IVF Costs the Same at 42 as at 29. A Baby Costs Four Times as Much

Same cycle, same rebate, different odds

Fertility treatment is sold by the cycle. A clinic quotes one price for a stimulation and egg collection and another for each frozen embryo transfer, and those prices do not change with the patient's age. Medicare does not change either. The MBS schedule fee for item 13200, the first IVF cycle through egg collection in a calendar year, is $3,723.25 from 1 July 2026, whether the patient is 29 or 44. Medicare calculates its rebate from that fee, so a 44-year-old gets the same rebate on a first cycle as a 29-year-old.

The outcome does change with age. ANZARD, the Australian and New Zealand IVF register run by UNSW, followed 43,849 women who started their first stimulation cycle in 2021 and 2022 through to December 2024. Of those who started under 30, 51.5% had a baby from their first complete cycle. The figure was 49.4% at 30 to 34, 34.1% at 35 to 39, 13.1% at 40 to 44 and 1.8% at 45 and older.

Older patients make up a large share of the work. Women aged 40 and over accounted for 24.8% of own-egg and donor-recipient cycles in Australia and New Zealand in 2024, ANZARD reports, and the average woman using her own eggs was 36. Australian clinics ran 104,721 treatment and lab-only cycles that year, and 18,519 babies were born alive after treatment at Australian clinics.

What a baby costs on our model

Going Rate's model divides the cost of one complete cycle by the chance that cycle ends in a baby. ANZARD defines a complete cycle as one stimulation and egg collection plus every frozen transfer of the embryos it produces. We price it as one IVF cycle with ICSI ($7,500) plus one frozen embryo transfer ($3,300), both out of pocket after Medicare. A frozen transfer is now the normal path. In 2024, 44.5% of fresh cycles froze every egg or embryo with no fresh transfer, and 74% of IVF births came from frozen cycles, ANZARD reports.

On that model, a woman starting under 30 should expect to spend about two complete cycles' worth per baby, and a woman starting at 30 to 34 about the same. At 35 to 39 it is about three cycles' worth, about one and a half times the under-30 figure. At 40 to 44 it is nearly eight cycles' worth, about four times the under-30 figure. At 45 and older the model runs to dozens of cycles' worth, though ANZARD's figure for that group rests on only 10 births, so it is a rough guide. The ratios come from ANZARD's odds alone, so they hold whatever happens to clinic prices.

The model is generous to older patients. It applies first-cycle odds to every cycle, and ANZARD's figures show the odds fall in later cycles. Nearly eight complete cycles at 40 to 44 is also more than the six cycles ANZARD tracks. On ANZARD's conservative measure, 23.9% of women who started at 40 to 44 had a baby within six complete cycles, against 73.3% of women who started under 30. The real gap per baby is probably wider than the model shows.

What a success rate counts

A clinic's success rate depends on what it divides by. For 2024, ANZARD reports a live birth from 17.6% of egg collections, 18.2% of all initiated cycles, 26.0% of fresh embryo transfers, 33.1% of frozen transfer cycles and 37.4% of women's first complete cycles. Each answers a different question.

The per-woman complete-cycle figure is closest to what a patient pays for, because it follows one round of egg collection through every transfer it allows. Going Rate's model uses it. A per-transfer rate looks higher because it leaves out the cycles where no embryo was good enough to transfer.

Rates also vary between clinics. Among clinics with at least 50 cycles, the live birth rate per initiated cycle ran from about 5% at the lowest to about 38% at the highest in 2024, ANZARD reports. After an ACCC investigation of success claims on major clinic websites, several clinics changed claims that compared pregnancy rates in place of live birth rates, CHOICE reported in 2016. The national YourIVFSuccess website publishes clinic figures on a common basis, though 6% of clinics opt out of public reporting, the 2025 national rapid review of IVF regulation found.

A flat rebate on a rising bill

Medicare pays a fixed amount per item, and the clinic sets its own fee. City Fertility, one private chain, lists a clinic fee from $12,200 for an initial IVF cycle with ICSI on its September 2026 price list, more than three times the $3,723.25 schedule fee. Medicare places no limit on the number of cycles, the 2025 rapid review notes, so the gap between the two repeats with every cycle.

