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Protect your legacy with world-class sperm freezing

Everyone should have the opportunity to have a family when and how they choose. Sperm freezing preserves your fertility and expands your family-building options.
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Flexible
Choose from affordable annual or long-term sperm storage plans
Private
Freeze your sperm from the comfort of your own home
Cryo storage containers
EASY
A simple mail-in semen collection kit with hassle-free overnight shipping to our lab
Secure
The only sperm freezing service with multi-site storage to mitigate even the most minimal risk

Fertility isn’t eternal.

Freezing your sperm preserves it at its youngest and healthiest state.
  • Age. Sperm count, motility, morphology, and genetic health all decrease naturally as you get older, and especially past age 40. This can make getting pregnant take longer, increase your chances of infertility, and affect the health of your future child. Sperm freezing give you young, healthy sperm to work with if you have kids later in life.

  • Medical treatments, such as cancer treatments, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and testosterone therapy, may all affect fertility. Sperm freezing can provide a "back-up" in case fertility doesn't recover after treatment.

  • Lifestyle habits. Smoking cigarettes, drinking, using recreational drugs, leading a sedentary lifestyle, and eating a less-than-perfect diet can contribute to a decline in sperm health.

  • Exposure to damaging toxins and endocrine disruptors, such as the chemicals found in plastics, pesticides, and particulate matter, can affect sperm quality.

  • Injury or illness. Injury to the reproductive system or even viral illness can temporarily — or in the worst cases, permanently — impair fertility. Sperm freezing is a form of insurance that protects your options for biological parenthood, and is important for people in high-risk occupations (such as the military).

Sperm freezing may be right for you if:

  • You’re not ready to have kids right now, but you want to — or might want to — someday.

  • You’re trying to conceive with fertility treatments like IUI or IVF.

  • You’re considering a vasectomy.

  • You’re planning to start gender-affirming hormone therapy as part of your transition.

  • You’re about to undergo medical treatment that may affect fertility, such as chemotherapy.

  • You’re a member of the military or another occupation involving increased risk to your fertility.

How sperm freezing works

Once sperm is frozen, it can be stored indefinitely — until you’re ready to use it.
Before sperm freezing, we’ll perform a semen analysis on your sample to assess sperm count, motility (how well sperm are swimming), and morphology (the size and shape of sperm). This is key to ensuring that you’re only freezing sperm that’s healthy, fertile, and likely to create a pregnancy in the future.

Your semen sample is collected via masturbation. Legacy’s innovative at-home sperm freezing and testing kits allow you to provide your sample in the comfort of your home, as opposed to a “collection room” at a fertility clinic or sperm bank.
Learn more about sperm testing
Sperm freezing, known scientifically as cryopreservation, is accomplished using liquid nitrogen to reduce the temperature of sperm to -196ºC. This is the temperature at which all biological activity pauses. Sperm is also stored at this very low temperature.

Once sperm is frozen, it can be stored indefinitely — until you need it or you’re ready to use it. Research shows that sperm freezing doesn’t affect sperm quality or chance of pregnancy when using it later on.
See how it works
Legacy is the only mail-in sperm freezing kit that performs a post-thaw analysis, a test in which a very small portion of your sperm is frozen, thawed, and re-analyzed. This helps determine if your sperm are suitable for storage, and estimate how many sperm will survive the process of freezing and thawing. It’s an essential step in the sperm freezing process.
Frozen sperm is stored at -196ºC or colder, again using liquid nitrogen. Once sperm is frozen, it can be stored indefinitely — until you need it or you’re ready to use it. Research shows that sperm freezing doesn’t affect sperm quality or chance of pregnancy when using it later on.

How much sperm should I freeze?

Read full guide

See sperm freezing in action

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Benefits of sperm freezing with Legacy

Legacy lets you freeze your sperm from home with an easy mail-in kit — and lets you keep it preserved for as long as you need, with flexible, affordable sperm storage plans.
It's simple: Order your kit. Collect your sample in the comfort of your own home. Mix in the transport media to preserve the quality of your sperm during shipment. Mail your kit back to our lab. There, your sample will get the same high-quality analysis and sperm freezing as you'd get from a fertility clinic or sperm bank.
Learn more about how it works
Our dedicated sperm storage facilities have been rigorously screened for quality and high standards (by us and the FDA). They’re highly secure, monitored 24/7.

We’re also the only sperm freezing home kit to offer multi-site sperm storage. That means your samples are stored in several locations across the country, mitigating even the most unlikely of risks.
We offer flexible sperm storage options to meet your family-building needs. Monthly, annual, 5-year, and lifetime plans start at less than $75 per year.
Legacy is obsessed with your privacy. We believe your data is yours (and yours alone). We’re HIPAA-compliant and we do not (and will never) sell our clients’ fertility, genetic or demographic information to any third party.
Read more about our approach to privacy

Packages with storage

Cryo storage containers

Add storage to freeze your sperm

Yearly storage — $145
5-year storage — $595
10-year storage — $795

Frequently asked questions

First, a semen sample, produced via masturbation, will be analyzed in a lab for sperm count, motility (what percentage of sperm are moving or “swimming”), and morphology (what percentage of sperm are the correct size and shape). This is important, because you don’t want to undergo semen freezing without first checking the health of your sperm.

