Introducing Pineapple Family
By Pineapple Family, Co-founders ·
We're Joshua and Daniel. Two husbands, two dads, and the founders of Pineapple Family.
A few years ago, we paid $45,000 to a surrogacy agency to help us start our family. They matched us with a gestational carrier who wasn't ready. The journey failed. We lost two embryos. When we asked what happened, the agency blamed our fertility clinic. When we asked for our money back, they said no. Not until we made it clear we wouldn't stay quiet.
After that, we did something the agency told us was reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible: we went independent. We found our own gestational carrier. We hired our own attorney. We chose our own clinic. We managed the process ourselves.
The result? Two successful journeys. Two healthy kids. A fraction of the cost. And a much better experience for everyone involved, including our carrier, who our kids now call Auntie Sam and who has now joined us as a co-founder of Pineapple Family, leading our work with gestational carriers and egg donors.
That contrast is why Pineapple Family exists.
What we built
Pineapple Family is a family-building platform for intended parents, gestational carriers, and egg donors pursuing independent journeys.
We built the technology that the surrogacy industry said wasn't needed: a platform where families can find their own gestational carrier or egg donor, build a direct relationship, and manage every step of the journey, from first conversation through birth, without paying an agency $30,000–$60,000+ to do it for them.
Our platform includes matching tools, a step-by-step journey management system we call the Journey Doula™, in-platform communication, provider directories, and an education center built on published editorial standards designed to give you the most accurate information available about how this process actually works.
We charge $7,500 for surrogacy journeys, $3,500 for egg donor journeys, and $10,500 for combined journeys. That's 75–90% less than what most agencies charge.
But this isn't just a story about saving intended parents money. It's about what happens to everyone else in the process when you remove the intermediary.
Why this matters for everyone
The surrogacy and egg donation industry is built on a simple premise: you can't do this without us. Agencies charge $30,000–$60,000+ because they've convinced families, carriers, and donors that the process is too complex, too emotional, and too risky to manage independently.
That story is expensive for intended parents. But it's not just their problem.
For gestational carriers, the agency model means someone else decides what you're worth, who you're matched with, and how much of your story intended parents get to see. In our experience, many agencies set compensation ranges that leave carriers earning less than they could negotiate independently, while the agency collects $30,000+ from the other side of the same relationship. Carriers who've completed previous journeys often describe feeling like inventory: managed, moved, and matched on someone else's timeline. The ones who've been through it before? A striking number choose to go independent the second time. That tells you something.
For egg donors, the dynamic is even more opaque. Many donors have limited visibility into who selects them, how their profiles are presented, or what intended parents are paying for access to their information. Agencies curate donor pools and control the introduction process, which means, in our view, the donor's autonomy over one of the most personal decisions she can make is filtered through a company optimizing for its own match volume. Donors deserve to know who's choosing them, why, and on what terms.
For intended parents, you're paying a premium for coordination that technology handles better. The professionals who actually make surrogacy and egg donation safe and successful (reproductive endocrinologists, reproductive attorneys, mental health professionals, OB-GYNs) work with you directly whether you use an agency or not. The agency is a coordinator. You're paying $30,000+ for an introduction and a project management layer.
We built Pineapple Family to fix all three sides of this equation. Intended parents pay less. Gestational carriers and egg donors earn more, choose more, and control more. Everyone builds a direct relationship with the people who matter most to their journey, without a middleman controlling the process.
We built Pineapple Family on three beliefs that guide everything we do:
Transparency. The fertility industry has a transparency problem, from undisclosed corporate ownership structures in organizations that present themselves as independent resources, to self-certifying industry bodies whose membership standards lack independent enforcement. Families and carriers deserve access to complete, accurate information about the industry they're entering.
Empowerment. We believe agencies profit from dependency. Their business model requires you to believe you can't do this without them. Intended parents, gestational carriers, and egg donors are capable of making informed decisions, choosing their own professionals, and building direct relationships if they have the right tools and information.