The Extended Medicare Safety Net covers some of that gap. Once a family's out-of-pocket costs for out-of-hospital services pass the general threshold of $2,699.10 in 2026, it pays 80% of further out-of-pocket costs, Services Australia says. For IVF that payment is capped per item. The most it adds for a first IVF cycle is $2,118.30, and for preparing a frozen embryo transfer $888.30, the MBS shows. Every cap is the same at every age, so the patient carries the whole age penalty.

The caps date from January 2010, and they changed who had treatment. The average out-of-pocket cost of a fresh cycle rose from $2,059 to $2,648, fresh cycles fell 16%, and cycles among women aged 40 and over fell 38%, a 2012 study by Georgina Chambers and colleagues in BMC Health Services Research found. The authors estimated 1,209 babies were not born in 2010 as a result.

What the clinic quote leaves out

City Fertility's out-of-pocket estimates assume the patient has already reached the safety-net threshold for the year, its price list says, so they are a best case. A first cycle early in the calendar year, before the $2,699.10 threshold is reached, can cost more than the quote.

Several costs sit outside the cycle fee. City Fertility lists an egg pick-up fee of $1,390, an embryo freezing fee of $755 and storage at $49.90 a month. Genetic testing of embryos for chromosome problems, known as PGT-A, costs $770 for the biopsy plus $800 per embryo tested, and the clinic lists the full amount as out of pocket. Specialist consultations, day-hospital fees and the anaesthetist are billed separately again.

About one cycle in ten uses genetic testing. Australian and New Zealand clinics used preimplantation genetic testing in 9.7% of cycles in 2024, 11,007 cycles in all, ANZARD reports. An extra that appears once on a quote recurs with every cycle, so the extras multiply by the same cycles' worth as the main fee.

Freezing eggs and using donor eggs

Some women freeze eggs younger to improve the odds later. Going Rate's typical figure for freezing eggs ($8,000) covers one cycle, and City Fertility lists elective egg freezing with no Medicare rebate. One cycle may not be enough. To reach about an 80% chance of a later baby, a woman needs to freeze about 25 eggs at 37 and about 35 at 39, VARTA, Victoria's IVF regulator, estimates.

In Victoria, 9,927 women had their own eggs in storage at 30 June 2024, VARTA's annual report shows. In 2022-23, Victorian clinics ran 466 treatment cycles using a woman's own thawed eggs, and 19% of them ended in a live birth.

For women in their mid-40s, donor eggs give far better odds. With their own eggs, women aged 45 and older had one live birth for every 152 egg collections in 2024, ANZARD reports. Across all ages, 25.6% of initiated donor-egg recipient cycles ended in a live birth. Donor egg IVF ($17,500) costs about two and a third times an own-egg cycle with ICSI on Going Rate's figures. Donors cannot be paid to donate, only reimbursed for reasonable expenses, the 2025 rapid review notes, and some clinics want payment allowed to lift local supply. Monash IVF puts the ratio of egg donors to people seeking eggs at 1 to 52, SBS reported in 2025, and the number of Victorians receiving donor eggs fell 19% to 232 in 2023-24, VARTA reports.

Cheaper paths, and when people stop

Some states cut the price. Victoria's public fertility care is free for most patients, with a lifetime limit of two stimulated IVF or ICSI cycles, though some pay for medication and tests, the Victorian Department of Health says. Eggs must be 42 or younger at the time of treatment. New South Wales pays a one-off rebate of $2,000 towards fertility treatment costs for households earning up to $116,000, or on Family Tax Benefit or a Health Care Card, Service NSW says.

Many people stop before treatment works. Of the women who did not have a baby from their first complete cycle, 28.9% did not return for a second, ANZARD reports. The register does not record why people stop, so it cannot say how many stop because of cost.

For anyone weighing treatment, the most useful number is the chance of a baby at their age, from a measure that follows a whole cycle. A doctor can give a personal estimate, and the YourIVFSuccess website shows national and clinic figures by age. Multiplying the cost of a cycle by the cycles' worth for that age gives a rough budget, and for older patients the true figure is likely to be higher.

Common questions