this is part 2 of my head to head analyses of legacy, dadi, and sppare.me!

Conclusion: Dadi is better than Sppare.me overall, especially on price of storage

final scores:

SPPARE.ME: 13.5/20

DADI: 14.5/20

below i’ll explain the key things i was looking for and the score i gave each company:

THIRD PARTY CREDIBILITY/TRUST.

what does the rest of the world think about these companies? have they been validated? are they just startups trying to take my money or can i trust them?

SPPARE.ME: 2.5/5

i don’t think they do a good job here at all. they don’t have a team page, i don’t recognize anyone on their website, as far as i can tell they haven’t been in the news or have any sort of international recognition. they list 3 advisors on their page but no team which i find extremely strange and not very trustworthy.

-1 for no team page

-1.5 for no brand names i recognized and they they don’t have any sort of recognition anywhere

+0.5 because they seem to have been around since 2016 or 2017

DADI: 3/5

i thought they did a good job overall. they seem to have really cool tech, and i loved their video showing how the kit is made and how it is used. i used their product and its a cool touch to have everything in one mechanism. it is clearly professionally designed.

i have heard of their advisors like jacques cohen and that seems like a big name in the male fertility world. i also found multiple articles about them, like in GQ or other big articles, so they clearly have some third party credibility.

what i didn’t like: they don’t have a team page which i’ve always found super strange (same with sppare.me). i sent the website to my bf and he was googling the company as well.

it turns out their ceo used to run a GIF company and has some gifs of him that do not super inspire confidence for a company that is testing and freezing my sperm….

then lastly they have a ‘reviews’ section on the website but it seems fake?? they don’t seem like real reviews at all and i couldn’t find those reviews anywhere else online. so that just seemed kind of shady. why lie about something like that??

-0.5 for no team page and -0.5 for weird images of ceo online

+0.5 for good advisors

-1 for fake reviews on website

ANALYSIS QUALITY.

once i looked at what the rest of the world thought, i also wanted to do my own research. i thought both companies were good, but sppare.me was better.

SPPARE.ME: 4.5/5

+1 because their semen analysis includes most the main factors (excluding morphology, which is available for an extra $100) and is the same as what you’d get at a clinic.

+1 because their customer service is overall good and i thought their website explanations were good as well.

-0.5 because they didn’t do a great job of explaining everything on the results and so it still felt exactly like when i had to call my doctor at the fertility clinic here and ask them to walk me through my results

cost of analysis only: $250 + $100 for the morphology report = $350

DADI: 3.5/5

i didn’t like that you have to pay extra to get a full analysis, otherwise you only get volume, count, and concentration which don’t really mean much. they don’t test motility by default which is the most important thing to test for, so this was a -1.

you also don’t get a detailed analysis, you just get high level scores. on the one hand, it tells you almost everything you need to know but i feel more secure with all the details, same at as a clinic. this was a -0.5

they have a video of your sperm which is a +0.5 because it’s kind of cool

finally, you can’t choose to only do analysis, which was a -0.5 since you HAVE to have your sperm frozen. what if you don’t want to freeze it?

cost of analysis only: $199 + $99 = $300

FREEZING QUALITY.

this mattered a lot to me since i was planning on doing freezing, and probably for the next 5 or 10 years, so i wanted to know my sample would be safe.

SPPARE.ME: 3.5/5

in general, it feels almost identical to dadi. they work with the Diamond Institute in new jersey, which seems like a credible facility with a trustworthy history.

+1 because their clinic is the same place they do the freezing, so this means no risk during transportation

+0.5 because it seems to be a credible facility with a good track record (50+ years in operation)

-1 because their clinic is the same place they do the freezing! since they can’t do any redundancy like legacy does

+0.5 because you get 3-6, which is same as legacy and more than dadi

-0.5 because they require you to submit an std test which is annoying and not needed at other companies

DADI: 3.5/5

there’s nothing wrong with the way dadi freezes. they use a company that has been around for a long time called New England Cryogenic Center and it seems very reputable, the head of the clinic is one of their advisors and her name is dr. grace centola, she seems very qualified.

+1 because their clinic is the same place they do the freezing, so this means no risk during transportation

+0.5 because it seems to be a credible facility with a good track record (several decades in operation)

-1 because their clinic is the same place they do the freezing! since they can’t do any redundancy like legacy does

-0.5 because you freeze 3 vials no matter what, which is fine, but it just means you’ll probably get less vials than legacy.

PRICE

SPPARE.ME: 3/5

overall their prices are OK at $125-$130 per year but are consistently more expensive than dadi.

-1 because they are consistently more expensive than dadi

+1 because they offer the option to pay in installments (and are the only ones to offer this) and because there aren’t any withdrawal fees

they also have inconsistent pricing… why is 10 years more expensive on a yearly basis than 5 years?!

total cost:

6 months: N/A

1 year: $145 (1st year included in the cost of your $250 analysis)

2 years: $290 ($145/year)

5 years: $635 ($127/year)

10 years: $1,340 ($134/year)

50 years: $6,350 ($127/year if you renew every 5 years)

DADI: 4.5/5

overall they have good pricing for storage and actually while they list the storage at $99/year you get a 10% discount if you prepay so really it’s more like $90, which is the rate i used for the calculations below

-0.5 because they don’t have monthly options and because they have a $300 withdrawal fee

total cost:

6 months: N/A

1 year: $100 (1st year included in the cost of your $200 analysis)

2 years: $190

5 years: $450

10 years: $900

50 years: $4,500

overall:

sppare.me is about the same as dadi for price of sperm analysis

sppare.me is better than dadi for quality of sperm analysis

sppare.me is about the same as dadi for quality of sperm freezing

dadi is consistently better than sppare.me for price of sperm freezing