My dw and I started off via prideangel. We ended up using cryos and I just gave birth to our little boy last month.
Pride Angel
We met someone one there and had one try. We really wanted to know the donor, so we spoke with a few men on there and then met up with one several times before trying. However, scheduling a time and place to meet so he could give us his deposit was a struggle and after 6 months of cancellations, we decided to use cryos. The advantage to pride angel is that it's cheap. We paid him only £10 for travel and a drink. He had donated for a friend in the past and had all the medical paper work to show he was clean. If they haven't had this, then usually they'd ask you to pay for it. It does become expensive and time consuming if you need to use a clinic as he would have to donate there and then have it tested and quarantined for 6 months.
Cryos
We selected a non-anonymous donor as we want our child to be able to find out his heritage there if he wants when he's older. We ordered 8 straws of MOT20. I used 2 straws for one try, using 1 straw 10hrs post LH surge and 1 10hr afters that. We got lucky as I got pregnant first try, which has resulted in our 5 1/2 week old little boy. We now have 6 straws in storage at Cryos for a sibling which my wife will try for later. Friends of ours did go the clinic route as one was already 36 and had known issues. They purchased their straws and had all delivered to the clinic for storage so they didn't have to pay shipping costs multiple times. One had twins via IVF and the other is now pregnant via IUI and due in Aug.
Some things to consider when selecting a donor:
Sperm type
ICI- unwashed is best for home insemination. However, this will limit your selection of donors as IUI- washed seems to be more readily available. Make sure your donor has enough.
CMV
Some really worry about this. If you're CMV positive, then it's not an issue at all. If you're CMV neg, then using a CMV pos donor holds a low risk of you getting infected during pregnancy which can cause problems with the baby. But CMV pos donors don't have an active infection and so the risk of transmission is very low. However, I'd suggest staying away from those who haven't been tested for CMV as it could be an active infection, which increases the risk of transmission. Whilst not all have been exposed to CMV, a huge portion of Europeans have- it's quite common.
Blood type
If your rhesus negative, you may prefer a Rh neg donor; however, these are hard to come by. Using a rhesus positive donor is fine, but you will be given anti-d injections at 28 weeks and following birth to make sure you don't become sensitised, which is when the Rh pos blood enters your blood causing your body to develop antibodies. This isn't an issue in your first pregnancy, but if this happens, it can kill the foetus in subsequent pregnancies. If you bleed at all during your pregnancy, they will monitor your blood and give you anti-d injections as a precaution. I had to have regular blood tests and top ups as I had bleeding from 10-28 weeks.
If there is a chance of you needing to use a clinic in the furture and you don't want to change donors, then you need to consider the following:
You'll need to select a non-anonymous donor.
You'll need to make sure your donor meets UK regulations.
Note- both of these things increase the price of the sperm.A
When we had ours shipped, we opted for a large nitrogen tank that lasted 12 days. The regular one lasts 7 days. The dry-ice large lasts 5 days and regular dry-ice 3 days.
As for cost, it can get really expensive. If you don't mind using a donor without an extended profile, it is then cheaper. Using an anonymous donor is even cheaper still, but again, if you may need a clinic later, you won't be able to use that at the clinic because of UK regulations.
I'm not sure what kind of tracking you've been doing, but I would suggests tracking as much as possible, including the basal body temp. It will give the best idea as to when ovulation occurs. As frozen sperm only lives for up to 24 hours, the more accurate the better. There are plenty of apps out there to help track.
Hope this helps. Best of luck.