SurroHub vs. Airtable for surrogacy agencies
Airtable is the natural next step after spreadsheets, and many agencies run on it for years. Here is how it compares with software built for surrogacy.
Short answer: Airtable is a flexible, friendly database, and it is a big step up from spreadsheets. But it is a toolkit, not a surrogacy system: there are no surrogate or intended parent portals, no e-signatures, no profile sharing and no journey automation unless you build or bolt them on. SurroHub gives a surrogacy or egg donor agency all of that from day one.
What Airtable does well
Airtable is easy to start, looks like a spreadsheet, and lets you link tables together: surrogates to matches, matches to intended parents. Views, filters and simple automations make it a real upgrade over a shared spreadsheet, and anyone on the team can change it.
Where it strains for a surrogacy agency
- Anyone can change it. The flexibility that makes Airtable easy also means fields get renamed, duplicated or deleted, and reports quietly break.
- No one outside can log in. Surrogates, intended parents and donors cannot see their own checklist, documents or messages without extra tools.
- Messages live elsewhere. Emails and texts sit in inboxes and phones, not on the profile they belong to.
- Contracts and profiles are separate jobs. E-signatures, shareable surrogate and donor profiles, and PDFs need other apps.
- Sensitive data needs careful setup. Sharing a base or a view can expose more than intended.
| SurroHub | Airtable | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Surrogacy and egg donor agencies | Any team that needs a flexible database |
| Structure | Surrogates, intended parents, egg donors and matches built in | Tables you design and maintain |
| Messaging | Email and text on each profile, in 38 languages | Outside the base |
| Contracts | E-sign built in | Separate tool |
| Portals | Branded surrogate, IP and egg donor portals | Not available without add-ons |
| Profile sharing | Polished profiles as a link, PDF or in the IP portal | Shared views or exports |
When Airtable is still the right call
For a very small or brand-new agency with a handful of cases, Airtable can be enough, and it is a sensible way to organise your thinking before you choose software. When you start adding portals, contracts and automated messages on top, it is usually time to switch.
What you get with SurroHub
- Four profiles, one place. Surrogates, intended parents, egg donors and matches each get a complete profile: stage and sub-steps, every answer, document and message.
- Workflows that run themselves. Tick a step and the next one starts, messages go out on their own, and late steps are flagged before anyone has to ask.
- Profile sharing. Intended parents browse the surrogates and egg donors you share in their portal; surrogates browse families on their phone.
- Profiles that build themselves. Surro, the built-in AI assistant, lays out a polished profile from what is on file, ready to share as a link or PDF.
- Contracts and e-signatures, messaging in 38 languages, scheduling, and branded portals for surrogates, intended parents and egg donors.
- Live in about a week. Send your spreadsheets, files and forms in any format; we import them and set you up.
See SurroHub for yourself
Surrogacy and egg donor agency software: one place for surrogates, intended parents, egg donors and matches, with branded portals and a built-in AI assistant.
Frequently asked questions
Can a surrogacy agency run on Airtable?
A small one can, for a while. As cases grow, agencies usually need portals, e-signatures, automated messages and shareable profiles, which Airtable does not provide on its own.
Can I import my Airtable base into SurroHub?
Yes. Export your tables as CSV or send them in any format, and we import them for you.
Is SurroHub harder to use than Airtable?
SurroHub is built around the work itself, so a coordinator opens a surrogate and sees her stage, checklist, documents and messages in one place, without designing anything first.