Cratejoy has helped my business by providing a backend that I never have to worry about.

Comprehensive sales platform with a lot of options.

Pros

Easy to use with a great interface. The growing features help streamline my business so I don't have to worry about my customers.

Cons

Customizing can be difficult if your business is not the same as others. Reports are pretty generic.

An Overall Satisfying Experience

Pros

CrateJoy by far was my first choice for the subscription box e-commerce world, particularly due to its ability to allow for intense customization. I could design my store exactly how I intended to, complete with various color schemes, pictures, and text inserts with fancy fonts. My products were always displayed in their best light and the Marketplace added extra exposure to help build my customer base. Additionally, allowing exposure to each individual shop's social media platforms created an unlimited potential for exposure to customers as well.

Cons

New features can always be added, such as a more efficient way to handle shipments. There are times when the software can be a bit buggy and the shipping labels won't calculate or else are priced expensively in comparison to actually going to the nearest USPS and mailing from there. Also, the display of which shipment labels to print for which shipments (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) could be a bit confusing. I also was not a fan of buying shipping in set increments. More information must be acquired from the customer to prevent fraud, as I lost money in this regard. Additionally, I believe cancelled subscribers should be removed from the database to prevent the customer list from being too bulky. It is also a pain to not be able to edit live product information and instead have to create a new product listing.

It's a brilliant piece of software and does things it would take me months to piece together.

Pros

You can pretty much set it up and leave it which leaves me plenty of time to get on with all the other stuff in the business.

Cons

Would really like a built in blog feature it's a pain having to gave it somewhere else and link it together.

Best for newbies - bad for large shops

Pros

CrateJoy is tremendously easy to use and offers a great all in one solution for starting a subscription box company quickly and easily. You don't need to know much about websites to set things up properly. Reports are useful and you have a lot of options and abilities in managing subscriptions and shipments.

Cons

Fees are quite high if you list your company on their marketplace. You're charged 11.25% of EVERY purchase made on a subscription started through their marketplace, not just one time. If you use the built in WYSIWYG builder, the sites all pretty much look the same - not a lot of templates available.

Cratejoy has been a true game changer for my subscription box business!

Cratejoy is truly invested in your success. Their Customer Success and Marketing teams are top notch and go above and beyond to help you succeed. In addition, their marketplace is a phenomenal asset. If you're thinking about starting a subscription box, I highly recommend you sign up with Cratejoy!

Pros

As a back end payment processor, Cratejoy is very straightforward and easy to use. Their marketplace is a true asset and worth every penny as well. In addition, their Marketing Team and Customer Success Team truly want to see you succeed. From helping me get started to having my box featured on CNN, they've helped nurture my box's success every step of the way.

Cons

Personally, I dislike Cratejoy's website builder. It lacks features, looks very cookie cutter, and is difficult to customize. I built and run my website with a different platform and have opted to use Cratejoy only for checkout. I also was disappointed with their referral program as it felt pretty bare bones and lacked most features and options. Even with these issues, overall I have found Cratejoy to be an amazing platform to work with. Their teams are wonderful and they're truly invested in your success. While some aspects of the software are far from perfect, overall I believe the pros far outweigh the cons.

Misleading fee structure, no accountability

Cratejoy has been a huge mistake for my company. In the end, after using it for a year I guess we are about break-even on our sales but we are missing 10% of our revenue because I was misled when I signed up for Cratejoy. They offer different fee plans and different subscriptions. At the time, I was led to believe that if we signed up for a subscription, we could avoid paying the absurd 11% fees per transaction through them. I went forward and launched everything and as far as I could tell, I was paying the lower rate because that is what was showing in my Cratejoy admin account. However, I eventually discovered that we had been paying the much higher rate all along. I had to see this in my Stripe account to realize it because absolutely everything else I saw from Cratejoy showed the lower rate. In the end Cratejoy has accepted no accountability for the lost revenue and I intend to stop using them as soon as I can without ruining subscriber relationships. BUYER BEWARE!

Pros

Cratejoy is pretty easy to roll out and offers a solid subscription e-commerce service.

Cons

It does not offer robust reporting or integrate with other apps and platforms very well, unless you are a full fledged developer.

Love Cratejoy!

Pros

Love that it's easy to use and it's so easy to jumpstart a subscription box! The templates are great and love that subscribers have access to their own portal!

Cons

I wish there was an app! Except that, we love it. Also wish there were easier ways to change a subscriber's Email... Oh! And shipping! Had to switch to Pirate shipping - wish it could be just as cheap but still on Cratejoy

All-in-one platform for subscription boxes

Pros

One stop shop for everthing you need for a subscription box business including recurring payments, integration with Pirateship for commercial USPS pricing, website templates, etc

Cons

Lacking some website add-on functionality that platforms like Shopify have. They charge transaction fees on top of the payment processor fees.

generally good

Easily run my subscription business.

Pros

The program is very easy to use and tracks subscriptions very well. It makes shipping a breeze especially when you have multiple subscription products.

Cons

I wish they had more one time shop features and options. There is no way for my customers to log in and rate my products without purchasing something even if they used a product in real life.

