Compare the multi-year cost of keeping mouse lines live vs. cryopreserving them. Break-even year, recommendation, year-by-year cost curve, with embryo or sperm cryo defaults.
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Load example cryopreservation cost calculator data to see the full workflow
Lines you are deciding cryo vs live for.
Embryo: $1,500-$2,500/line. Sperm: $500-$1,200/line.
Override the default with your core facility rate.
Fully loaded — per-diem + tech time + genotyping. $300-$1,500 typical.
Embryo transfer or IVF resuscitation. $1,000-$2,500 typical.
Lines you actually plan to thaw within the horizon.
How many years out you are budgeting for. 3-7 years is typical.
| Year | Cumulative live | Cumulative cryo | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $0 | $18,000 | Live |
| 1 | $6,000 | $18,000 | Live |
| 2 | $12,000 | $18,000 | Live |
| 3 | $18,000 | $18,000 | Cryo |
| 4 | $24,000 | $18,000 | Cryo |
| 5 | $30,000 | $18,000 | Cryo |
When to use
Do not use for
Do not just count per-diem. Add a fraction of: husbandry tech time, genotyping, health monitoring, shipping, and breeder replacement. A line with 2-3 cages can easily cost 1500/year fully loaded — much more than the headline per-diem rate.
If you expect to recover the line, model the recovery cost AND the post-recovery live maintenance. Cryo + recovery + 1 year live can easily exceed 5 years of pure live maintenance for a frequently-used line.
A single dewar failure can wipe a decade of cryopreserved lines. Most institutions require split storage across two physical locations, which doubles the maintenance cost (LN₂ refills, monitoring contracts) but does not change the per-line cryo cost much.
Cryo decisions are usually made on 3-7 year horizons (PI tenure, grant cycles, project lifetime). Anything longer is a long-tail archival decision and should be treated as a fixed cost, not a savings calculation.
Cost model: live_total = lines annual_maint years. cryo_total = lines cryo_cost + lines_to_recover recovery_cost. break_even_years = cryo_cost_per_line / annual_maintenance_per_line (per line, ignoring recovery). Recovery costs are spread evenly across the second half of the horizon for the year-by-year curve. Recommendation engine: cryo if break-even is well inside the horizon and recoveries are sparse; live if every line will be recovered or break-even is outside the horizon; mixed otherwise.
Published 2026-04-07. Calculations support planning and documentation; verify procurement decisions against manufacturer specifications or institutional SOPs.
ConductScience Cryopreservation Cost & Break-Even Calculator. ConductScience, Inc. 2026. Available at: https://conductscience.com/tools/cryopreservation-cost-calculator
Mochida K, Hasegawa A, Taguma K, Inoue K, Ogonuki N, Ogura A. Cryopreservation of mouse embryos by ethylene glycol-based vitrification. J Reprod Dev. 2011;57(1):92-97.
Takeo T, Nakagata N. Reduced glutathione enhances fertility of frozen/thawed C57BL/6 mouse sperm after exposure to methyl-beta-cyclodextrin. Biol Reprod. 2011;85(5):1066-1072.
Every line in your colony costs money every month you keep it alive. Cryopreservation lets you trade *recurring* cost (per-diem, husbandry time, cage space) for an *upfront* cost (the cryo procedure) plus an optional *recovery* cost when you actually need the line back.
Below break-even, live is cheaper. Above break-even, cryo is cheaper — *unless* you recover most of what you froze.
Cage space is often the binding constraint, not dollars. A cryo bank takes one freezer slot per line; a live colony takes 1-3 cages per line. If your facility is at capacity, cryo is the only way to add new lines without cutting old ones. The break-even math may not even matter when the rack is full.
Freeze 2-cell or 8-cell embryos. Recovery: thaw → embryo transfer to pseudopregnant recipient → full litter. High recovery rate (>80% in well-run cores). More expensive per line (~$1,800).
Freeze epididymal sperm from a few males. Recovery: IVF on fresh oocytes → embryo transfer. Cheaper per line (~2,000+). Sperm cryo is best for *archival* (we probably will not use this) and for males of inbred lines that breed reliably.
Embryo cryo your top 10-20% of lines (the ones you expect to recover within 2-5 years). Sperm cryo the long tail (lines you may never need but cannot ethically euthanize without an archival copy). Live-maintain only the active workhorses.
Logs every line's cryo status, flags candidates for the next freeze run, and rolls up the running cost savings against your live colony.
Open app EquipmentCompute the fully-loaded per-line annual maintenance cost to feed into this calculator.
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