The 14 Best Subscription Boxes for Kids
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Here’s a proposition: Rather than delight your kid once or twice a year with a big, expensive present that will eventually get put aside, why not surprise them with a small, delightful package once a month? I have two kids, a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. They are thrilled when something arrives in the mail that isn’t bills, replacement chargers from Amazon, or Garnet Hill catalogs.
Subscription boxes can be useful supplements for remote learning. Some of them are consumable, so your kid can have a treat that won't be left to molder in a corner of a playroom until they're 25. They're also handy to have around the house if you can’t send your sniffly kid to school or a big indoor birthday party, and as a bonus, they’re also usually affordable. I tested some of the subscriptions on this list, and I bought others for my kids and their friends. These are our favorites.
Be sure to check out all of our other buying guides for kids, including the Best STEM toys, Best Kids’ Headphones, Best Tablets for Kids, and Best Tech Gifts for Kids.
Updated June 2024: We added the CrunchLabs Hack Pack, the Pipsticks Sticker Club, and SketchBox. We also updated links and prices.
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- Photograph: KiwiCo
The Best Box for All Ages
KiwiCo Kiwi CrateWe have now been subscribing to Kiwi for so long that the company sent us a cautious email asking whether it was OK that we were getting repeat boxes. My 6-year-old son receives some of the same themed crates my 9-year-old received at her age. Kiwi Crate offers various gift boxes for all ages, from toddlers under 2 to teenagers. You can choose boxes for specific interests, such as music, mazes, holiday crafts, and robots.
The sheer amount of stuff in most gift subscription boxes can be overwhelming. That's why I particularly like Kiwi's careful curation. The instructions are clear enough that my 6-year-old can follow them easily. The projects are fun and age-appropriate, but it doesn't break my kids' hearts when they inevitably lose or destroy them, like sewing together a baseball mitt made out of felt. Each box also includes clear instructions that require little parental supervision—my kids can follow the drawings, even if they have trouble parsing the written instructions. My son recently made himself a little spy suitcase with sunglasses that let him read invisible ink. He was so proud of himself that he wore the sunglasses while practicing violin. It was fun and cool.
- Photograph: Lovevery
Best for Preschoolers
Lovevery Play KitWe received a Lovevery kit when my son was 2 years old. Now he’s 6, and I still find the company’s sturdy, Montessori-inspired toys in use around our house. Lovevery (pronounced “love-every”) promotes what it calls stage-based learning. At each stage of development, babies need different (beautiful, colorful, durable) toys to help them develop different parts of their brain.
It’s pretty cute to term every stage with a different focus, like The Inspector or The Explorer, although I have to admit that I’m not so sure my son enjoyed experimenting with gravity that much more at 10 months than at a year old (he still dropped things on the floor is what I’m saying). My much older daughter also enjoyed arranging giant, gorgeous felt flowers just as much as my son did. If you’re a special person in a little one’s life and want to send them attractive and sturdy toys to pass down to others, this is the best toy subscription to get.
★ Alternative: Is your toddler going through a specific (very annoying) phase and you need some help? Lovevery now offers parent course packs (starting at $50) to address needs like potty training or getting a new sibling. The course pack offers access to the Lovevery app, video content, toys, and books.
- Photograph: Lalo
Best for Babies
Lalo Play BoxLalo’s Play Boxes are made for the littlest people in our lives. There are 10 different boxes of toys that are designed for different months within the first two years of a kiddo’s life, starting at the 0-12 month infant stage. It’s available both as a subscription or a one-off purchase of a specific developmental window, such as 3-4 months or 16-18 months, and you can add it to a registry on Babylist.
The toys are beautifully made with nontoxic materials. Most of the toys I tested with my son were made of wood, like the wooden blocks he likes to knock over from the 19-21 month box and the drum he plays from the 13-15 month set. Each box comes with a little Play Guide to describe how the toy is meant to be used and to stimulate their age group. I also liked when the booklet gave tips on how to use the toys when my son got older, too. I tried out two different Lalo Play Boxes and was happy to see that my son was usually interested in at least three of the items on a consistent basis, which is pretty great for a toddler! I’m honestly jealous of how pretty some of the toys are, and regularly resist the temptation to steal the cute Stacking Rocket for my bedside table. —Nena Farrell
- Photograph: Literati
Best Book Club
Literati Book ClubIf you and your family are struggling to find reading material for your required 20 minutes of reading per day for school (that's not Wings of Fire or Bear Snores On over and over again), I highly recommend a book subscription. We paid for a Literati subscription until its curation system worked against them. Literati offers book clubs that take newborn children up to their teens. Literati will send your child five books each month. Return any books that you don't like and pay Amazon's list price for the rest. Every single book was a hit, and each kid had to have every book in every box. For the sake of my wallet and our already-groaning bookshelves, I had to stop the subscription.
