Switching
Switching from what you use today.
This page is for agencies already running: live journeys, a team who know their spreadsheet, and good reason to be sceptical. Four questions, answered straight.
One · Does it fit how we work?
Surrogacy is not one process, and we do not pretend it is.
An agency in Bogotá, one in California and one placing families across a border are running genuinely different operations. Every journey runs through twelve standard phases. That is a shape, not a rulebook: enquiry to handover, with your stage names, your steps and your durations hung on it. Here is what actually varies, and what the platform does about each.
Compensated or altruistic
Whether the surrogate is paid, and on what schedule, changes the whole payments structure — and in some places what may be recorded at all.
What the platform does
Milestone schedules are yours to define. An agency running altruistic journeys simply has fewer of them, and the payments module can be switched off entirely.
Who holds the money
Escrow agent, trust account, the clinic, or the agency. Each puts a different party in the middle of every milestone.
What the platform does
We track against milestones and never hold funds, so whoever holds them stays in place.
Where the surrogate lives, and whether anyone travels
A domestic journey and a cross-border one are different operations: consulates, exit paperwork, a family living abroad for weeks.
What the platform does
Appointments carry their own timezone; trips are planned by date. Trips is a separate module — an agency with no cross-border work switches it off and never sees it.
What has to happen before a birth
Pre-birth orders, post-birth adoption, parentage declarations, apostilles. The names differ, the sequence differs, and the deadlines differ.
What the platform does
Steps on your journey template, with your names and durations. The platform records what your attorneys decide; it never advises.
Who matches the surrogate
Some agencies match in-house, some work with surrogate agencies, some run both.
What the platform does
Matching is a module. Turn it on to run it here, or leave it off and record the outcome of a match made elsewhere.
How many parties touch a journey
Clinic, attorney, escrow, translator, embassy, a second agency — the list is longer in some models than others.
What the platform does
Every step is assigned to one of a fixed set of parties: agency, parents, surrogate, clinic, attorney or third party. Escrow, a translator, an embassy or a second agency count as a third party. You can always see who a journey is waiting on.
What it will never do is tell you what the law is. It records what your attorneys and clinicians decide and makes sure the right people know — in every jurisdiction, that is the same job.
Two · Why not what we already use?
Most of the time, the honest answer is “stay where you are”.
A tool your team open every morning is worth more than any feature list. So here is where each of the usual alternatives is genuinely the right answer, and the specific point at which it stops being one.
A spreadsheet
When it is the right answer
Genuinely fine up to about eight or ten journeys with one coordinator. It is fast, free, and everybody already knows it.
Where it stops being one
It breaks at the hand-offs. A spreadsheet records where a family is; it cannot tell you nobody has moved them for nine days, and it shows the family nothing. The second coordinator is usually where it stops working.
Airtable, Notion or a shared drive
When it is the right answer
A real step up from a spreadsheet, and the right answer for plenty of small teams. Views, forms, some automation.
Where it stops being one
It has no idea what a journey is. “Overdue for this phase” is something you build and maintain yourself, and there is nothing to give a parent or a surrogate.
A general CRM
When it is the right answer
Excellent at what it is for: a pipeline of deals that close.
Where it stops being one
A surrogacy journey does not close — it runs for two years after the sale. A CRM models the part you have finished and goes quiet when the work starts.
Another surrogacy platform
When it is the right answer
If your team open it every morning and it fits how you work, stay.
Where it stops being one
Switch only if something specific is wrong: you cannot see all your journeys at once, the family-facing side embarrasses you, or you cannot answer “why was last quarter slower”.
Three · What does it connect to?
Fewer things than you might expect, on purpose.
The things a journey needs are built in rather than wired up to another system, and the import a switching agency needs most is there too. Where we have not built something, we say so.
E-signature, built in
Agreements are sent, signed and returned inside the journey. No third tool, no downloading and re-uploading.
Email that comes back
When a parent or surrogate replies to a notification email, the reply lands on their journey’s messages, not in one coordinator’s inbox.
Translation, both ways
Messages can be translated between English, Spanish, Russian and Turkish (AI translation, on request or automatic), with the original always kept alongside. The product and the portals are localised in the same four.
Monday.com, on the way in
Pull a Monday.com board in once, or keep it syncing nightly while you move over.
Spreadsheets, on the way in
Leads, surrogates, venues and journeys can come in from a CSV or Excel file.
Your data, on the way out
Your data comes out as CSV, one file per area: leads, journeys, steps, messages, payments and more. For the document files themselves, ask us. We would rather help you leave than trap you.
Not connected today
- Calendar sync (Google or Outlook) — appointments live here and are not yet pushed to your own calendar
- Accounting (Xero, QuickBooks) — payments are tracked against milestones and reconciled by you
- A public API — planned, not shipped; ask if it is a requirement and we will tell you where it stands
Four · What happens to the journeys already running?
Nobody starts a surrogacy platform from zero.
A new agency can be live this afternoon. An agency already carrying thirty families takes about two weeks. You keep working throughout, and your old system stays on until you decide otherwise.
What we need from you is smaller than it sounds: the families, who is on each journey, and the step each one has reached. Everything else can arrive later or never.
- 1
Before
We look at what you actually have
A call and a copy of your spreadsheet, or a screen-share of whatever you use now. We want your real stage names and the steps that matter, so we build the journey you already run.
- 2
Week one
Your journey, and the families already on it
Your workspace, your branding, your stages. Then your live journeys go in. Each journey is attached to the parents’ portal account, so they are invited first; then we import the families and move each journey to its current step together with you. Phase timings start counting from then, so the journey map (Constellation) sharpens over the following weeks.
- 3
Week one, still
You keep working the old way
Nothing is switched off. Run both for as long as you need. A week is typical.
- 4
Week two
The team moves over
Coordinators work from Carme day to day. Parents already have their portal from week one; surrogates’ portals go out once your team are comfortable.
- 5
From then on
It starts measuring you against you
Baselines start from your template’s durations and switch to your own median once five of your journeys have finished that phase. From then on, the platform compares this month against your months.
Bring the spreadsheet. We’ll tell you if you should switch.
Half an hour, your own caseload, and a straight answer about whether this is worth the disruption. If your current setup is working, we will say so.