How Much Do You Get for Donating Blood Plasma?

We’ll cut to the chase and tell you that you’ll generally earn anywhere from $50 to $100 each time you visit a plasma donation center.

Payouts are variable and depend on factors that are largely outside your control, something that we’ll cover in detail below.

Each donation will generally take you around an hour (although your first visit will take longer, around 2–4 hours, because you’ll have to undergo a prolonged health screening). This means that after the first time you go, your effective “wage” when you donate will be $50–$100 per hour.

How much do you get for donating plasma the first time?

You’ll get paid the first time you visit a plasma donation center. You’ll probably receive a “standard” payout of $50–$100 (although some centers offer bonuses for first-time donors, so it’s possible you’ll make a bit more).

You’ll be able to access your money immediately. The clinic will load it onto a debit card, which they’ll give to you when you leave. You’ll be able to withdraw cash from it at an ATM or use the card in stores right away.

Can you earn a full-time income from selling plasma?

In the US, you can legally sell your blood plasma twice per week. If you do the math, you’ll see that if you make $50–$100 per visit, you can earn an extra $100–$200 per week if you go regularly, which translates to around $400–$800 per month.

Depending on your financial circumstances, that might be a significant amount of money. However, for the vast majority of people, it isn’t enough to live on, which is why most plasma donors use this as a supplementary source of income (a side hustle), not a substitute for a job.

What do real donors say about how much you can earn?

When we wrote our article on the plasma industry, we interviewed a number of frequent plasma donors, who corroborated the figures we listed above.

One donor we spoke to, CJ, gave plasma for a period of 6 months in 2023, and told us that he generally earned $47–$65 per visit. Another recent donor who requested anonymity told us that she made up to $100 for her first few visits, after which she stopped going (due to experiencing mild but unpleasant side effects, such as dizziness).

Peter Jaworski, an ethicist who has written extensively on the plasma industry (and who has also donated himself at CSL Plasma) cited a range of around $50 to $90 per donation, saying that the “average amount that people get paid is somewhere around $65 or $70.”

The clinics that pay people for blood plasma are run by private, for-profit companies. This means they’re free to set their rates however they like and adjust them at will.

Several factors affect how much you’ll make when you give plasma:

1. The current value of blood plasma

What companies are willing to pay is heavily affected by the value of plasma, which they sell on the global market.

When there’s a plasma shortage, clinics tend to pay more. For instance, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was difficult to find donors, and the price of plasma in many areas spiked, reportedly doubling in certain parts of Texas. 1

Put another way, how much you can make is largely determined by the laws of supply and demand. When there are a lot of donors and not as much demand, you’ll probably earn payouts on the lower end of the range we listed above. When the inverse is true, you’ll make more.

This isn’t something you can control, so you’ll have to accept whatever the clinics near you are willing to offer. If the global price of plasma happens to go up, you may be able to earn more while the spike lasts, but that isn’t something you should expect or count on.

2. Your weight (at some clinics)

Some companies pay on a sliding scale based on how much donors weigh.

For instance, if you weigh under 150 lb, you might earn $45 per visit. If you weigh 150–175 lb, you might earn $60, and if you weigh 175+ lb, you might earn $75.

Although this practice might seem bizarre, there’s a very simple reason for it: clinics are able to collect more plasma from people who are larger and weigh more (i.e., they might take 0.8 liters of plasma instead of just 0.7).

This is far from universal, and there are also many clinics that pay all donors the same amounts, regardless of weight.

3. How often you donate

It probably goes without saying that the more often you donate plasma, the more you’ll earn.

Moreover, to incentivize donations, many companies pay more per visit when people go regularly. For instance, when CJ donated in 2023 (at a CSL Plasma center in Lansing, MI), he earned $47 for the first visit he made each week and $65 for the second (encouraging him to go twice per week instead of just once).

Many collection companies also occasionally offer “loyalty” bonuses (e.g., for donating a certain number of times in a given month).

