Consumer telehealth · Male fertility
Fellow
Fellow (Fellow Health) is a male fertility company for mail-in CLIA semen analysis, post-vasectomy testing, and optional sperm cryopreservation. Patients or clinic partners order a kit, collect at home, and ship to Fellow's lab. A DTC shop runs at meetfellow.com alongside a large clinical-partner channel. It is not a donor sperm bank and not provider clinic software.
Strong fit
- Men who want a mail-in semen analysis from a CLIA lab, a post-vasectomy test, or analysis plus sperm freezing without a clinic visit
- Patients sent by a fertility clinic or urology practice that uses Fellow as its lab
- Buyers who will check the posted kit prices on meetfellow.com and whether Progyny or other fertility benefits cover the analysis
Weak fit
- Anyone looking for a donor sperm bank or anonymous donor catalog. Fellow freezes and stores a patient's own sample for use with a sexually intimate partner
- Patients whose main care needs to be in-person fertility specialist care or IVF
- Buyers looking for EHR, intake, or other clinic software
Bottom line
Fellow is worth using for men who want a mail-in semen analysis, a post-vasectomy test, or optional sperm freezing with clear published prices. It suits patients who value a lab with peer-reviewed validation. Men who mainly want multi-year prepaid freezing may prefer Legacy.
Score breakdown
Weights: Outcomes 35% · Product 30% · Implementation 20% · Pricing clarity 15%.
Fellow Health is a male fertility company built around mail-in semen analysis at a CLIA lab, post-vasectomy testing, and optional sperm freezing.
Patients or partner clinics order a kit, collect at home, and ship it to Fellow's lab, so testing and storage happen in one place. It sells directly at meetfellow.com and through more than 3,000 clinical partners. It is not a donor sperm bank or software for clinics.
Its prices are unusually clear for this category. Semen Analysis costs $199, Semen Analysis plus Cryopreservation costs $199 plus $240 per year of storage, and the Vasectomy Test costs $149, with shipping both ways included.
Fellow has run roughly 300,000 tests and raised about $48 million through a July 2025 Series B.
Its lab analysis is backed by peer-reviewed validation (Samplaski et al., Fertility and Sterility, 2021).
For patients, what matters is getting a completed analysis and access to freezing. There are no large audited studies of live births from stored samples.
Among consumer telehealth companies we review, Fellow is closest to Legacy. It scores above Legacy on the number of tests and published clinical validation, but its freezing is sold as yearly storage with no multi-year prepaid bundle.
Legacy suits men who want a similar service with multi-year prepaid bundles. CryoChoice or Sppare.me suit those whose main need is freezing and storage more than a standalone analysis kit.
Fellow's strengths are peer-reviewed validation, posted prices, and its size. Yearly storage costs and limited evidence on outcomes hold it back.
Competitor landscape
| Vendor | Overall | Ease of use |
|---|---|---|
| Fellow | 8.3 | 8.0 |
| Legacy | 8.2 | 8.3 |
| Posterity Health | 7.4 | 7.3 |
| CryoChoice | 7.2 | 6.5 |
| Path Fertility | 6.6 | 6.4 |
| Sppare.me | 6.6 | 7.3 |
Pricing
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Model | Posted prices for mail-in kits, with shipping both ways. Freezing adds a yearly storage fee for each sample once it is successfully frozen. |
| What usually drives cost | The kit (analysis only, analysis plus freezing, or vasectomy test), how many samples you store, yearly storage renewals after the first year, and whether fertility benefits cover the analysis. |
| What to ask before you buy | The full cost for the kits and years of storage you need, when the $240-per-year storage fee starts, and whether your plan or employer benefit covers testing in your state. |
| Published pricing | Public list price on meetfellow.com: Semen Analysis $199 (shipping both ways); Semen Analysis + Cryopreservation $199 + $240/year storage per sample; Vasectomy Test $149 (shipping both ways). Confirm live checkout totals. |
Fellow freezes a patient's own sperm for use with a sexually intimate partner. It is not a donor sperm bank. Confirm current kit contents and lab partners before checkout.
Prerequisites for purchase
| Need | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What you need to get Fellow to function | |
| A clear reason to test or freeze (trying to conceive, confirming a vasectomy worked, or a medical risk) | Buying without a clear reason wastes money on kits. |
| Ability to collect a sample at home and ship it on the kit schedule | Missing the shipping window ruins samples. |
| Comfort that Fellow freezes your own sperm for use with a sexually intimate partner and is not a donor sperm bank | Picking the wrong kind of service sets the wrong expectations. |
| Budget for the published kit price and, if freezing, the $240-per-year storage subscription per sample | Storage renewals add up after the first year. |
| Willingness to review results and involve a clinician when trying to conceive or transferring samples | Lab numbers alone do not replace fertility care. |
| What will maximize your value | |
| Pick the kit (analysis, analysis plus freezing, or vasectomy test) that fits your need before checkout | Buying storage you will not use wastes money, and so does skipping it when saving sperm is the goal. |
| Ask whether insurance or employer fertility benefits cover the analysis in your state | Progyny and similar benefits can lower what you pay. Storage fees are often still paid in cash. |
| If a clinic sent you, check whether it uses Fellow as its lab | Partner clinics can handle sign-up and results differently. |
| Ship as the kit instructs and track it until the lab gets the sample | Shipping delays are the usual way home collection fails. |
| When you are ready to use frozen sperm, plan the move to a clinic early with your fertility provider | Storage pays off when the move to a clinic is arranged ahead of time. |
| Deal-breakers | |
| You need a donor sperm bank or anonymous donor catalog. | |
| Your main care needs to be in-person IVF or fertility specialist care. | |
| You cannot collect or ship a home sample on a fixed schedule. | |
| You are looking for EHR, intake, or clinic operations software. | |
| You will not read the posted kit prices and storage renewal terms before paying. | |
Value creation time frame
| # | Stage | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | From order to kit arrival | Usually a few days |
| 2 | From collection to lab results | Fellow says it delivers clinically valid results within about two business days after the lab gets the sample |
| 3 | From freezing to yearly storage | The storage fee starts once a sample is successfully frozen, then renews every year |
Leadership
Methodology
| Weight | Factor | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Customer outcomes | Whether buyers get measurable operational or clinical-workflow results after go-live |
| 30% | Product | Capability depth, reliability, and fit for the job the category buys |
| 20% | Implementation | How hard it is to stand up, integrate, train, and stabilize |
| 15% | Pricing clarity | Whether a buyer can model total cost without a mystery quote |
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Highly recommend | Strong outcomes and product with manageable caveats |
| Recommend | Solid fit for the right buyer; know the tradeoffs |
| Conditional | Only with a specific use case or heavy caveats |
| Not recommended | Avoid for most buyers in this category |
Read our full methodology for how we weight scores and assign recommend labels.