Eric Ravenscraft
Looking for a super cool gift for a special geek on your holiday shopping list (or maybe you just really want to treat yourself in 2018)? Subscription boxes are a gift that keeps on giving all year year.
Subscription boxes are nifty programs where you pay a monthly fee and in exchange, you get a box of cool stuff every month centered around a theme of your choice. It’s like a little birthday present you give yourself every month. You can also sign up friends or family and share the loot joy with others.
The subscription box market has really exploded in the last year and we’ve searched high and low to find some real gems. Here are some of the best geeky boxes you can sign up for.
LootCrate: The Standard Bearer For Geeky Gifts
Price: $9-60/month
If you’ve heard of any geeky subscription box, it’s probably this one. The basic LootCrate box starts at $16 and gets you a guaranteed T-shirt, plus an assortment of figurines, pins, prints, or other doodads. However, LootCrate has expanded from its humble beginnings to offer a collection of specialized boxes. You can get a crate for anime fans, gamers, or even your dog. If you don’t care about the extra collectible stuff, you can subscribe to a number of LootCrate Wear boxes that will send you a monthly box with shirts, socks, or even underwear. The Wear line of boxes start as low as $9/month, making them one of the most affordable subscription boxes we’ve found.
Geek Chic Monthly: Fashionable Jewelry and Accessories
Price: $13/month, $18 for past months
The Geek Chic Monthly subscription sends you a small assortment of accessories and jewelry items from a new franchise. In a given month, you may get a necklace, earrings, bracelets, or other accessories. Boxes from recent months have been themed around Supernatural, Alice in Wonderland, Retro Video Games, and Futurama. If you missed a month or want to pick which boxes you get, you can buy previous months from Geek Chic Monthly’s online shop for $18 per box. Some items are also for sale individually for cheaper than the whole box.
The Bookish Box: Books, and Gifts For Book Lovers
Price: $18-43/month
Being a book lover in the 21st century isn’t just about preferring paper books over a Kindle. It’s a subculture that appreciates the entire experience of turning off the screens, curling up under a comfy blanket, grabbing a nice cup of tea and disappearing into a literary world. If that all sounds appealing to you, The Bookish Box is up your alley. Each box includes a shirt and some combination of tea, pins, bookmarks, socks, and more goodies for book lovers. Optionally, you can get a box that includes a new Young Adult or Adult book each month, if you don’t mind letting someone else pick what you’re going to read.
ComicBoxer: Hand Picked Comic Books For Your Collection
Price: $20/month
If the massive influx of comic book movies has made you curious to read the source material, you may find sifting through what’s out there can be overwhelming. Your best bet to find the stories worth reading is to get recommendations from a friend or helpful comic shop employee who knows the market. ComicBoxer aims to replicate this experience by hand picking five or more comics from the previous month and sending them right to your door. The comics come from Marvel, DC, Image, and independent publishers, so you’re sure to get an assortment of issues from across the industry.
CreationCrate: A New Arduino Project Every Month
Price: $30/month
Most goodie subscription boxes just send you a neat little present each month, but Creation Crate also wants to teach you something. Each month you’ll get an Arduino-compatible UNO R3 board, along with the necessary components to build a new project, like a mood lamp or a lock box. Unlike other boxes, you don’t get a random project each month. There’s a twelve month curriculum that builds on the knowledge you learned from each previous project. Of all the subscriptions in this list, Creation Crate is one of the most valuable since you don’t just get toys, you get a hands on educational experience.
Escape the Crate: An Escape Room Style Puzzle In a Box
Price: $30 every two months
Escape rooms—a new-ish type of interactive game where players are locked in a room and have to solve puzzles to get out—have grown in popularity recently. The only downside is that you need to find one near you and then buy tickets for you and a group of friends. Escape the Crate is much simpler. Every two months, you’ll get a box of puzzles, all centered around a historical story or event like the Queen Anne’s Revenge pirate ship, or the Roman Colosseum. You can play by yourself, but each box is designed to be played with a group, so invite your friends over for a unique game night.
UnboxBoardom: Choose From a Few New Board Games Every Month
Price: $34/month
The board game boom of the last few years has resulted in hundreds of new, innovative games. So many, in fact, that it’s difficult to keep up with all the new releases let alone sort through them and find the gems. UnboxBoardom helps you find the best ones by sending you a new board game at regular intervals. Each box costs $34 and you can choose to get a new one every one, two, or three months. You can also pick between one of three games for each box, or let the company choose for you.
The Music Box: Artist and Compilation CDs For Music Lovers
Price: $6-16/month
Spotify may be great for finding most music in one app, but if you want to find new artists, you’re at the mercy of an algorithm. The Music Box gives you a more personal touch, including at minimum a compilation CD with an assortment of new artists from a variety of genres. The pricier subscription options also include one to two artist CDs, with a collection of songs from a single artist. And yes, we said CDs. Those have come back around to being retro, right?
Kawaii Box: The Cutest Toys, Candy, and Accessories
Price: $20/month
The concept of kawaii as it’s practiced in Japan is more than just making things cute. It’s an aesthetic and cultural (and counter-cultural) movement dating back to the 70s, spearheaded by young women. If you’re not totally clear on what “kawaii” means, your first Kawaii Box will give you a hint. It comes with an assortment of stationary, keychains, candy, plushies, and more. The various characters you’ll see on your stuff include Hello Kitty, Pusheen, Rilakkuma, and, of course, Pikachu.
BrickBox: LEGO Sets and Minifigs For Collectors
Price: $20-30/month
No one’s LEGO collection is ever really complete. There’s always something new or interesting out there to collect. BrickBox adds to your pile every month with a new featured minifig, a small or medium size building set (depending on whether you go with the mini or regular sized subscription), and other assorted goodies all centered around a particular theme like the castle box seen here.