Love it so much although they definitely take their cut, worth it though!

Overall it's been amazing, love their support and they have definitely fixed earlier bugs.

Pros

The functionality is perfect for a sub box, plus the exposure you get via the marketplace is unreal!

Cons

They take a huge cut, wish they would adjust their pricing system a bit, but what can you do? They monopolize you a bit

Cratejoy makes running my subscription business a breeze!

Pros

Cratejoy's ability to manage dozens to thousands of subscribers plans easily and effectively each month makes running my subscription business a snap. It's super easy to use without any major training and they are constantly adding new features or upgrading existing features to make the software even better. Their customer service department is pretty responsive and available should you have any issues or questions. I can't imagine running a subscription-based business without Cratejoy.

Cons

Cratejoy could be expanded upon to feature more reporting and accounting features. It does currently need to run concurrently with an accounting software which is an additional cost.

I love it.

Pros

Cratejoy is very simple, straight forward and easy to use. I enjoy how I can easily see how my sales are doing as well as change products in a moments notice. I love this software because it is affordable and gives me everything I need to operate my online business well and professionally. Also, everything looks very nice online and the checkout process is very user friendly for my customers.

Cons

The only thing I would like to see improvements on is the text and display style of the content information for each product. It is a bit challenging to change around my content. Also, I would love an easy way to add a blog to my site so that I can share more information with customers.

It's super user friendly and gets the job done efficiently.

Pros

I love how non technical people can figure out the backend with coding. I also think the options for managing subscriptions is nice.

Cons

I wish there more ways to export information that you collect. I also think it would be nice to have built in ways to communicate with the customers almost like a mailchimp feature. I had more complaints when I first started using Cratejoy but it seems like you really strive to improve on the site and have done so already.

I've had pretty good experiences with Cratejoy. It's a great service.

Pros

Cratejoy is always updated to make the software better for us merchants. My favorite update so far has to be the Add-Ons.

Cons

I feel like they are letting ANYONE create a subscription box and it's really hurting the serious box owners. I've had many customers say they are nervous to try my box because they've been scammed with out her box owners on the Cratejoy marketplace. Cratejoy needs to weed out these bad boxes.

Cratejoy is the only platform I would run a subscription box company with.

Pros

Easy to setup, use and manage. It's the only platform that allows me to ship a progressive sequence of boxes. The marketplace also brings a lot of leads to the site.

Cons

The platform is definitely missing a few features. For example, there are no multiple shipping options for the customer, blog integration, and there are some limitations with web development/integration.

I want to love it but I spend more time battling with the backend and with customer support...

Great to have recurring income !

Pros

For the customer side, it works great. It's easy for them to use. Payment system works great. The designs they provide look great. At the begging when I first started two years ago, the tech support was super helpful.

Cons

Customer service was great two years ago, now it has gotten worse and slower. I was told I need to hire a developer to install an email capturing popup on the main page. A site shouldn't be that difficult to use. The backend could be a lot easier to use. I tried to upgrade to one of their new designs so I could take advantage of their new upsell functionality and my website broke and I had to revert back to the old design in order to get it working again.

I've used Cratejoy for my online subscription business for almost 4 years.

Customer management, shipping support, coupon management, sales analysis

Pros

They are very responsive to your questions and are constantly reaching out with surveys on which features to improve or add.

Cons

The new website designer can be a little clunky at times and access to your sites code is somewhat limited.

Good function for a multifaceted business

Pros

I like how easy Cratejoy makes rebilling my subscription customers. I've never had a problem with the integrations.

Cons

I don't like the limitations on design. I had to swap to another front end to be able to have the design and aesthetics I wanted.

Excellent, very user friendly, and easy to setup and edit your website.

Pros

Customer service is fantastic! And the website is very easy to use even when we have no coding experience.

Cons

Design and website layout options are limited, but the ones offered definitely get the job done and look good.

Cratejoy makes it dead simple to start your own subscription box! We love it.

Pros

Cratejoy takes all of the headache out of starting a subscription box. I've used it on multiple sites, and the ease in which I was able to start up, create subscription tiers, print labels, and ship a viable box was unmatched by other platforms. Their marketplace is a massive bonus, giving you free marketing and helping you find customers. We love it.

Cons

Only downside is control over the business, and pricing. They take a pretty significant fee on any boxes found via cratejoy.com in exchange for the free marketing. It's best to prepare for that in your margins. Also, once you're on Cratejoy, it's hard to migrate elsewhere. Be prepared to start from scratch should you want to move to your own, self-hosted operation.

very pleased with cratejoy platform, easy to use and helpful staff

Pros

very good customer service, friendly and responsive. it has been very good as a subscription based business to have software that specializes in this

Cons

does not have every feature i'd like/easy customization. it would be nice if the online chat was available more than just a few hours each day as well

Cratejoy was everything we needed to get started as a brand new subscription box company.

Pros

Cratejoy lays everything out, has several features, and is really the platform that you should start your subscription service on.

Cons

There are still some features that would be great to implement, like customization and allowing the customer to manage their survey answers within their account.

Everything is generally pretty simple to use. Sometimes certain things take a long time to load

Pros

The date stamped/time stamped history notes from both shop owner changes, and customer changes . This is SO great and has come in handy many times.

