What cell QC testing costs

The short answer: a mycoplasma test is $30 to $180, an STR identity profile is $65 to $250, sterility is $270 to $300, endotoxin is $135, and a G-band karyotype is $918 to $1,307 — all per sample, all research use, all from published rate cards captured on 2026-09-01.

A minimum defensible release panel for a research cell bank comes to roughly $1,780. Karyotype is over half of it.

The assay table

When each test is actually required

The prices above only tell you what to spend. This tells you when you have to.

ATCC’s own published guidance names four trigger points for both STR and mycoplasma: when a line arrives in the laboratory, after ten passages, after preparing a cell bank, and when in doubt. That is a good default policy and it is cheap to follow — at MD Anderson’s external mycoplasma rate of $49, testing at all four points across a year costs less than one failed experiment.

The finding: identical assays, four-fold price spread

Look at the STR rows. The same underlying assay — a multiplex PCR across STR loci, reported as an allele table — ranges from $65 to $250 per sample. That is a four-fold spread on a commodity test.

The spread has three causes, and only one of them is about quality:

1. Institutional eligibility. Arizona Genetics Core charges $65 to University of Arizona users, $78 to other academics, and $97.50 to industry. MD Anderson charges $90 in-network and $146 external. Same assay, same laboratory, different customer class.
2. Number of loci. ATCC amplifies 17 STR loci plus amelogenin using PowerPlex 18D. Arizona Genetics Core’s published figure is for PowerPlex 16, at 15 autosomal loci plus X/Y. More loci is more discriminating.
3. What is bundled with the number. ATCC’s price includes comparison against its own human cell STR database and against the Cellosaurus database, plus expert interpretation of stutter, off-ladder alleles and artefacts, delivered as a signed report. A core facility that returns an allele table has not done that work.

The practical rule: if the STR result is going into a manuscript or a regulatory submission, the interpretation and database comparison are what you are paying for and the cheap option is not equivalent. If you are confirming that the vial in your freezer is the line you think it is, the cheap option is fine.

The pack-size effect on ATCC’s own pricing

ATCC also publishes a quantity discount schedule on individual kit orders: 0 percent for 0–5 kits, 10 percent for 6–10, 15 percent for 11–19, 20 percent for 20–29, and 25 percent for 30 or more. If you run a facility that authenticates lines routinely, buying the year’s cards at once is worth a fifth to a quarter of the spend.

Method differences that change what the result means

Two assays with the same name are not always the same test. The two cases that catch people out most often:

Mycoplasma: enzymatic versus nucleic acid. MD Anderson’s $30 to $49 service uses the Lonza MycoAlert kit, a luminescence assay detecting mycoplasmal enzymes. ATCC’s $167 service uses a touchdown PCR against the 16S rRNA coding region, with a stated sensitivity down to 2.5 fg of target DNA and coverage of over 120 species. The PCR test detects dead organisms and organisms below the enzymatic assay’s threshold; the enzymatic test is faster and much cheaper. For routine screening of a working culture, the cheap test is the right test. For bank release, it is not.

Sterility: 14-day compendial versus rapid. The published Compounders International figures show $270 for the USP <71> 14-day test and $130 for a rapid method with a preliminary result at 7 days. Those are not interchangeable. USP <71> is the compendial reference; a rapid alternative method must be shown non-inferior under USP <1223> for the specific product before it substitutes. The same provider prices integrating the rapid method into the 14-day test at an additional $130, which tells you they expect customers to run both rather than choose.

Validation is a separate line item. The endotoxin listing shows $135 per sample plus $480 for method validation; microbial enumeration is $160 per test plus $500 validation; specified microorganisms is $130 per microbe plus $230 validation per microbe. If you are testing a new matrix — an unusual medium, a hydrogel, a tissue construct — budget for validation once before you budget for testing repeatedly. First-time buyers routinely miss this and are surprised by a first invoice several times the per-sample price.

Building a panel: what a release test actually costs

The dominant line in any research bank panel is the karyotype. At $917.73 to $1,307 it is between half and two-thirds of the panel cost, and it is the assay most often skipped.

Skipping it is reasonable for a working stock you can re-derive. It is not reasonable for a master bank, a line that has been gene-edited, or a line that has been through single-cell cloning and extended expansion — precisely the conditions under which karyotypic abnormalities arise. Paying $918 once at bank creation is cheaper than discovering a trisomy after eighteen months of phenotyping.

What to check before you send a sample

• Which loci, and which kit. PowerPlex 16 and PowerPlex 18D are not the same panel.
• Whether interpretation is included or you receive raw allele calls.
• Which reference database the profile is compared against, if any.
• For mycoplasma: the detection method, and whether the report states which species are covered.
• For sterility: compendial or rapid, and whether method suitability for your matrix has been established or will be billed separately.
• Sample format required. Several of these providers ship an FTA card and want dried cells spotted on it; others want live culture or a pellet. The wrong format loses a week.
• Whether the price is a customer-class rate you are actually eligible for. Several of the cheapest figures on this page are internal institutional rates that an external buyer cannot access.
• Turnaround, in writing. Only two providers in the table above publish one.

How we can help

QC testing is the part of a wetware purchase most often left until the specification is otherwise finished, at which point it either blows the budget or gets cut. We price it up front alongside the material, put the same panel to multiple laboratories, and tell you which assays your particular use genuinely requires rather than which ones a supplier will happily sell you.

If you are buying cells or tissue from us, we will tell you exactly what QC arrives with the material and what is not covered, so you can decide what to add rather than discover it later.

Send us a specification.