Wondering how much surrogates get paid in Philadelphia? You’re in the right place. This isn’t just the base number — it’s the full picture: what the complete package includes, when each payment arrives, and how your money is protected from day one.
Surrogate base compensation at Surrogacy Center of Philadelphia starts at $50,000 for first-time surrogates. Experienced surrogates — women who have completed at least one prior journey — receive $55,000 or more.
Base compensation is paid in equal monthly installments from confirmed pregnancy through delivery. At $50,000 over approximately seven months of confirmed pregnancy, that works out to roughly $7,100 per month deposited directly from escrow into your account.
This is the starting point, not the total. Before compensation begins, surrogates go through a thorough screening process. See our full surrogate requirements for details.
Here is every component Philadelphia-area surrogates in our program receive. You can also view the full breakdown on our surrogate compensation page.
Signing bonus: $500, paid within two weeks of executed contract.
Monthly incidental allowance: $250/month from contract signing through delivery, for small pregnancy-related expenses without requiring receipts.
Medication start fee: $750, paid when injectable medications begin.
Embryo transfer fee: $1,000 per transfer cycle — paid for each attempt, whether or not it results in pregnancy.
Wellness allowance: $250/month at confirmed pregnancy, for prenatal massage, organic food, acupuncture, or anything that supports your wellbeing.
Maternity clothing allowance: $500 at the start of your second trimester.
Invasive procedure fees: $500 per procedure for amniocentesis, cerclage, or other medically indicated procedures.
C-section compensation: $3,000 in addition to base compensation, if applicable.
Multiples fee: $5,000 at confirmation of a multiple pregnancy.
Bedrest coverage: Minimum $400/week for lost wages, plus reimbursement for childcare and housekeeping.
Pumping compensation: $250/week if you choose to pump after delivery, plus full reimbursement for supplies and shipping.
Medical insurance: All premiums and copayments for pregnancy-related care — either through your existing policy or a supplemental policy secured before treatment begins.
Travel coverage: All transportation, hotel, and daily meal allowances for you and a companion for medical appointments and the embryo transfer.
Life insurance: A $500,000 policy secured before any medical treatment begins.
When you add base compensation, allowances, fees, and coverage across a typical journey, total compensation and benefits typically reach $65,000 or more.
All surrogate compensation is managed through Seed Trust, an independent escrow company that specializes in surrogacy. Before any medical treatment begins, the intended parents fund an escrow account covering the full projected compensation package.
Seed Trust releases payments according to the schedule in your legal contract — on specific dates, triggered by specific milestones. Neither the agency nor the intended parents can change that schedule.
Your compensation is secured in escrow before you take your first medication. You are not waiting on someone to cut you a check, and you are not depending on the intended parents’ financial situation remaining stable mid-journey. The money is there, managed by a neutral third party, and it arrives on the schedule you agreed to.
You will find national agencies — most based in California — advertising base compensation significantly higher than ours. $70,000, $80,000, more.
We want to be direct about what those numbers represent. High advertised compensation is a recruiting tool, and it comes at a cost: those numbers pass directly to intended parents, pricing surrogacy out of reach for ordinary Philadelphia-area families.
Surrogacy Center of Philadelphia made a deliberate choice not to participate in that. Our compensation is fair, comprehensive, and honest — structured to recognize the significance of what surrogates give without inflating numbers as a marketing strategy.
The surrogates who have the best experiences in our program are overwhelmingly the ones who chose us for reasons beyond the headline number. That tells us something.
If you want to understand exactly how much you’d get paid as a surrogate in Philadelphia — not a range, but the actual numbers for your situation — that is exactly the kind of conversation we have in an initial consultation with our recruitment and intake manager, Kaci.
Reach out to Kaci Moore, our Recruitment and Intake Manager — or start your application when you’re ready. Not sure if surrogacy is the right fit right now? Take our short quiz to find out.
