SurroHub vs. Google Drive and Dropbox for agency documents

A surrogacy journey generates a remarkable amount of paper: pregnancy and delivery records, IDs, insurance cards, background checks, psychological evaluations, contracts, clinic letters and photos. Most agencies keep them in Google Drive or Dropbox folders. Here is how that compares with documents kept on each profile.

Short answer: Google Drive and Dropbox are reliable, inexpensive file storage with great sharing and search, and they are fine for an agency's own office documents. For journey records they rely on a folder structure someone has to maintain, files arrive by email first, and sharing a folder can expose more than intended. In SurroHub, documents live on each surrogate, intended parent, egg donor and match profile; people upload from their own portal; signed contracts file themselves; internal documents stay team-only; and access is set by role.

What Drive and Dropbox do well

Both are fast, familiar and cheap per gigabyte. They sync to every device, preview almost any file, search inside documents and make collaboration on a Google Doc or Word file easy. For policies, templates, marketing assets and the agency's own paperwork, they are excellent, and many agencies on SurroHub keep using them for exactly that.

Where folders strain for journey records

The folder tree is a process nobody owns

One folder per surrogate, subfolders for medical, legal and photos, a naming convention for each file: it works while one careful person maintains it. Then a match needs its own folder, a file is saved to the wrong surrogate, and "Records FINAL (2).pdf" appears.

Files arrive by email first

Surrogates send records as email attachments or phone photos in a text. A coordinator downloads them and uploads them to the right folder. Every hop leaves another copy of medical information in an inbox or a downloads folder.

Sharing is a blunt instrument

Sharing a folder with an intended parent, a clinic or a new coordinator gives access to everything in it. It is easy to share one level too high, and hard to see later who still has access.

Documents and the checklist are separate

The folder shows a file is there; it does not tick off "records received" or tell anyone what is still missing.

How documents work in SurroHub

• On the profile. Every surrogate, intended parent, egg donor and match has a Documents area holding what was sent, signed and uploaded, in one place.
• Uploads from the portal. Surrogates, intended parents and egg donors upload directly in their own branded portal, so files never need to pass through anyone's inbox.
• Internal documents that only your team sees, kept separate from what clients can see.
• Contracts file themselves. When everyone has signed, the sealed PDF appears on the profile and in the client's portal.
• Protected. Your data is protected, private, and HIPAA compliant: every record is encrypted in transit and at rest, isolated to your agency, and locked behind role-based access, and sensitive actions are logged.
• Photos for profiles. Applicants' photos feed the shareable profiles Surro builds, without exporting or resizing anything.

Agencies on SurroHub store more than 1,600 documents on their profiles so far.

When Drive or Dropbox is still fine

Keep them for the agency's own office work and for large media such as video testimonials. For a very small agency with a few journeys and one careful coordinator, a well-kept folder structure is workable. When files about people start arriving faster than one person can file them, move the journey records onto the profiles.

This page is part of a series. See the whole surrogacy agency tech stack: every tool agencies juggle, what each one costs, and what replaces it.

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.

Frequently asked questions

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