If you have enquired with a clinic in Prague, Alicante or Athens, you probably have a PDF in your inbox by now. A friendly coordinator, a package name, a price in euros, a list of what's included. It looks like a decision you can make tonight.
Before you do, run it through these five checks. They are the same ones our Care Advisors run on every offer a patient sends us, and they catch something on most of them.
1. Is the price for a cycle, or for an attempt?
A "cycle" should mean stimulation, egg collection, fertilisation, embryo culture and one transfer. Many offers quietly stop at egg collection, or price the transfer separately, or assume a fresh transfer when your situation calls for a frozen one. Ask, in writing: "Does this price include one embryo transfer? If my transfer has to be frozen, what changes?"
2. What about medication?
Stimulation drugs are the single biggest line most offers leave out, and they vary more than anything else: roughly $700 to $2,300 depending on your protocol, your dose and the country. Published clinic price lists put stimulation medication at about $700 to $1,750 in the Czech Republic and $1,150 to $2,300 in Greece, on top of the treatment price. Some clinics prescribe and you buy at home; some sell on site; some include a capped amount. Ask: "Is medication included? If not, what did your last ten patients on a protocol like mine typically spend?"
3. What happens if the cycle is cancelled or there's nothing to freeze?
Around one in ten stimulation cycles is cancelled before collection. Good clinics have a clear policy: what you pay if it stops early, what rolls over, what doesn't. If the offer doesn't say, that's the question to ask before anything else. The answer tells you a lot about the clinic.
4. Where will your scans and blood tests happen, and who pays?
Stimulation needs monitoring every two to three days. Unless you are staying abroad for the whole two weeks, those scans happen at home, privately, at £150 to £300 each. The clinic abroad expects you to arrange this. Some have UK partner clinics; most don't. Budget for it, and ask the clinic which measurements they need so your UK sonographer reports exactly those.
5. Does the offer match your medical file, or a generic patient?
This is the one almost nobody checks. An offer written before the clinic has seen your AMH, your antral follicle count, your partner's semen analysis and your history is a price list, not a plan. If you were quoted a standard IVF package but your file points towards ICSI, donor eggs, PGT or a frozen-all approach, the real number is different, and the clinic knows that.
An offer written before the clinic has seen your file is a price list, not a plan.
What a complete offer looks like
- Named treatment, matched to your diagnosis and results, with the reasoning in one paragraph.
- One all-in figure: treatment, medication estimate, monitoring, freezing and first-year storage.
- Cancellation and no-embryo policy, in writing.
- Who does what at home: scans, bloods, prescriptions, and what they typically cost.
- The doctor's name, and when you will speak to them, not only to a coordinator.
If you'd rather someone checked it with you
Send us the offer and your records. We validate it against your medical profile and your preferences, and tell you in plain language whether it fits your file, what's missing and what to ask. The full validation costs $390 and covers up to four offers.
Every offer is checked by our latest technology and signed off by our doctors. We compare its price and contents with offers across our trusted clinic network.
Treatment decisions are yours and your doctor's. Gisello doesn't give medical advice and never takes a commission from a clinic.