Gold on its Spring 2025 price sheet. BUNDL (an Inception company) and Fertility Access (run by US Fertility) offer full refunds closer to the classic shared-risk model. ARC's program works in reverse: it refunds the cycles you did not need when you succeed, which protects you from overpaying for a package but not from failure. WINFertility, offered at 7 clinics in our census, sells multi-cycle bundles; its "2nd Chance IVF Refund Program" appears only in blog posts from 2016 and 2017, and its current site posts no refund terms.

Future Family's product is insurance, sold through an insurance agency, and it pays when a claim is filed after two unsuccessful cycles. Columbia Fertility Associates and Extend Fertility describe it on their own pages; Extend calls it "the first-ever nationwide IVF insurance."

Gaia is the hardest to pin down. Clinic pages describe it in different words: Boston IVF's brochure lists a "Baby or No Fee" plan with a "Full refund if unsuccessful," and Life IVF Center says Gaia "refunds a significant portion if treatment does not lead to a baby." Gaia's own US site, read the same day, describes one fixed price with "money towards another cycle" if there is no live birth, and no cash refund. If Gaia is offered to you, ask for the plan's written terms.

Why this matters: a third-party program's refund comes from the company, not the clinic, under the company's contract. How to apply this: read the operator's own terms page and contract, not only the clinic's summary of it.

7. Does a refund program pay off?

For most people who qualify, a refund program costs more than paying per cycle, and that is how it is designed. Donor Egg Bank USA states it plainly about its own plan: "If you choose the Assured Refund Plan and a baby is delivered on the first cycle, it's true that you will have paid approximately twice the amount of a Single Cycle Plan" (Donor Egg Bank USA).

Atlantic Fertility in Raleigh posts all three ways to pay on one page, which makes it a clean example. IVF costs $12,850 to $22,000 per cycle paid one at a time (an estimate without insurance), $24,850 for a two-cycle package with one frozen transfer, or $32,850 for its Live Birth Guarantee: up to two IVF cycles and unlimited frozen transfers, with 50% back if there is no live birth. Medications, which the clinic estimates at $2,000 to $6,000 a cycle, come on top of all three.

The guarantee is the cheapest option in only one outcome: when both cycles fail. In every other case it costs $8,000 more than the package, and up to $20,000 more than a single successful cycle at the low per-cycle estimate. The package and the per-cycle price leave you with nothing back if treatment fails, but they cost less whenever it works. (At the high end of Atlantic's per-cycle estimate, $22,000, paying per cycle costs more than the guarantee after a second cycle, so ask which end of the range applies to you.)

How likely is it that you would need the guarantee? National data gives a starting point. In SART's final figures for 2023, the chance of a live birth from one intended egg retrieval, counting every embryo transfer from it within a year, was:

Source: SART National Summary Report, 2023 (final). SART cautions that its data "should not be used for comparing clinics."

For someone under 35, about half of first retrievals lead to a baby, and patients who succeed need about 1.2 retrievals on average. That is the group most refund programs enroll, and it is the group most likely to pay more than they would have paid per cycle. The programs pay off for the minority who need three or more cycles, or who end treatment without a baby, and they are often closed to the patients over 40 who face those odds most. Our guide to IVF success rates has the CDC's figures by age, and how to read IVF success rates explains what each measure counts.

When a refund program can make sense:

• You expect to need several cycles (for example, a diagnosis that lowers the odds per cycle) but still qualify.
• A failed outcome would leave you unable to afford another path, such as donor eggs, a gestational carrier or adoption. ASRM notes that refund plans "might appeal to patients who would wish to recoup financial resources to attempt other methods of becoming parents."
• You value a known maximum cost more than the lowest expected cost.

When it usually does not:

• You are young with good ovarian reserve and a good chance in one or two cycles.
• Your insurance covers IVF, or you live in a state with an IVF mandate and your plan is fully insured.
• You might stop after one or two cycles anyway, and the program refunds only at the end.

Why this matters: a refund program trades a higher likely cost for a lower worst case. How to apply this: price your own three outcomes, as in the Atlantic Fertility table, with your clinic's per-cycle price, its program price and medications, then decide which risk you would rather carry. The IVF cost calculator estimates the per-cycle side by age.

8. Questions to ask before you sign

ASRM's ethics committee lists the conditions under which it considers these programs fair, and they translate directly into questions. Ask for the answers in writing, and read the contract before you pay:

• What ends the program without a refund? A live birth, a delivery, an ongoing pregnancy at a set week, or a positive test?
• How much comes back, and of what? The whole program fee, part of it, or only the "refundable deposit"? Are medications, anesthesia, genetic testing or storage refunded if you paid for them through the program?
• What is excluded? ASRM asks that "excluded costs, such as screening and medication are clearly delineated."
• How many retrievals and transfers are included, and by when? What happens to unused embryos and cycles at the deadline?
• What if you stop early, or the clinic decides you should not continue? Donor Egg Bank USA reviews each failed cycle before authorizing the next and refunds in full if it does not; ask whether your program does the same.
• What are your own chances? ASRM says patients should be told "their individual per-cycle chances of success."
• How many patients in the program got a refund last year?
• What happens to your insurance? Some programs require you to waive coverage for the services they include.
• Who pays the refund, and when? The clinic, a third party or an insurer, and how many weeks after the program ends?

