Buyer's Guide
Cryo Transport Companies, Compared Honestly
There are really only two kinds of company in this market: the ones where a person flies with your specimens, and the ones where the container travels on its own inside a monitored freight network. Almost every difference in price and risk comes out of that one choice. Work out which suits your route and the shortlist writes itself.
How we wrote this. GuardianCryo is one of the companies on this page, so read it with that in mind. Our rule for this article: every statement about another company is taken from that company's own public website and quoted or closely paraphrased, with the retrieval date noted. We have not invented competitor pricing, we have not claimed anyone has had failures, and where a competitor does something well we say so. If you find something here that has gone out of date, the company's own site is the authority, not us.
The only distinction that really matters
Almost every difference in price, coverage, and risk profile between cryo transport providers traces back to one question: does a person travel with your specimens, or do they travel alone?
Attended hand-carry
A named courier collects the shipper from the releasing laboratory and stays with it for the entire journey, including in the aircraft cabin, until it is handed to the receiving laboratory.
Strengths
- +Chain of custody is never broken and never transferred between handlers
- +A person is physically present to act if a flight is delayed, diverted, or cancelled
- +Works on routes and to destinations a freight network may serve poorly
- +The shipper stays in the cabin environment rather than a cargo hold
Trade-offs
- −Costs more per shipment because a person's time and airfare are in the price
- −Capacity is limited by courier availability rather than network capacity
- −Scheduling has to fit a human itinerary
Logistics network / shipper-based
The charged dry vapor shipper is consigned into a monitored freight and courier network and travels unattended, with condition monitoring and tracking technology substituting for a physical escort.
Strengths
- +Scales to high shipment volumes and established lane networks
- +Typically lower cost per shipment on routine, well-served routes
- +Mature monitoring and tracking technology on the container itself
- +Broad geographic coverage through established freight infrastructure
Trade-offs
- −No person present at the point where something goes wrong
- −Custody passes through multiple handlers en route
- −Exception handling depends on the network's escalation process rather than a courier on site
Neither model is universally correct. We run the hand-carry model and we think it is the right choice for international corridors, for cycle-coupled timing, and for anyone who wants a person accountable at every point. We would also tell you plainly that for a high-volume clinic moving routine specimens on well-served domestic lanes, a logistics network is often the more sensible economic answer.
Who does what, in their own words
Descriptions below are drawn from each company's own public website.
Retrieved 7 August 2026. Company websites change; verify against the source before making a decision.
GuardianCryo
THIS IS US- What it is
- Cryogenic specimen transport for reproductive medicine, US domestic and international.
- Service model
- Attended hand-carry. A named courier travels with the shipper in the aircraft cabin for the full journey.
- Published pricing
- Publishes indicative domestic pricing on this site.
- Note
- This is us. Treat everything on this page about our own service as our claim, and everything about other companies as their published claim, quoted so you can check it.
Cryoport Systems
- What it is
- Describes itself as providing “comprehensive supply chain solutions for the Life Sciences” and as “global experts in temperature-controlled supply chain management for critical materials.” Operates a dedicated reproductive medicine division.
- Service model
- Shipper-based logistics network, with a local transport service alongside it. Its reproductive medicine site describes the Cryoshuttle service as offering “fast, GPS-monitored local transport of your reproductive materials,” and its international coverage as a network reaching over 150 countries. Condition monitoring is provided through its Smartpak system.
- Published pricing
- No pricing published on its website; directs visitors to request a quote.
- Note
- Publishes its cryogenic temperature range as below -150°C, alongside ultra-cold, refrigerated, and controlled room temperature ranges.
ARK.CRYO
- What it is
- States: “We are an international transportation company specializing in shipping biological samples for assisted reproduction.”
- Service model
- Attended hand-carry. Describes “onboard personal supervision of the dewar,” and states that its onboard personnel are competent in maintaining the liquid nitrogen inside the dry shipper dewars at the proper temperature. No unattended shipping option is described on its homepage.
- Published pricing
- No pricing published on its homepage; links to a separate pricing and delivery terms page.
- Note
- A structurally similar model to ours. We list it because pretending competitors with the same model do not exist would make this page useless to you.