You can gift a subscription or a one-time, age-appropriate theme box that comes with a card and personalized stickers and artwork. It's a great way to expose your children (and yourself!) to wonderful new works of art or literature without having to drag them to a bookstore.
★ Alternatives: Over the years, we have tried so many book subscriptions. If you or your child are bilingual, you might want to consider Curio ($50/quarterly), which currently offers themed books and audio reading guides in different age ranges for Spanish, Chinese, and French. StoryCaptain ($25/month) offers themed book boxes with activity guides and small toys; Doctor Ted was one of my son's favorite books for weeks.
- Photograph: Universal Yums
Best Snack Box
Universal Yums Snack BoxThis is actually the best box. This is what I spend my money on every month. My kids tear into the Universal Yums snack box like a very small pack of very tiny wolves. My colleague Louryn Strampe recommends it in her Best Snack Boxes guide. You can choose a small, medium, or large box, and it includes an informative booklet, games, and trivia.
Food is a great way to learn about geography and different cultures. Every month, my kids and I open the box, look at a globe, and do a lot of Googling. We have liked several foreign candies enough to start ordering them separately on Amazon. Even when the snacks aren't a hit—I got the salted truffle French fries all to myself—my kids always try them and ask a lot of questions about why a country is called the Kingdom of Butterflies and when we can visit.
- Photograph: Bitsbox
Best for Budding Coders
Bitsbox Basic BoxJust as parents used to give their children tiny kitchen sets and toy hammers, now we've got coding kits. Even if kids don't grow up to become professional software engineers, basic programming fluency will undoubtedly come in handy. The Bitsbox is aimed at children who can already read and write, so from 6 to 12 years old. Following the instructions in the booklet, your child can create a simple app to use on any computer, tablet, or smartphone with a web browser (although younger children will probably require a lot of supervision).
- Photograph: CrunchLabs
Best Science Box
CrunchLabs Hack PackThis is coming with a big disclaimer: CrunchLabs, the company founded by former NASA engineer and current YouTuber Mark Rober, says that its Hack Pack is for people over 14 years old. However, my 6-year-old put it together with minimal help in an afternoon, although it did take him much longer than the 60-minute estimated time for a teenager. ("Why are you so worried, Mama?" he admonished me, when I showed skepticism. "The drawings show you exactly what to do.") Each box comes with a robot to assemble that illustrates a STEM principle, complete with a battery and an Arduino microcontroller. You can also unlock a video, but the drawings in the included manual were clear and big enough that we could put it together without the help of the internet.
Our box had the infrared turret to illustrate the principle of infrared communication. My 6-year-old was thrilled, hiding it and using the infrared remote to ambush his sister with a barrage of foam darts. You can also unlock a web-based coding console to hack the robot, by locking out other users. It's expensive, but the price-per-payoff valuation is worth it—the STEM principle that it illustrated was interesting, the build process was engaging without being frustrating, and the project itself was very fun.
★ Alternatives: For much younger kids, Little Passports has an Early Explorers box ($20/month) aimed for children as young as 3. Science Expeditions is aimed at children over the age of 8. When we tested it, my daughter was still a little too young to understand what, exactly, the DNA we were extracting from a mashed-up strawberry was, but the box itself is attractive and engaging. Steve Spangler's Science Club STEM kits ($33) feature classic projects, like a marshmallow masher, that you might be able to Google online and replicate with items you have at home. However, I thought it was worth it to have the lesson and objects bundled so I didn't have to buy and empty a plastic soda bottle myself.
