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Samantha Schoech is a writer focusing on gifts. She spends her time finding things that combine quality, beauty, usefulness, and delight. Custom Boxes With Logo Packaging
We compared a dozen different care-package services and ultimately stuck with two of our original picks. Pay attention to the other good services section because there’s a lot to love there too.
By and large, all care packages are good care packages. My college roommate’s mom once sent her a box of granny panties, instant oatmeal, and microwave popcorn, and it felt like a party. Whether you’re sending a care package to a camper, a student, or someone going through a tough time, you don’t want to have to run to multiple stores, find a suitable box, and ship it all out. Enter care-package services, which help assemble the optimum assortment while eliminating logistics.
The fact is that many of these companies offer very similar items: face masks, candles, lip balms, socks. But some in particular stood out. To find the services with the best-quality items, the widest selection, and the most seamless ordering process, we assessed 12 of them and tested eight.
If you want to send an edible care package, check out our guide to the best gift baskets.
BoxFox offers hundreds of fancy, well-curated items. The cost adds up quickly, though, as does the time you spend choosing items.
BoxFox is for aesthetically minded gift givers who are seeking quality items, with no junk. The site’s intuitive interface makes it easy to sort through nearly 500 gifts. And it all gets delivered on time and nicely packaged in a stylish gift box, bedecked with a grosgrain ribbon.
There’s plenty of variety. Drop-down options like “Reason or Season” and “Color” help to filter the site’s vast inventory. You can also sort by price and size (the latter being the only limiting factor). A visual progress bar tracks a box’s fullness—tiny items like gummies, pens, and face masks will fit into the mini box (which has a flat fee of $9). Add larger items, like a thermos for a bottle of wine and a 16-ounce candle, and you’ll get bumped to the big box (which has a flat rate of $15).
It feels like shopping in a stylish store. Sifting through BoxFox’s well-curated assortment provides some of the pleasure of an IRL “shoppy-shop,” with gifts that are beautiful, useful, and familiar. As we were reporting this piece in 2023, we came across many of our own favorite gift picks, including Maldon sea salt, Graza olive oil, reusable Swedish dishcloths, Stasher storage bags, and Baggu shopping bags.
It even offers great books. In the world of online care packages, this is a pretty big deal! Books are an easy place to start if you are looking to create a themed box, and BoxFox doesn’t mark them up. You could start a baby box around a copy of Emily Oster’s Cribsheet, for instance, or anchor an engagement box around a great cookbook. BoxFox also stocks baby board books and journals.
There’s no junky filler. Even the inexpensive options, like mini hair clips or a bundle of sage, are pretty and useful. You won’t find many single-use items such as confetti poppers, stickers, or gag gifts.
Shipping: Shipping is free for orders over $100. The mini and regular boxes ship for a $13 flat fee, and the large box ships for $22.
What it cost us: We created a festival-themed build-your-own regular box, which included a clear cross-body bag ($28), a hair clip ($10), pricey sunscreen ($28), a plastic water bottle ($15), and an under-eye mask ($5). The box arrived in four days via UPS, and it cost us $102, with free shipping (but we opted for some pretty expensive items).
A Care Crates package is easy and quick to assemble. The straightforward selection process is a breeze, but the gift selection itself is somewhat limited, and the individual items are relatively basic.
Care Crates has a youthful vibe, a limited selection of gifts, and a friendly price. And its no-fuss approach to care-package creation works well for the gift giver who wants to compile something personal but doesn’t want to spend a lot of time or get too caught up in the nitty-gritty.
It’s simple and fast to assemble. In total there are about 45 gifts on the site, two box sizes, and a personalized message text field. That’s it. In a world cluttered with nearly endless decisions, we appreciated being able to assemble a thoughtful, quality present without getting bogged down in picking and choosing.
It’s easy to stick to a budget. Once you choose how much you want to spend ($30 for a three-item mini box or $45 for a standard five-item box), smartly designed drop-down menus guide your picks from a range of in-budget options and categories, like wearables (socks), wellness (water bottles, notebook), and treats (chocolate, gummies). The process completely eliminates sticker shock.
Each box gives back. Included with every box is a $2-plus donation to half a dozen select nonprofits, such as Feeding America, the International Rescue Committee, and Huntsman Cancer Foundation. As they build their boxes, shoppers select their preferred nonprofits through a drop-down menu. We appreciated the thoughtful nod; none of the other services we explored included a built-in philanthropic element.
What it cost us: The standard $45 build-a-box we created contained a pair of cute printed socks, a tomato face mask, a sleek gold-toned pen, a leather journal, and a Seattle Chocolate bar. Shipping was $10.75, for a total of $56.