If the clinic will not answer in writing, a Good Faith Estimate is your right when paying without insurance: an itemized estimate the clinic must give you within three business days of your request. Our guide to paying for IVF covers the other routes, from IVF grants to loans, and our census of the lowest posted IVF prices lists the clinics that post a per-cycle price.

9. Every clinic that offers a refund program or package, by state

These are all 198 clinic locations whose websites offer something other than paying cycle by cycle, by state and city. Within each state, clinics offering money back if treatment fails come first, then those that name a refund program without posting its terms, then other guarantees (unused cycles refunded after a live birth, or free extra cycles), then packages with no refund. Each program links to the page it was read on, on October 6, 2026. A clinic that is not listed offers none of these on its website, or its site could not be read; every clinic's own page on this site says which.

Where a third party runs the program, its name is in brackets, and what comes back follows that company's own terms (see section 6). "Not posted" means the page names no price; the clinic quotes it after a consultation.

Alabama

Arizona

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Virginia

Washington

Wisconsin

10. How we checked

Every number in this guide comes from a census of clinic websites read on October 6, 2026. The population is the 452 US clinic locations in the CDC's IVF success-rate data, the same list behind our census of clinic IVF prices and our census of egg freezing prices.

What counted. A clinic counts as offering a program when its current website describes it, or when the company that runs the program names the clinic on its own site (BUNDL and Sunfish publish clinic-by-clinic pages). We counted five kinds of offer, described in section 1, and recorded each program's price as posted, what it covers, how much comes back and on what condition, its age limit, whether medications are included, and the page it was read on. We did not count cancellation or deposit refunds, loans, payment plans, price-match promises or medication discounts.

How we read the sites. We searched every clinic's own website for refund, shared-risk, guarantee, money-back, package and financing pages, and separately read the clinic's own candidate pages directly: pages listed in its sitemap and pages from our earlier price census. Every program found was then checked against the page it came from: the exact amounts had to appear on the page, and a second reviewer, reading the page itself, confirmed that the clinic offers the program now, at that location, with the recorded terms. The 46 pages that blocked our reader, most of them sites that refuse visitors from outside the US, were read through a US connection, quoting each page word for word.

What we excluded, and why.

• Old documents. A fee schedule or flyer dated 2023 or earlier does not count as a current offer. This removed 16 programs at 11 clinics, including Shady Grove Fertility's July 2022 price guide, which is why its Shared Risk program appears here without a price.
• Network pages that limit locations. CCRM lists the eight locations where its Assure refund program is offered, so its other locations are not counted for it. The RMA Network's CareShare page says "CareShare may not be offered at every RMA practice," so we counted it only where a location's own page names it. Boston IVF offers ARC's programs at its New England centers and Sunfish's at its New York centers, as its financing page says.
• Pages that no longer exist. Six programs whose source pages now answer "not found" or "gone" were dropped.
• Programs we could not verify on the page, or that a page named for a different location.

Limits. A clinic can offer a program it does not describe on its website, and terms change; neither we nor the programs' operators can tell you whether you qualify. Where the clinic and the program's operator describe a program differently (Gaia is the clearest case), we report what the clinic's page says and note the difference. We did not average or rank program prices: programs differ in cycles, refunds, exclusions and eligibility, so an average would describe no real program. We will re-read every source by November 6, 2026, and each clinic's page on this site shows what its website offered on October 6.

The bottom line

An IVF refund program is a bet that treatment will take several tries, priced by a clinic that expects it will not. Most people who qualify would pay less by paying per cycle, because most of them succeed in one or two retrievals; the programs protect the minority who need many cycles or never succeed, and they are often closed to the older patients who face the longest odds.

That can still be a good trade. If a failed outcome would leave you unable to afford donor eggs, a gestational carrier or adoption, a refund that returns most of your money has real value, and ASRM considers these programs ethical when their terms are clear. The protection is only as good as the contract: what counts as success, what is refunded, what is excluded, how long you have and what happens if you stop.

Ask for your own chances of success, price your three outcomes (a baby early, a baby late, no baby) under every way your clinic lets you pay, and add the medications to each. Then choose the risk you would rather carry.

This guide reflects clinic websites, program terms and national data as of October 6, 2026. Terms change and eligibility is set by each clinic or program; nothing here is financial or medical advice. Confirm every term in your contract before you pay.