- Photograph: Adrienne So
Best for Artists
SketchBoxArt supplies—drawing, painting, pastels—are the delight of my family's life. SketchBox is a monthly box, and each month has a theme that's put together by an artist. My daughter's charcoal box was assembled by mixed media artist Nikoli Shaver and included a graphite starter kit, a small pack of media-appropriate paper, an eraser, charcoal pencils, and more. This box has an amazing value—the Nitram starter kit alone costs $14, and my 9-year-old spent several days sketching, tapping, and blending. If you're unsure of where to start with watercolor or oil pastels and find wandering Blick's aisles to be intimidating, these boxes are a great place to start. You can get a basic box for $25 or a premium one for $35, which has a higher-quality selection plus a piece of art to inspire you.
★ Alternatives: Art subscriptions are a great way to buy an assortment of materials so that you don't find yourself with 400 extra pipe cleaners on your hands. Little Passports also has a Craft Discovery box ($20/month) which my children found easy and appealing when we tested. The Kids Art Box ($35) is aimed at children 3-7 years old. It's expensive, but five activities is quite a lot, even though I did have to hunt through my house for supplementary materials like extra paintbrushes and jars.
Finally, one of my favorite boxes is Zollie (starting at $55) craft kits. These boxes are not subscription-based, but you can order up to five kits at once. Each kit comes with everything you need to complete several small fiber-art projects, like embroidering flowers or knitting washcloths. My 9-year-old spent several happy afternoons looking up the QR code, watching the videos, and teaching herself how to do slip stitches and French knots.
- Photograph: Little Feminist
Best for Feminists
Little Feminist Book ClubKids aren’t naturally empathetic. Entertaining books that feature a diverse cast of characters are one of the best ways to show them what life is like for families that are interracial or LGBTQ+. Little Feminist is expressly anti-racist, body-positive, trans- and gender-inclusive, and against ableism and classism. The company has several memberships, starting at $20, for kids ranging from 0 to 9 years old. Each package includes a book (or two, if they’re small) along with an activity, discussion card, and family letter to explain why the company picked this book.
What I like best about the selections Little Feminist sent us is that the books aren’t didactic. Rather than lecturing children on racism or inequality, they simply show diverse families and kids doing … well, the exact same things that cisgender, white, heterosexual families also do. Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle showed a queer interracial family where a parent went on a work trip, just like my spouse happened to be doing when we read it. It never even occurred to my children to comment that this family might have looked different than ours, which is the way it should be.
- Photograph: Laura Heineman/Bake Eat Love
Best Baking Kit
Bake Eat Love Baking KitCooking and baking subscription boxes are some of the best subscription boxes I've tried. Feeding kids every day is a chore, and I welcome any way to get some variety. Bake Eat Love is the first kit I was just as excited to try as my kids.
With that said, the Bake Eat Love boxes are probably best suited for an older age group, with slightly more sophisticated palates. We tried the sampler box with tiramisu cupcakes. While I love the light, fluffy texture of tiramisu and the innovative recipe, my 5-year-old was perturbed to find that a cupcake he assumed was chocolate tasted more like Mommy's coffee. The kit does include a few prepackaged ingredients, but as with most cooking and baking sets, you do have to have a basic set of cooking utensils and a few ingredients that might require an extra shopping trip, like mascarpone.
★ Alternatives: I have gifted several Raddish Kids cooking club subscriptions ($24) to several nieces and nephews. The recipes are extremely easy for little kids to follow (my children particularly loved making pretzels), and the included tiny utensils are adorable and perfect for tiny hands (and for moms who just like using tiny things).
We also tried Eat2Explore ($30), which was founded by a graduate of the French Culinary Institute. Each box features fun tools, nonperishable seasonings, recipe cards, and educational booklets from different countries. The salmon teriyaki was not the right pick for a child who has described fish as smelling like “stinky garbage,” but he did love using the included chopsticks. It was a relatively affordable, fun opportunity to expand his palate.
- Photograph: Stitch Fix
The Best Clothing Box
Stitch Fix Kids Clothes BoxAs my kids have gotten older, shopping for their clothes has become a misery. One child has sensory issues. He hates stiff or tight fabrics, clothes that are too fuzzy, dumb graphics, certain colors, and all jackets. The other is a budding fashionista who stands in front of her closet, just flinging things to the ground. Whenever I find a sweatshirt they will wear, Target immediately discontinues it and my cycle of living hell continues.
