The Best Questions to Ask Before Choosing an Egg Freezing Clinic in Ontario
Key Takeaways
- Eggs needed scales sharply with age. Roughly 10 eggs gets a 60 to 70% live birth chance under 35, but the same 10 eggs is closer to 30% by 40.
- A quoted “cycle fee” is rarely the total cost. Medications, storage, and the future thaw are billed separately and add up fast.
- Canada sets no legal limit on how long eggs can stay in storage. Terms come from your clinic’s consent agreement, not the law.
- Canadian clinics aren’t required to publish success rates the way US clinics report to SART. Ask for the clinic’s actual numbers before you commit.
- Vitrification, not older slow-freezing, is now the standard technique, and it’s tied to oocyte survival rates above 90% after thaw.
Egg freezing outcomes come down to age, ovarian reserve, and the specifics of how a clinic prices, freezes, and stores your eggs. A short list of questions, asked at your first consultation, tells you more about your actual odds than any clinic’s marketing page.
This guide covers six things worth asking before you commit. Bring them to your first consultation, whichever clinic you’re considering.
Markham Fertility Centre, based in the Greater Toronto Area, publishes Ontario-specific pricing for all of it and freezes eggs on-site using vitrification and has cycle monitoring facilities across five Ontario locations.
How many eggs you actually need, by age
This is the question most patients skip, and it’s the one that matters most. A clinic can’t promise a number, but it can give you a realistic range based on your own testing, not a generic answer.
Ask: based on my AMH and antral follicle count, how many eggs should I aim to freeze, and how many cycles might that take?
Two tests give a clinic enough information to estimate this before you start:
- AMH (anti-Müllerian hormone): a blood test that estimates ovarian reserve
- Antral follicle count (AFC): a vaginal ultrasound that counts visible follicles
A clinical study following more than 500 IVF cycles at Brigham and Women’s Hospital found a clear relationship between age, number of eggs frozen, and live birth odds:
| Age at freezing | Eggs frozen | Estimated chance of at least one live birth |
| Under 35 | 10 | 60 to 70% |
| Under 35 | 20 | About 90% |
| 37 | 10 | About 50% |
| 37 | 20 | About 75% |
| 40 | 10 | About 30% |
| 40 | 20 | About 50% |
These are population-level estimates, not a guarantee for any individual. But they’re a useful baseline for a conversation with your doctor about whether one cycle will likely be enough, or whether you should plan for two.
What’s in the quoted price, and what isn’t
An egg freezing quote rarely means “this is the total cost.” It usually means “this is the fee for the retrieval cycle.” Everything else gets itemized separately, and clinics vary in how clearly they lay that out upfront.
Ask for a full written breakdown covering these categories, not just the headline cycle fee.
| Cost category | What it typically covers |
| Cycle fee | Monitoring, egg retrieval, vitrification |
| Medications | Injectable hormones for ovarian stimulation |
| Baseline testing | AMH, bloodwork, ultrasounds |
| Storage | Annual or monthly fee to keep eggs frozen |
| Future thaw and fertilization | Not charged until you use the eggs |
| Additional cycles | Often discounted from the first cycle’s price |
In Canada, total costs across a single cycle typically range from about $7,000 to $15,000, with medications alone running $2,000 to $7,000 and annual storage in the $300 to $950 range.1 Get the exact numbers in writing before you start, not verbally at a consultation.
How egg storage works, and what happens if you switch clinics
This is where many assumptions go untested. There’s no federal rule in Canada that sets a maximum storage period for frozen eggs.2 Storage length, renewal, and disposition are governed by the consent agreement you sign with your specific clinic, not by a national standard.
Ask: what does my storage agreement say about duration, renewal, and what happens if I stop paying or don’t respond to a renewal notice?
If you move, or simply want to switch clinics, your eggs don’t have to stay put. Transferring frozen eggs between clinics is a standard, well-established process in the fertility industry. It works roughly like this:
- You notify your current clinic and your new clinic of the transfer
- Your current clinic prepares release paperwork for you to sign
- A specialized cryogenic shipping service transports the eggs in temperature-controlled containers, sometimes for days at a time
- Your new clinic confirms receipt and storage
Ask: what’s your process and fee for releasing eggs to another clinic, and roughly how long does it take?
Why the freezing method matters
Not all freezing techniques produce the same result. Older slow-freezing methods have largely been replaced by vitrification, an ultra-rapid freezing process that cools eggs fast enough to prevent damaging ice crystals from forming inside the cell.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s 2021 committee opinion on the technique reports oocyte survival rates above 90% with rapid-cooling vitrification.3 It was partly on the strength of this data that the ASRM removed the “experimental” label from egg freezing back in 2013.
Ask: does your lab use vitrification, and what’s your oocyte survival rate after warming?
A provider that can answer this specifically, rather than in general terms, is one that tracks its own lab performance.
