Holidays tend to spring up on us a little too fast these days, so if you’ve procrastinated holiday shopping, you’re not alone. It can feel like the shipping cut-off dates for Christmas gifts start the day after Halloween, and if you have family or friends who are harder to shop for, it’s all too difficult to find the proper birthday and holiday gifts before the day itself comes.
Luckily, there’s an easy solution: subscription packages are thoughtful, personalized gifts that require no immediate shipments, so you can order them all the way up to the very last second. Whether you’re shopping for a high school student or your dad, everyone can benefit from a subscription, and it’s a gift that last much longer than most.
Here, we’ve put together some of the best subscriptions you can buy for your loved one, even if you’re reading this on Christmas Eve (no judgment here).
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Even better than picking out a book for your loved one is allowing them to choose their own books. Audible offers a monthly audiobook subscription that comes with a large catalog of classic texts, plus one book of the user’s choice per month. You can buy a one-month, three-month, six-month, or one-year subscription package for any loved one and let them take the reins on their own audiobook journey. This is especially great for anyone who spends a lot of time driving or walking and might need some audio entertainment on their commutes.
MasterClass is a hub of interesting online lessons taught by familiar faces like Halle Berry, Martha Stewart, Mindy Kaling and many, many more. The annual subscriptions to the learning platform are currently on sale starting at $5 per month (billed annually) for a single device.
Give a year’s worth of inner peace to your loved one by buying them a 12-month subscription to the Calm app. The app has bedtime stories, guided meditations, soothing sounds, and more, which are all accessible through a premium subscription.
Give the sports fanatic in your life access to all of their favorite teams in one place. ESPN Plus offers tons of live sports and specials, for just about any sporting event you could imagine, and a year-long membership is only $120.
Give a year’s worth of unique bouquets through 1-800-Flowers. You can make just about any bouquet into a subscription as you check out on the site — we recommend opting for the this unique bouquet that’s designed by local florists so that each delivery feels new and exciting. Simply choose the floral arrangement and size that you want, then select a delivery frequency and time period.
Give your loved one the gift of indulgent snacks with Harry & David’s monthly charcuterie subscription. The box comes in the third week of every month and contains fancy cheeses and cured meats. You can also get a cheese and wine pairing box for just $50 per month for your vegetarian friends.
Alo Moves’ website and app have tons of fitness classes for people at all levels. A monthly subscription gives users access to yoga, pilates, mindfulness classes, and much more. You can easily gift one of these memberships in 6-month or 12-month durations.
If anyone on your list has a sweet tooth, you can gift them a year’s worth of fun cookies with this monthly subscription to Cheryl’s Cookies. The box will contain a dozen cookies each month, and tend to be seasonally appropriate, with candy cane-frosted options December and pumpkin cinnamon in October. (You can even give this gift to friends with dietary restrictions, thanks to the monthly gluten-free box.)
For $55 month, the Sill will send your recipient three unique, hard-to-kill plants (nestled in a stylish 5-inch ceramic pot) over the course of three months. If you’ve got an aspiring green thumb on your list — or maybe someone who’s just moved into a new home — this set-it-and-forget-it gift will make an unforgettable mark on your loved one’s environment. If you really feel like splurging, the Sill also offers a 6-month and 12-month subscription.
If you have anyone in your life who loves astrology, or even someone who’s itching to get more into understanding the stars, then Chani Nicholas’ app is the perfect gift for them. $12 per month gets you guided meditations, in-depth readings, notifications whenever an astrological shift is happening, and a personalized birth chart (and more.) Although you cannot buy the subscription on someone else’s behalf, you can easily snag an Apple Store gift card and put around $144 on it to cover the full year.
Give the movie buff in your life the opportunity to see up to three films a week with an AMC Stubs A-List membership, which also comes with member perks like concessions discounts. Once you purchase a package, AMC will email the redemption information to whatever email you select, meaning you can hit “buy” on Christmas morning.
Jeni’s Pint Club is an incredible gift for anyone who craves novelty in their dessert routine. Every month, they’ll get an ice cold delivery of four pints of ice cream — often seasonal flavors before they’re even on sale to the public. That’s a pint per week, and you can give them as a three-month, six-month, or twelve-month package.
Humans can be hard to shop for, but dogs are pretty easy, it turns out. The monthly BarkBox subscription comes with a delivery of goodies geared to a dog’s size and preferences, and starts at $35 per month. You can gift a single month all the way up to a full year ($288 in total for the annual option.)
With so many streaming services, it’s hard to gift a television package to anyone without doubling up on access they already have. Dropout, however, is a lesser-known service that has comedy, games, and a whole lot more. It’s $60 for the year, and you can also easily gift a free 1-month subscription for just $6.
FabFitFun is one of the more famous subscription boxes, and for good reason. It contains recognizable items that are always worth way more than the subscription cost. Recent shipments have included comfy blankets, skin care, chic home decor, and fashion accessories that make every delivery feel like Christmas morning.
If someone in your life is pondering a career change, or just wanting to increase their brain elasticity, you can gift them a Coursera package. The professional certificate packages are meant to give students all of the background they would need to begin an entry-level job in a new field, plus there are hundreds of other courses on just about any topic.
Here’s where things get really fancy. If you have extra cash laying around, you can gift a caviar subscription to your friend who already has everything. The Shark Tank-approved caviar costs $300 per month, or $200 for a sampler, and you can gift it for as many months as you’d like.