Some egg donor agencies advertise $275,000 paychecks on social media — but the rigorous process is a far cry from making a 'quick buck'

The complex nature of the egg donation business is baked right into the name. A careful balancing act between the monetary and altruistic, egg donors are not supposed to be overly motivated by their paycheck.

Of course, many are. After all, it's not just a donation — it's work.

Both physically and emotionally tolling, egg donation is "in no way a process by which you can make a quick buck," four-time egg donor Gina-Marie Madow told Insider. "You work for every single penny there."

The role of money in the $1 billion egg donation industry was decided in a 2016 class-action lawsuit, when a group of egg donors sued the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to eliminate its $10,000 compensation cap per donation.

As a result, today donors can make much more than $10,000 a cycle, as evidenced by a quick Google search or a scroll through social media, where posts advertise upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many women choose to use the money to pay off student loans or go to graduate school, including...