SurroHub vs. Google Sheets for surrogacy agencies
Almost every surrogacy agency starts on a spreadsheet, usually a Google Sheet with a tab for surrogates, a tab for intended parents and a colour code only the owner fully understands. It is a good start. Here is when it stops working.
Short answer: Google Sheets is free, flexible and familiar, and a three-person agency with a dozen active journeys can run on it well. It starts to fail when each person needs more than a row: an application, documents, messages, a checklist with due dates, a portal and a contract history. SurroHub is a surrogacy and egg donor agency platform that turns each row into a full profile for a surrogate, intended parent, egg donor or match, with workflows that remind your team what is due. We import your sheet for you.
What Google Sheets does well
Sheets costs nothing extra if you already use Google Workspace, everyone knows how to use it, and you can add a column the moment you need one. Filters, conditional formatting and a few formulas get you surprisingly far: a pipeline by stage, a count of applicants by month, a list of surrogates waiting for records. For an agency that is just getting started, it is the right tool. You learn what you actually need to track before paying for anything.
When a spreadsheet is still fine
- You have a small team, ideally one or two people who both understand the sheet.
- You have a handful of active journeys and can hold the details of each in your head.
- Applications come in slowly enough to retype by hand.
- Surrogates and intended parents are happy to get updates by phone and email, with no portal.
The signs your agency has outgrown it
The row is not the record
A surrogate is not a row. She is a 40-question application, her pregnancy history, a BMI that needs a second look, a background check, a psych evaluation, three contracts and two hundred texts. The sheet holds a summary and a link to a folder, and the real record lives everywhere else.
The match has no home
A match joins a surrogate, intended parents and sometimes an egg donor. In a spreadsheet it is a column on two tabs that must be updated together, and when they disagree nobody knows which is right.
Nothing reminds anyone
A sheet can show you that a date has passed if someone built the formula and someone looks at it. It will not tell a coordinator that records were requested ten days ago, start the next step when this one is done, or send the surrogate a text the day before her appointment.
Everyone can change everything
Sorting one column and not the others, deleting a row by accident, pasting over a formula: every agency on spreadsheets has a story. Version history helps you undo it, if you notice. Sharing is all or nothing by sheet, so a new intake coordinator usually sees every intended parent's financial notes too.
It holds medical information it was not set up for
Spreadsheets fill up with dates of birth, BMIs, pregnancy complications and notes from background checks. Whether that is appropriate depends on how your Google account is configured and agreed, and in practice the sheet gets downloaded, emailed and copied.
| SurroHub | Google Sheets | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Surrogacy and egg donor agencies | Any spreadsheet work |
| Each person | A full profile: application, stage and sub-steps, documents, messages, notes, to-dos, activity | A row, plus links to other tools |
| Matches | A match profile linking surrogate, intended parents and egg donor, with its own checklist and group conversation | Columns kept in sync by hand |
| Reminders | Workflows start the next step, send messages and flag late steps | Formulas, if someone checks them |
| Access | Role-based: you decide what each team member can see and do | Per sheet or tab, all or nothing |
| History | Activity on every profile; sensitive actions are logged | Version history of cells |
| Applications | Forms that create the profile, with qualification flags | Retyped, or connected with Zapier |
Moving off the sheet
You do not need to clean your spreadsheet first. Send it as it is, with every tab, colour code and half-used column, along with your forms and files. SurroHub's import reads any file, maps your columns to the right fields on each surrogate, intended parent and egg donor, and brings across stages and notes. Most agencies are live in about a week of sending everything. If you want to keep a sheet for the owner's own reporting, export from SurroHub whenever you like.
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.
Want the facts in one place? SurroHub by the numbers: what it is, who built it, and what agencies run on it today.
See SurroHub for yourself
The surrogacy and egg donor agency platform: one place for surrogates, intended parents, egg donors and matches, with branded portals, workflows, e-sign contracts and a built-in AI assistant.
Frequently asked questions
Can a surrogacy agency run on Google Sheets?
A small one can. With one or two people and a handful of active journeys, a well-organised sheet works. Agencies usually outgrow it when they need reminders, portals, e-signatures and one place for each person's documents and messages.
Is Google Sheets safe for surrogate medical information?
That depends on how your Google account is configured and what agreements you have with Google. In practice spreadsheets get downloaded, emailed and shared widely, which is hard to control. SurroHub keeps that information on each profile with role-based access.
Can I import my spreadsheet into SurroHub?
Yes. Send it in whatever shape it is in, with every tab. We import surrogates, intended parents and egg donors with their stages and notes, and set up your agency, usually within about a week of receiving everything.
Is SurroHub harder to use than a spreadsheet?
It is built around the work itself: open a surrogate and you see her stage, checklist, documents and messages on one screen. There is nothing to design first, and SurroHub includes unlimited users, so the whole team can work in it.