Cons

The time it takes to sometimes filter through some information. Sometimes it takes a very long time to load, or doesn't load at all.

Great company that is very helpful

Pros

What I like about this software is the ease of use and helpfulness from the staff. I like that my own customers are kept organized.

Cons

What I dislike about this software is that every once in a while, I need immediate help with something but there is no phone number to contact staff.

It's been a great experience. Best value for the business.

Pros

The coupon and ease of design. It allows for more than one platform of store locations (merchandise listing and store's website).

Cons

Locked into old version of templates and can't update the template unless you switch to a different one.

Cratejoy Brings Great Joy!

Pros

Cratejoy is an excellent platform for smaller, startups to put their subscription service out there and equally compete with other services. Cratejoys interface, both for the users and for the companies, is very friendly and makes it easy for companies to make sleek looking pages promoting their subscriptions.

Cons

The downside to Cratejoy is that you not only pay a monthly fee but you also pay a fee for each sale.

Really good functionality now, expensive though

Pros

The fucntionality is great, you can do pretty much anything

Cons

Cannot import tracking and marketplace is expensive!

Best Web App for Subscription Boxes

Pros

I had a really great experience using Cratejoy. There is nothing that compares to it for a subscription box startup. They are really helpful and responsive as a customer service team as well. Real champs.

Cons

I have none. They once changed their pricing in a way that the community didn't like. But then they listened to feedback, rolled back the changes they had made, and pushed forward with requested features. It was awesome. I love their team.

Great for Managing Subscriptions

We loved using Cratejoy to manage our business and subscriptions it saved us a lot of extra expense hiring an employee.

Pros

Cratejoy has great reporting tools that allow us to easily manage our customers subscriptions, see which ones are the most popular and ones that aren't doing so well.

Cons

Although the reporting is in depth and has a lot of great tools to use, however, sometimes the tools can be too complex and not applicable to your business.

Does the basic things required, nothing more

Pros

I am not entirely happy with Cratejoy and plan on migrating to a different service so I don't have much to say.

Cons

Lack of ability to pull reports, inventory control, single sale items, help customers with logins.

Outdated Software + BEWARE of Listing in the Marketplace

It was a bad experience.

Pros

Drag and drop. Easy to use. There are limited themes but they are all easy for beginners. It's easy to add Google Analytics and a Facebook Pixel.

Cons

Unfortunately, I have had nothing but bad experiences as a seller on this platform. First of all, they platform did not work correctly for me. There we're glitches that could not be resolved without contacting Cratejoy Support. Second, in the marketplace, they take way too much of a cut of sales. It would not be possible for most businesses to profit using this platform. Third they do not protect their sellers from bad buyers. IE - Reviews are everything. If any shopper decides to leave a bad review it will absolutely ruin you. And they won't help you. I was negatively reviewed by someone who was lying about her experience. I have no idea why. Cratejoy would not help me. Shoppers are actually incentivized to leave a negative review - it will only benefit them because they can get anything they want for free. Cratejoy does not require that it's truthful. Cratejoy does not require that they contact you first. They allow anyone to post anything they want.

Very mixed review here

Pros

I really like the Cratejoy site itself; aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, fantastic customer service VIA EMAIL.

Cons

The limitations of this software at this time have made it impossible for me to move forward with my project. I had to switch platforms. It's very unfortunate because the extra monthly expense would not bother me if the benefits were present. Specific complaints include lack of billing/shipment options (ie. custom vs. monthly) and each subscription listing can only have one photo! This seems very silly to me as prospective customers would certainly make a purchasing decision easier if more examples were displayed. The chatbox customer service was not helpful. I had to explain and re-explain my question about billing intervals only to learn they are not customizable.

Solid tool to get you started

Overall, it's been a positive experience.

Pros

It is an all inclusive platform that really helped me get started.

Cons

The lack of flexibility. For example, as I scale, Cratejoy doesn't have the integrations and customizations to support my business as I scale.

A wonderful place

My experience with cratejoy has been great. when searching for new subscription boxes, i go to cratejoy and search for anything i might be looking for and they never disappoint. cratejoy is a wonderful company and i highly recommend them!

Pros

I like cratejoy because there are so many options in finding a subscription box for yourself. Easy to use and navigate the site.

Cons

There is nothing i can say to dislike cratejoy. The are a great company providing wonderful options for people looking for subscription boxes.

A Full-Service Platform for Subscription Services

Pros

The UI is easy to use, the subscription options are vast, the app options are useful, and the built-in analytics are extremely insightful.

Cons

While we're able to connect different apps, there is a lack of built in options for more advanced features. We're unable to remarket to cancelled users directly from the tool.

Great site for small businesses

Pros

I love this site, great for small businesses and new ideas.

Cons

Most of the boxes available are pretty expensive and some are very niche

Reliable

Easy and end-user-friendly. Don't need to be a programmer to figure it out.

Pros

From a customer and a seller, this is fantastic and easy to use!

Cons

There really is not much to dislike. ITs user-friendly and easy, as well as a fresh look to it so it doesnt, look dated.