Your DNA has 6.4 billion letters. Most tests read a few thousand.
Whole genome sequencing reads every one of them at clinical-grade 30× coverage — the same standard hospitals use to diagnose rare disease. You get the reports, and you get the raw files. From $180 with the code below.
The 0.02% problem
Why the DNA test you already took didn't tell you much.
23andMe, Ancestry, MyHeritage and the other consumer names all use a technology called SNP genotyping. A genotyping chip reads about 700,000 pre-selected positions in your DNA. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to what's actually there.
Your genome contains roughly 6.4 billion base pairs. Genotyping reads about 700,000 of them — less than 0.02%. It works well for finding common variants that were already known to be interesting, which is how ancestry estimates and a handful of health traits get computed. It cannot find anything the chip wasn't designed to look for.
Whole genome sequencing does not choose. It reads every letter, every gene, every intron, every regulatory region, and every stretch of DNA between genes. If the answer is in your DNA, WGS finds it.
What you get
A complete clinical-grade sequence, plus your own raw files.
The raw files matter more than they sound. FASTQ is the unaligned read data. BAM is the aligned version. VCF is the list of variants. Together they let you re-analyze your genome with any bioinformatics tool ever built — today's or 2035's — without paying to re-sequence.
The numbers
Whole genome, in four numbers.
in one human genome
(clinical grade)
updated for life
at 30× depth
Who does this well
We recommend Dante Labs.
We looked at every consumer WGS provider still shipping in 2026 and Dante Labs is the value pick by a wide margin. Standard price is €399 (about $430), and their flash-sale price drops to €169 (about $180). No add-on report fees. No storage fees. FASTQ, BAM and VCF included at no extra charge — most competitors either don't offer FASTQ at all or charge extra for it.
The honest trade-off: Dante's operational reputation is uneven. Turnaround is around 12 weeks and customer service is famously slow to respond. If you're the kind of buyer who values raw data quality and a low price, and you can wait, they're unmatched. If you need a polished white-glove experience, Nebula Genomics was that provider until they shut down and there isn't a direct replacement at consumer pricing.
From the journal
Playbooks, sale timing, and post-purchase guides.
Practical writing on the parts of WGS you only figure out after ordering. Full journal → all posts.
BUDGET PLAYBOOK
Whole genome sequencing on a budget — the under-$200 game plan
The exact sequence of moves to get clinical-grade 30× WGS for under $200.
SALE TIMING INTEL
When are Dante Labs flash sales? A 2026 calendar
When the €169 flash sale windows historically hit, and when the next ones are likely.
POST-PURCHASE
How to back up 900GB of genome data
The 3-2-1 backup plan that works for genomics without eating your budget.
Ready when you are
Read your genome, keep the files, forever.
Save 10% on top of the current Dante Labs price with the code below. It's a periodic flash-sale item — the €169 price isn't always live, but the 10% off stacks on any listed price.
Who this is for
You'll get the most out of WGS if any of this is you.
Whole genome sequencing is the right choice if you want raw data ownership, if you're planning a family and want carrier screening across recessive conditions, if you or a first-degree relative has a diagnosed hereditary condition and you want to see whether you carry the variant, if you're on multiple medications and want pharmacogenomic guidance, or if you're a data-oriented person who wants to feed your VCF into third-party analysis tools as they emerge. It's also the right choice if you already bought a genotyping test years ago and felt underwhelmed by the results: the reason wasn't the report interface, it was the underlying data.
If your primary question is ancestry percentages or DNA relatives and you don't care about health data, a $99 genotyping test is a better fit. WGS is more expensive, slower, and its ancestry infrastructure is less developed than 23andMe's or AncestryDNA's.