As a Wirecutter gifts writer, I am constantly thinking about the best ways to express affection and goodwill with the perfect present. I’m a care-package aficionado who has long put together my own themed packages for friends and family. I also harbor a deep distaste for all things wasteful or junky, so I approach gift giving with an eye for items that combine value, delight, and utility.
We first started testing care-package services in 2021, and we most recently pulled together a refreshed list of 12 options. Although many of these sites also offer preassembled gift boxes, we focused on those that allow customers to build their own care packages from a variety of gift options. Then we pared down our list to eight sites for testing, using these criteria:
Price: As with most things in life, you can always spend more to get more. We ordered five items from each service (with some exceptions) and aimed for $70 before shipping. Some boxes came in below that price, and others were hard to keep under $100. But most could be generously filled for about $65 plus shipping.
Selection: We looked for companies that offered a good mix of gifts spanning various tastes and interests, so we could build each box with a recipient or theme in mind. And we looked at whether a site had enough items that we would want to receive ourselves. We tried to avoid sites offering single-use items (aside from consumables), such as confetti poppers and gag gifts.
Quality: We considered the quality of the items on offer, and we aimed for a wider, slightly higher-quality selection (see our no-junk rule, above). We considered the presentation of the package as a whole, and we noted whether our chosen gifts were as nice in person as they were on the sites. We also considered things like how a pair of socks fit, whether a chocolate bar was fresh, or if a bag was something we would actually use.
Ordering process: We looked for companies with simple ordering experiences—straightforward websites, items with clear photos and descriptions, and transparent shipping costs. Nothing about the ordering should be confusing, irritating, or overly time-consuming.
Message option: A care package without a note is not a care package at all. The boxes we chose included a card, as well as the option for a handwritten message.
Foxblossom has the high-end self-care feel of a fancy yoga studio. There are approximately 160 gifts in the “build-your-own” section, and they are pleasingly arranged by color. This box is most similar to BoxFox, and it’s maybe even a skosh fancier. However, we found the Foxblossom site to be clunkier, and since the sorting tool was non-functional, weighing the merits of all those gifts was time-consuming.
Belle & Blush is great if you want to spend money on some really elegant gifts. Higher-end makers—including Diptyque and Lunya—come with higher prices (up to $395). Yet the site’s dozens of pages also include some inexpensive items, such as under-eye masks for $6. Like many other sites, Belle & Blush offers free shipping over $100, and with this site it’s easier to get there.
Something Splendid offers a nice, midrange selection of things shoppers will see on most other sites: Voluspa candles, Mast chocolate bars, and a large assortment of self-care items. There are also a few unique one-offs, like edible glitter and needlepoint beer koozies. But the gifts can be sorted only by color, and there were too many uninspired, cheapie novelties. For the right recipient, that could be a good thing. Something Splendid charges a $10 flat fee, plus shipping. Our box of five pink items came to $101, arrived in three days, and was very nicely packaged.
Good Gift Delivered’s selection includes about 250 items, and it features some great books, well-made wooden toys, and a few luxe options, including a gold-plated charm necklace and a velvet-trimmed throw. We especially liked the art supplies in the mix. The site lets you choose an elegant gift box for $15, or you can send your package in a clear cellophane bag, tied with a bow, and avoid that charge. This company also offers some of the best ready-to ship care packages (currently starting at about $45). The Power Lunch is a favorite.
Happy Box is good for someone looking to send a particularly colorful, jokey care package filled with things like Blow Pops, snarky stickers, confetti, and insulated wine glasses that read “Turn on Bravo.” In other words, these are fun but ultimately throw-away items. The fees also seem a bit nickle-and-dimey, with upcharges for packaging, a handwritten card, and shipping.
Giften Market has plenty of enticing items and unique brands, but the interface is clunky, and you have to keep clicking between screens to fill your gift box. The gift box is a $12 flat fee, a card is an extra $6.50, and standard shipping is $14.
Unboxme is a women-owned company that highlights LGBTQ- and BIPOC-made products, and it has some smaller, lesser-known producers, which we found refreshing. Unfortunately, those categories are scantily stocked—a couple were empty—and the website was too busy to feel easy or fun.
In the first version of this guide, in 2021, Small Packages was one of our picks for its wide assortment of preassembled boxes, with a great range of prices and occasions. This company has since expanded to include a build-a-box option, which we tried and liked well enough. The problem was the clunkier website and shipping: It took our package 11 days to arrive, twice as long as the next-slowest package we received.
This article was edited by Hannah Morrill and Jennifer Hunter.
Except for the time she gave a boyfriend her mother’s old toaster for Christmas, staff writer Samantha Schoech has a reputation as an excellent gift giver. She lives in San Francisco with two teens, two cats, a geriatric betta fish, and a bookseller husband. Her first book of short stories, My Mother’s Boyfriends, is coming out in 2024.
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