Switching
You already run an agency. This is the awkward page.
This page is for agencies already running: live journeys, a team who know their spreadsheet, and good reason to be sceptical. Four questions, answered straight.
One · Does it fit how we work?
Surrogacy is not one process, and we do not pretend it is.
An agency in Bogotá, one in California and one placing families across a border are running genuinely different operations. The twelve-phase spine is a shape, not a rulebook: enquiry to handover, with your stage names, your steps and your durations hung on it. Here is what actually varies, and what the platform does about each.
Compensated or altruistic
Whether the carrier is paid, and on what schedule, changes the whole payments structure — and in some places what may be recorded at all.
What the platform does
Milestone schedules are yours to define. An agency running altruistic journeys simply has fewer of them, and the payments module can be switched off entirely.
Who holds the money
Escrow agent, trust account, the clinic, or the agency. Each puts a different party in the middle of every milestone.
What the platform does
We track against milestones and never hold funds, so whoever holds them stays in place.
Where the carrier lives, and whether anyone travels
A domestic journey and a cross-border one are different operations: consulates, exit paperwork, a family living abroad for weeks.
What the platform does
Trips and appointments carry their own timezone, and the travel module is separate — an agency with no cross-border work never sees it.
What has to happen before a birth
Pre-birth orders, post-birth adoption, parentage declarations, apostilles. The names differ, the sequence differs, and the deadlines differ.
What the platform does
Steps on your journey template, with your names and durations. The platform records what your attorneys decide; it never advises.
Who the carrier is matched by
Some agencies match in-house, some work with carrier agencies, some run both.
What the platform does
Matching is a module. Turn it on to run it here, or leave it off and record the outcome of a match made elsewhere.
How many parties touch a case
Clinic, attorney, escrow, translator, embassy, a second agency — the list is longer in some models than others.
What the platform does
Every blocking step names the party it is waiting on, from a list you control.
What it will never do is tell you what the law is. It records what your attorneys and clinicians decide and makes sure the right people know — in every jurisdiction, that is the same job.
Two · Why not what we already use?
Most of the time, the honest answer is “stay where you are”.
A tool your team open every morning is worth more than any feature list. So here is where each of the usual alternatives is genuinely the right answer, and the specific point at which it stops being one.
A spreadsheet
When it is the right answer
Genuinely fine up to about eight or ten journeys with one coordinator. It is fast, free, and everybody already knows it.
Where it stops being one
It breaks at the hand-offs. A spreadsheet records where a family is; it cannot tell you nobody has moved them for nine days, and it shows the family nothing. The second coordinator is usually where it stops working.
Airtable, Notion or a shared drive
When it is the right answer
A real step up from a spreadsheet, and the right answer for plenty of small teams. Views, forms, some automation.
Where it stops being one
It has no idea what a journey is. “Overdue for this phase” is something you build and maintain yourself, and there is nothing to give a parent or a surrogate.
A general CRM
When it is the right answer
Excellent at what it is for: a pipeline of deals that close.
Where it stops being one
A surrogacy journey does not close — it runs for two years after the sale. A CRM models the part you have finished and goes quiet when the work starts.
Another surrogacy platform
When it is the right answer
If your team open it every morning and it fits how you work, stay.
Where it stops being one
Switch only if something specific is wrong: you cannot see the whole book at once, the family-facing side embarrasses you, or you cannot answer “why was last quarter slower”.
Three · What does it connect to?
Fewer things than you might expect, on purpose.
The things a journey needs are built in rather than wired up to another system. Where we have not built something, we say so.
E-signature, built in
Agreements are sent, signed and returned inside the case record. No third tool, no downloading and re-uploading.
Email that comes back
Notifications go out to whoever needs them, and replies land on the case, not in one coordinator’s inbox.
Translation, both ways
Messages translate between English, Spanish, Russian and Turkish, with the original always kept alongside. The product and the portals are localised in the same four.
Your data, on the way out
Everything exports. We would rather help you leave than trap you.
Not connected today
- Calendar sync (Google or Outlook) — appointments live here and are not yet pushed to your own calendar
- Accounting (Xero, QuickBooks) — payments are tracked against milestones and reconciled by you
- A public API — planned, not shipped; ask if it is a requirement and we will tell you where it stands
Four · What happens to the journeys already running?
Nobody starts a surrogacy platform from zero.
A new agency can be live this afternoon. An agency already carrying thirty families takes about two weeks. You keep working throughout, and your old system stays on until you decide otherwise.
What we need from you is smaller than it sounds: the families, the phase each one is in, and the date they entered it. Everything else can arrive later or never.
- 1
Before
We look at what you actually have
A call and a copy of your spreadsheet, or a screen-share of whatever you use now. We want your real stage names and the steps that matter, so we build the journey you already run.
- 2
Week one
Your journey, and the book that is already running
Your workspace, your branding, your stages. Then your live journeys go in — every family with their phase and the date they entered it, so the map is accurate from the first morning.
- 3
Week one, still
You keep working the old way
Nothing is switched off. Run both for as long as you need. A week is typical.
- 4
Week two
The team moves, then the families
Coordinators first. Portals go out to parents and surrogates once your team are comfortable — never the other way round.
- 5
From then on
It starts measuring you against you
Baselines start as templates and become your own history. After a quarter, the platform compares this month against your months.
Bring the spreadsheet. We’ll tell you if you should switch.
Half an hour, your own book, and a straight answer about whether this is worth the disruption. If your current setup is working, we will say so.