Accessibility. When agencies charge $30,000–$60,000+, they aren't just inflating costs for intended parents. They're shrinking the entire market. Fewer families can afford to start. Fewer carriers and donors get matched. The ability to build a family shouldn't depend on your bank account. Read more about what we believe →
Who this is for
Gestational carriers: You already know what this journey requires. It's your body, your time, your commitment. Pineapple Family lets you set your own compensation, review intended parent profiles on your terms, and choose the family you want to carry for. No agency deciding your match. No middleman negotiating your worth. You build a direct relationship with your intended parents from the start, and our Journey Doula™ guides every milestone from first conversation through postpartum, so you have structure and support without giving up control. If you've carried before and chose to go independent the second time, you already know why this matters. If this is your first journey and you're weighing your options, we built this platform so that "independent" doesn't mean "alone."
Egg donors: Your decision to donate is deeply personal. You deserve to know how your profile is being presented, who's reviewing it, and what the process looks like from start to finish, not just the parts an agency decides to show you. On Pineapple Family, you control your profile, you see who's interested, and you have direct communication with intended parents when you're ready. No curated catalog. No opaque selection process. And because we built this platform with privacy first, you choose your own level of anonymity. Want to be fully anonymous? You can be. Open to a known donation with ongoing contact? That's your call too. Semi-anonymous with limited information sharing? Also an option. The point is that it's your decision, not an agency's policy. Whether this is something you've been thinking about for years or you're just starting to explore it, our platform and education center will walk you through exactly what to expect (the medical process, the legal framework, the compensation, and the timeline) with no sales pitch attached.
Intended parents: Whether you're an LGBTQ+ couple, a heterosexual couple, or a single parent by choice, if you're exploring surrogacy or egg donation for the first time, we're building an entire education center to help you understand how the process works. If you've already worked with an agency (successfully or not) and are curious about a different model, we invite you to look around. We think you'll notice some things. Here's a good place to start →
What we expect to happen next
We're going to be direct about something, because we think you deserve to know.
We've noticed that a significant number of surrogacy agencies appear to be owned or operated by attorneys. When a platform launches that charges $7,500 for what they charge $30,000–$60,000+ for, it threatens their primary revenue stream. We fully expect legal threats. Cease-and-desist letters alleging tortious interference, defamation, unfair business practices. Not because anything we publish is false, but because legal threats are the cheapest tool available when you can't compete on price and the person sending them happens to have a law license. It costs them nothing to send. It's designed to cost us everything to respond.
We want you to know three things about that:
First, we expected it. We built our editorial standards, our legal infrastructure, and our content practices specifically for this environment. Every factual claim we publish is sourced to public records, clinical guidelines, or direct corporate disclosures. Every opinion is clearly labeled. Our editorial standards are linked at the bottom of every article we write, because we believe in showing our work.
Second, we're protected. Pineapple Family is incorporated in Delaware and operates primarily in California, two states with strong Anti-SLAPP statutes (California's CCP §425.16 and Delaware's Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, 10 Del. C. § 6001 et seq.) that exist specifically to prevent meritless lawsuits designed to silence protected speech. These laws provide for early dismissal and require the filer to pay our legal fees when they lose.
Third, we're not going anywhere. We built this platform because we lived through a system that failed our family and charges other families tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of the same risk. We're two dads and a surrogate who went through this, came out the other side, and decided to build something better. If legal noise is the price of making family-building more accessible, transparent, and fair? We'll take it.
So if you see headlines, legal threats, or industry backlash directed our way in the coming months: now you know what it is. And now you know we told you it was coming.
Get started
We built Pineapple Family for the family we were five years ago. Overwhelmed, overcharged, and underserved. We also built it for the gestational carriers and egg donors who make family-building possible and deserve better than what many of them describe as being treated like inventory.
If any of that sounds familiar, welcome. You're in the right place. 🍍
Pineapple Family is a family-building platform supporting independent surrogacy and egg donation journeys. The platform was founded by Joshua and Daniel, two husbands who completed two successful independent surrogacy journeys after a failed agency match, and Sam, the gestational carrier who carried both of those journeys. We have a clear perspective on this industry, and we've been transparent about that throughout. Read our Editorial Standards to understand how we approach published content.