["Population and Development Review, EarlyView. ", "\nAbstract\nFertility preferences offer insights into how social factors shape behavior. Despite their significance, it remains unclear whether preference measures capture distinct, firm constructs in respondents’ minds, or to what extent responses reflect survey design choices like question order. In two survey experiments, we tested whether the sequence of fertility preference measures affected responses. The first experiment manipulated the sequence of general ideal, personal ideal, wanted, and expected fertility among college students. Sequence changes caused no changes in means for these measures, except for expected, which declined when asked later. Personal ideal and wanted fertility were indistinguishable from each other and were fairly unresponsive to sequencing. The second experiment compared general and personal ideals among a sample representative of U.S. adults. Preferences were firm and distinct among reproductive‐age individuals. For older respondents, the measures were equivalent when asked first, but personal ideal declined when asked after general ideal. Across both samples, general ideal fertility remained similar and higher than other measures for reproductive‐age respondents. These findings suggest that most preferences are relatively unaffected by ordering. We also offer guidance for survey design; general ideals are not interchangeable with other preference measures, and fertility expectations may not be comparable across survey designs.\n"]