TMRW Life Sciences (CryoLink)
- What it is
- Not a transport company. TMRW describes CryoLink as “a digital workstation that links specimens and software with storage,” part of a digital specimen management system that also includes the CryoBeacon RFID tracking device and the ivfOS cloud platform.
- Service model
- Not applicable. This is in-facility identification and tracking hardware and software, not physical relocation between facilities.
- Published pricing
- Not applicable to transport.
- Note
- Included because “cryolink embryo relocation” is a genuinely common search, and the honest answer is that the two things are different categories.
This is not an exhaustive list of providers in the sector. It covers the companies people most often ask us about by name.
If you searched for “CryoLink embryo relocation”
You are probably looking for two different things at once, and it is worth separating them.
CryoLink is made by TMRW Life Sciences. In TMRW's own words it is “a digital workstation that links specimens and software with storage.” It sits alongside the CryoBeacon, which TMRW describes as linking cryodevices from a single patient to a unique RFID-enabled ID and “enabling a complete digital chain of custody,” and ivfOS, its cloud platform for real-time specimen tracking. (Retrieved 7 August 2026)
All of that is about identifying and tracking specimens, largely within a facility. None of it physically moves embryos from one building to another. Those are genuinely different jobs, and a clinic can use TMRW's system and still need a transport company the moment a specimen has to leave the building.
What this means practically. If your clinic uses TMRW and your embryos are tagged with CryoBeacons, that is a good thing for identification accuracy, and it does not remove the need for a cryogenic transport provider. When you arrange the move, tell your transport provider what tracking system the releasing laboratory uses so that the inventory on the manifest matches the laboratory's own records at both ends.
Why you cannot find published prices, and what to do about it
Searching for a competitor's shipping cost is one of the most common queries that brings people to this site, and the honest answer is unsatisfying: as of 7 August 2026, neither Cryoport nor ARK.CRYO publishes rates on its public site. Both route enquiries to a quote request instead.
This has a practical consequence worth internalising. Any page you find online stating a specific dollar figure for a named competitor's service did not get that figure from the competitor's website. Treat it as unsourced, and do not build a budget on it.
How to compare quotes properly
- Ask every provider for an all-inclusive figure, and ask explicitly what is billed separately. Shipper rental, monitoring, fuel and handling surcharges, customs brokerage, and return of the container are the usual separate lines.
- Confirm whether the quote is for attended or unattended transport. A network quote and a hand-carry quote are not comparable on price alone because you are buying different things.
- Ask what liability and insurance is included, and to what value.
- Ask what happens, and what it costs, if the receiving laboratory cannot accept delivery on the planned day.
We publish indicative domestic figures so you have at least one public reference point to measure other quotes against. They are in the embryo shipping cost guide.
One industry-wide inaccuracy worth knowing about
Nearly everyone in this sector claims dry shippers hold -196°C. We did too, on this website, until we went back and corrected it. That number is the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. A dry shipper is built specifically so there is no free liquid in it, which is what makes it flyable. Specimens sit in the vapor above an absorbed nitrogen lining, and that runs closer to -190°C.
Nobody's embryos are at risk over this. It is sloppy copy, not a cold-chain failure, and a provider who says -196°C is not thereby untrustworthy. The threshold that carries clinical meaning is about -130°C, and a charged shipper sits far below it. For what it is worth, Cryoport publishes its cryogenic range as below -150°C, which is the more careful way to say it. (Retrieved 7 August 2026)
So do not shop on the coldest advertised number. Ask instead how long the shipper is validated to hold for a route your length, and whether you get the monitoring log afterwards. That is the question that separates providers.
Which model fits your situation
A logistics network usually fits when
- Your route is a routine, well-served domestic lane
- You are a clinic moving specimens at volume
- Timing is flexible and not coupled to a cycle date
- Cost per shipment is the dominant constraint
Attended hand-carry usually fits when
- The route is international, or crosses a corridor with complex customs
- Delivery is tied to a treatment or cycle date
- These are your only specimens and there is no second attempt
- You want a named person accountable and reachable throughout
Get a quote you can actually compare
Tell us your two facilities and your timing. We will give you an all-inclusive figure and tell you plainly if we think a different model suits your route better.
Company names and trademarks referenced on this page belong to their respective owners. Descriptions are drawn from each company's public website on the date noted and are provided for comparison only. GuardianCryo is a transport company and does not provide medical or legal advice.