Stitch Fix's Kids Clothes Box is expensive, but you can start or stop your subscription as needed. You enter your child's age and size; color preferences and patterns to avoid; themes that they like; features to avoid (no crop tops); activities they like; and most importantly, budgets for every category. Stitch Fix sends you a box and you and your child keep what you like and send back the rest. My 9-year-old loved everything. Given that I set our budgets very low, I'm not surprised that many of these garments simply did not hold up. However, we did get many months of hard wear out of certain beloved sandals and shorts. This is an easy way to update wardrobes for kids who grow out of everything and are starting to voice their own preferences.
★ Alternative: I also tried a box from Kidpik (starts at $100) for my 6-year-old. Kidpik's selection is so appealing and stylish that my husband asked if the clothes came in his size. The clothes are much sturdier than the Stitch Fix selections. However, the selection is much smaller and my son rejected half the clothes that Kidpik sent. Stitch Fix's extensive style quiz ensures that there's at least a fighting chance that your child will like any given garment.
- Photograph: Adrienne So
Best Sticker Club
Stickii ClubMy kids' appetite for stickers is endless. I find them constantly, on the mirrors in our house, on their school planners and water bottles, and occasionally stuck to the back of my chair or in the car. Stickers are also an accessible way of supporting independent artists. Maybe you can't buy a painting or a T-shirt, but a sticker only costs a few dollars and you can display it everywhere.
For $12 a month, Stickii Club offers three different sticker styles—Cute, Vintage, or Pop—along with a storage sleeve and three stationery items, like a notepad, card, or stamp. The club works with independent artists and illustrators (no AI-generated art yet) to produce sheets of original designs. We tried the Pop subscription. These stickers are marvelous. There's a huge variety in the sheets sent. Some are vinyl, some are transparent, but all are high quality and intricately detailed. The artist is also noted on each corner so we can look them up ourselves. My kids were delighted and traded them with each other like currency. I am now investing in Stickii folios (from $13) in the hopes that I can keep these just a little bit more organized (and sticking a few on my laptop while I'm at it).
★ Alternative: You can't pick the style of box with a Pipsticks Kids Club sticker pack ($20), but with such a big selection, there's bound to be stickers that your child or children will love. It includes 15 sheets of Pipstickers, collectible stickers, a postcard, an activity book, and more. I have two kids who love stickers and even we found the classic pack to be a bit much; Pipsticks also has a petite pack option for $14.
- Photograph: Keke
Best for Travel
Keke PouchKids are small factories of chaos. The constant stream of worksheets, drawings, and crafts is great for encouraging creativity and hand-eye coordination, but every surface in our house is perpetually cluttered. Rather than contributing to the mess, the Keke (Keep Every Kid Engaged) bag keeps every item organized. This frankly adorable, durable, handled bag has four activities in separate pouches that clip into binder rings, and extra storage pockets for masks or hand sanitizer. Every 12 weeks, the Keke subscription sends three new activities in new pouches to swap out. (You need to buy the bag separately.)
Even though the activities are aimed at 3-to-6-year-olds (and some, like a simple puzzle, were too easy even when my son was 5), I love these bags for travel. I’ve been experimenting with different travel organizers to hold all my kids' markers, stickers, and card games for travel and the Keke Bag is the best I’ve seen yet.
- Photograph: The Week Junior
A Great Kids' Magazine Subscription
The Week JuniorThis has been a pretty news-heavy few years. Other parents may disagree with me, but my kids really want to know what's going on in the world around us—in a safe, understandable, kid-friendly way, of course. The Week Junior is aimed at 8- to 14-year-olds, and my 9-year-old can now read it herself. Every week, we cuddle on the couch while they look at pictures and pick out which current events to read about, like the Olympics, or whether apps should have likes. It's a great way to keep my kids informed without worrying that they'll hear swear words in my podcasts.
★ Alternative: I read Cricket magazines when I was a kid, so I was delighted to find that the company still offers publications for kids ages 0-14. The selection ranges by age and subject matter, but in general, these are a good pick if your child prefers to read well-written fiction or nonfiction stories, rather than keeping up with current events. Don't forget to examine the margins for tiny stories threading through the bigger ones.