High-quality labs will also perform a “post-thaw analysis” before sperm freezing. In this procedure, a very small portion of your sperm will be frozen and then thawed and re-assessed for quality. This helps determine if your sperm are suitable for storage, and estimate how many sperm will survive the process of freezing and thawing.

Sperm will be “washed” and processed to remove semen proteins and contaminants, and concentrate sperm. Just before sperm freezing, the lab scientist will add cryoprotectant, a substance that prevents damaging ice crystals from forming inside sperm. (This cryoprotectant doesn’t impair the quality of your sperm.) Finally, vials of sperm will be plunged into liquid nitrogen to bring them down to -196ºC. This is the temperature at which biological activity pauses.

Once your sperm are frozen, their health and quality is maintained. Sperm can be stored indefinitely with no significant impact on their ability to create a pregnancy.

While STI testing is not required to do semen storage with Legacy, it is required at many fertility clinics who may be handling your sample in the future. Therefore, we recommend you complete a sexually transmitted infection panel around the time of sperm freezing.

Legacy offers an STI test kit that allows you to test for 6 common infections from home. STI testing is included in our For Tomorrow and Forever packages, and can be purchased as an add-on to other semen analysis and sperm storage orders.

Legacy's STI kit panel includes:

  • chlamydia
  • gonorrhea
  • hepatitis B
  • hepatitis C antibodies
  • HIV 1 and 2
  • syphilis (RPR)
Frozen sperm can be used in several different fertility procedures.
  • IUI (intrauterine insemination) is a process in which sperm is inserted directly into the uterus at the time of ovulation, to facilitate conception. IUI is an option for those with a total motile sperm count of 8 million or more after sperm freezing. The pregnancy rate of IUI using frozen sperm is slightly lower than that of “fresh” sperm, but it’s a simple and affordable option for trying to conceive after sperm freezing. IUI typically requires 1 vial of frozen sperm, and if you plan to use IUI in the future, we highly recommend storing multiple samples.

  • IVF (in vitro fertilization) is a procedure in which multiple eggs are retrieved from a female patient’s ovaries and fertilized in a lab. There, they develop into embryo(s) that can be transferred back into a patient’s uterus to attempt pregnancy. IVF is an option for you if you have high sperm motility after sperm freezing. Pregnancy rates using frozen sperm for IVF are equivalent to pregnancy rates using “fresh” sperm. IVF typically requires 1 vial of frozen sperm, unless using ICSI.

  • ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) is an IVF technique in which a single sperm is injected into an egg to fertilize it. ICSI is a good option if you have low sperm motility or limited quantities of sperm available due to freezing sperm before vasectomy or chemotherapy. Success rates after ICSI are the same whether using fresh or frozen sperm. ICSI requires only a single sperm. Therefore, if you plan to use IVF with ICSI, freezing 1 or 2 sperm samples should be sufficient.
It’s easy to withdraw a vial from frozen sperm storage with Legacy. Once you’ve coordinated with your doctor or fertility clinic, you can simply request a vial withdrawal from your client dashboard and we’ll get the process started. Please note that sperm can only be delivered to a medical practice or provider — not to a residential address. The process of vial withdrawal takes around 2 weeks for domestic transfers and 3–4 weeks for international transfers.
Sperm freezing happens in a specialized andrology lab. Legacy’s sperm freezing and testing labs are located across the country. Your sample will be automatically assigned to the sperm freezing lab nearest you.

Then, the frozen sperm will be transferred to multiple dedicated storage facilities. We’re the only sperm freezing home kit to offer multi-site sperm storage. That means your sample will be split up and stored in several locations across the country, mitigating even the most unlikely of risks.
The amount of sperm you should freeze depends on your family planning goals, your sperm count, and the quality of your sperm after it is thawed.

Each semen sample typically yields four vials of sperm. One vial of sperm equals one attempt at intrauterine insemination (IUI), which has a success rate of 10–20%. If you plan to use IUI, it’s recommended that you freeze 3–5 vials per pregnancy you hope to have.

If you’re planning on using your frozen sperm samples for IVF with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a technique that involves injecting one sperm into the egg to fertilize it before transferring it into the uterus, you don’t need to freeze as much. With ICSI, a single vial of sperm can be used a nearly unlimited number of times, since there are typically hundreds of thousands (or millions) of sperm in one vial.

If you want to have a large family in the future, you will likely want to preserve more samples than someone is planning for one child. If your sperm count or quality is lower than anticipated after an analysis, it may also be recommended to preserve additional samples.

We recommend making multiple “deposits” when pursuing sperm freezing since sperm quality may be variable. Ideally, you would freeze multiple samples, and use your best sample in the future.
There is a small decrease in quality associated with the process of sperm freezing and thawing. However, this does not appear to significantly affect chances of pregnancy using frozen sperm.

And, once frozen, sperm can be stored indefinitely without affecting its ability to create a pregnancy. In one study, it was found that pregnancy rates for IUI using sperm frozen for up to 5 years (23%) was comparable to the pregnancy rates with sperm frozen for 5–15 years (22%).
After sperm freezing, your sample can be stored indefinitely with no significant impact on quality or chance of pregnancy. In one study, it was found that pregnancy rates for IUI using sperm frozen for up to 5 years (23%) was comparable to the pregnancy rates with sperm frozen for 5–15 years (22%).
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