What the thaw and a future IVF cycle actually involve
Freezing is only the first half of treatment. When you’re ready to use your eggs, they go through IVF: thawed, fertilized (typically with ICSI, since a single sperm is injected directly into each mature egg), cultured for several days, and transferred as an embryo.
Ask: what does the future thaw-fertilize-transfer step cost today, and is that number likely to change by the time I use my eggs?
This step isn’t guaranteed to work the first time. Depending on how many eggs survive the thaw and fertilize successfully, you may have more than one embryo transfer attempt from a single freezing cycle, or you may need eggs from a second cycle.
Ask: if the first transfer doesn’t result in pregnancy, what are my options, and what do they cost?
What to verify about the retrieval procedure and the lab
The egg retrieval itself is a short procedure, typically 20 to 25 minutes, done under sedation. But the details of how it’s handled vary between practices.
Ask these three questions directly:
- What type of sedation or anesthesia is used, and is an anesthesiologist present?
- How many monitoring visits will I need during the 10 to 12 day stimulation phase?
- Is the lab accredited, and by whom?
Canada doesn’t currently require fertility clinics to publish standardized success data the way the US requires reporting to SART. Clinics report to the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) on a voluntary basis, and there’s no consistent public standard for how “success” gets defined, clinical pregnancy and live birth aren’t the same thing, and some clinics report one without clarifying which.4
Ask: can you show me your own clinic’s data, and are you reporting clinical pregnancy rates or live birth rates?
A clinic that answers this clearly, with a specific number and a specific definition, is giving you something more useful than general reassurance.
Why Patients Choose Markham Fertility Centre
- Testing before you commit: AMH and antral follicle count assessment is part of the initial consultation, so you get a personalized estimate before starting a cycle
- Published, itemized pricing: an egg freezing cycle is $8,500, with subsequent cycles offered at $7,900. Medications run $3,000 to $5,000, the AMH test is $105, and storage is billed at $50/month or $550/year starting three months after retrieval
- Vitrification on-site: eggs are frozen the same day as retrieval by MFC’s in-house embryology team
- Anesthesiologist present at every retrieval: MFC is the only clinic offering deep sedation during egg retrieval, at no extra cost
- Transparent future costs: thawing, fertilizing, and transferring eggs is currently priced at $7,800, with additional frozen embryo transfers at $2,500
- Five locations: Markham, Barrie-Innisfil, Oshawa, Orillia, and Sudbury
- Ontario Fertility Program participant, with funding available for fertility preservation cycles where medically eligible
Book a consultation at Markham Fertility Centre →
FAQ
How many eggs should I freeze if I’m under 35?
Research suggests freezing about 10 eggs gives you roughly a 60 to 70% chance of at least one live birth later, rising to about 90% with 20 eggs. Your own AMH and antral follicle count will refine this estimate for your specific situation.
Does the quoted cycle fee include medications?
Usually not. Medications for ovarian stimulation are typically billed separately and can range from $2,000 to $7,000 depending on your treatment protocol and how your ovaries respond.
Is there a legal limit on how long eggs can be stored in Canada?
No. There’s no federal law capping storage duration. Storage length and renewal terms are set by the individual clinic’s consent agreement, which is why it’s worth asking directly rather than assuming a standard applies.
Why does the freezing method matter?
Vitrification, the current standard technique, produces oocyte survival rates above 90% after warming, according to ASRM’s 2021 committee opinion. Older slow-freezing methods have largely been phased out because of lower survival rates.
Are Canadian fertility clinics required to publish their success rates?
No. Unlike the US, where clinics report to SART under a standardized format, Canadian clinics report to CFAS voluntarily, and there’s no requirement to publish clinic-specific data publicly. It’s worth asking a clinic directly for their numbers and how they define success.
Sources
- American Society for Reproductive Medicine, “A review of best practices of rapid-cooling vitrification for oocytes and embryos: a committee opinion” (2021) —
- Investigative Journalism Bureau (University of Toronto), “Seven ways to make the egg-freezing industry better for women” —
- Government of Canada, Assisted Human Reproduction
- Government of Canada, Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations (SOR/2019-192)
- Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS), Patient Resources
- Freeze, Canada egg freezing cost guide
- Law, Yin Jun et al., “The number of oocytes associated with maximum cumulative live birth rates per aspiration depends on female age: a population study of 221,221 treatment cycles,” Human Reproduction (2019)
Footnotes
- Freeze.health, Canada cost guide. ↩
- Government of Canada, Assisted Human Reproduction Act and Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations. The 10-year record-keeping requirement in the Safety of Sperm and Ova Regulations (s.91) applies to establishment record-keeping after distribution or disposition, not to a cap on storage duration itself. ↩
- ASRM Practice Committee, 2021 committee opinion on rapid-cooling vitrification. ↩
- Investigative Journalism Bureau, University of Toronto. ↩