Introducing: Cost Comparison Tools on Men Having Babies' Surrogacy Advisor Directory

New York, NY, May 03, 2024 --(PR.com)-- Men Having Babies is thrilled to announce the completion of Surrogacy Advisor, an advanced and comprehensive multidisciplinary directory of more than 250 providers with detailed cost estimates, provider comparison tools, and ratings and reviews from thousands of parenting surveys. Surrogacy Advisor is the nonprofit collaboration between Men Having Babies and leading surrogacy professionals (agencies, clinics, law firms, and others) who all share and uphold the highest ethical standards in the field. It provides a free, trusted, user-friendly resource for prospective parents of all backgrounds across the globe who seek to connect with ethical agencies, clinics, and other professionals in the USA and Canada.

It took almost two years of development and data collection to launch the Surrogacy Advisor service, which replaces a directory and ratings tables Men Having Babies (MHB) offered since 2012. To achieve the advanced functionality MHB had in mind, the organization contracted the Florida-based software development company Two Fish. Among the user experience enhancements are a much richer data set, including video clips, on each provider; a side-by-side comparison view; tutorials, and an optional user account that allows prospective parents to submit contact requests with providers in batch mode, save favorites, and submit reviews.

The most unique and advanced new feature of Surrogacy Advisor is the ability to compare providers that offer either surrogacy matching services, fertility services, or egg donor services, based on their potential anticipated cost differences, and across various journey scenarios. “It was obvious in the past few years that we needed to upgrade the functionality and technology behind our old directory tool that was extremely popular for intended parents in search of surrogacy providers,” said Ron Poole-Dayan, Executive Director of Men Having Babies, “and among other things what we wanted to do is to present better, more accurate, more up-to-date cost information to assist intended parents with their research and budgeting of a journey.”

To achieve these goals, MHB assembled a group of leading experts in the field in order to develop a comprehensive, yet flexible, data structure and logic that allows the comparison of attributes and costs, despite the complex nature of the field.

"In order for us to arrive at a comparison tool that is as comprehensive as possible, yet applicable across all providers within each category, we take a two-step approach," said Ron Dizon, MHB's Data & Content Manager. "We first offer a simplified 'apples-to-apples' comparison based on a standardized journey and exclude some cost elements which are not dependent on the providers you choose. We then offer a 'Scenario Modifier' as an online calculator that allows users to go beyond the initial simplified assumptions to see how these costs estimates may change based on their preferences, circumstances and even luck."

For example, the Scenario Modifier calculator allows intended parents to get a better sense of how the cost ranking may change depending on parameters such as attempting a singleton or twins pregnancy, possible additional costs for international parents, and their various trade-off decisions regarding surrogate compensation options. Given that medical outcomes cannot be guaranteed, this costs tool allows users to see potential estimated costs for easy (optimistic), average and difficult medical scenarios.

The fact that Men Having Babies is a nonprofit organization presents both self-imposed constraints and also some advantages, given its large membership and standing in the field. “It is important to emphasize that not all providers are allowed to be included in this directory, there is no inclusion fee, nor can they buy ads or enhanced listings,” explains Poole-Dayan. “Providers are included if they are already part of MHB's educational and financial assistance programs, and they have to attest that they are endorsing and acting upon a set of ethical standards, which are now a lot more robust than the ethical framework we asked providers to endorse previously, and one which we think is going to go a longer way to assure that our community members are working with trusted and ethical providers.”

MHB's wide membership base offers the advantages of peer-based verification options. While the cost estimates tool is based on information provided by the agencies and clinics, the organization invites parents who have worked with these providers to offer feedback in cases where their experiences do not match the numbers submitted by the providers. Additionally, the rating and reviews in the directory are derived from parent surveys that are submitted to MHB and approved by its team, unlike online ratings on platforms such as Yelp!, Google or Facebook.

"The advanced cost comparison and scenario calculation features of Surrogacy Advisor, which encourage transparency and competition, are part of MHB's efforts to make surrogacy parenting more widely affordable," said Poole-Dayan. "Furthermore, the aggregated cost information that MHB gathers on Surrogacy Advisor is used by the organization to update and further develop the budgeting guidance it offers members at MHB's conferences and monthly member budgeting workshops."