If you’re savvy about taking advantage of these, you may be able to earn more, although it’s important to pay attention to your body. Some people experience feelings of fatigue or other side effects when they give plasma too often, and unless you’re in truly dire financial straits, it probably isn’t worth putting yourself through that just to earn somewhat higher payouts.

To give plasma, you need to be in decent health. That’s meant to ensure both that your body will tolerate the donation process and that your plasma is safe (i.e., that it’s free of bloodborne diseases).

The requirements to qualify as a donor vary somewhat, but in general, you must:

• Be at least 18 years old (with a variable upper age limit that often ranges from 64 to 74)
• Weigh at least 110 lb
• Have a permanent address
• Provide a valid government ID and proof of residency
• Pass a health check for problems that would make donating unsafe (such as low blood pressure)
• Not have any bloodborne illnesses, such as HIV, hepatitis, or parvovirus B19
• Not be pregnant or breastfeeding
• Not have gotten a tattoo or piercing in the last 4 months

Again, those requirements vary somewhat by location, and some clinics might have more stringent criteria that you’ll have to meet.

Factors that can temporarily disqualify you from selling plasma

It’s worth noting that even if you usually qualify as a donor, it’s possible to be temporarily disqualified due to factors outside your control.

For instance, while plasmapheresis is broadly believed to be safe, it does sometimes cause side effects, such as fainting. If that happens, you’ll be prohibited from selling plasma for several weeks to give your body time to recover. Similarly, if you come down with a contagious illness (including something mild, like the common cold), you won’t be able to donate until it clears up.

This means that you should avoid relying on your plasma earnings when you determine your monthly budget. If you’re financially struggling, that might be easier said than done, but it’s possible to lose plasma as a source of income through no fault of your own, so it’s best not to count on it.

Yes, you have to report the money you make from selling plasma as income when you pay your taxes.

There’s a lot of misinformation out there about this; you may have read other articles telling you that plasma earnings aren’t taxable income, and the staff at many plasma clinics are unclear on this themselves. It’s possible that when you give plasma, you’ll be told that the money is a “gift” rather than a “payment,” and this means it isn’t taxable. That isn’t true.

As far as the IRS is concerned, money you make from selling plasma counts as income, and you have to report and pay taxes on it (unless your overall income is so low that it’s below the IRS’s filing threshold, in which case you don’t need to file your taxes at all).

How to report your blood plasma income when you pay your taxes

Fortunately, it isn’t hard to report earnings from selling plasma. It requires just two steps: figuring out how much you made, and writing that down on the appropriate tax form when you file.

1. Determine your yearly earnings

When tax season rolls around, the clinic you visit might send you a piece of paper called a Form 1099, which will list how much you made from your visits in the previous year.

However, not all clinics are diligent about doing this. If you don’t receive a Form 1099, you can either:

• Call or email the clinic and ask them for your form (this is worth a try, but you might not succeed)
• Just figure out how much you made on your own

If the clinic isn’t willing to provide your form and you end up crunching the numbers yourself, don’t stress too much about it. Your final tally doesn’t need to be accurate down to the cent—unless you donated on a very regular schedule and kept diligent records, achieving that level of precision won’t be practical, and you won’t get in trouble for failing to provide it.

Just figure out approximately how many times you went and how much you typically made each time, then multiply those numbers together for a reasonable estimate of your total earnings.

2. Include your earnings on a Schedule 1 tax form

When you file your taxes, the piece of paperwork that you record your income on is called a Form 1040.

As a plasma donor, you’ll need to attach a separate form to this called a Schedule 1, which lists income from sources other than a traditional job.

Your blood plasma earnings belong on the first page of that form. Skip down to line 8, which says “Other income,” and then down to line 8z, which says “Other income. List type and amount.”

Write down “Earnings from blood plasma donation” and then write your total income from plasma in the box on the right. Include that figure when you tally up your total earnings on the next line, and attach your Schedule 1 form when you file your taxes with your Form 1040.