Like many of our readers, the three of us often ogle over new products online or at our LBS. However, many times we’re not quite ready to commit to purchasing the full-sized product. What if we don’t like it? What if it’s not what we expected?

Enter the subscription sample box program—a convenient way to sample various new products at once. Over the next few weeks AG will review various subscription services so you can learn how these programs work, what each box contains, and if they’re worth the subscription fee.

This week we’ll be taking a look at Bulu Box, a monthly subscription sample box containing 4 to 5 vitamin and supplement nutrition samples delivered to your home. The company’s goal is to introduce its subscribers to the benefits of vitamins and supplements by giving them the opportunity to discover new products before they buy them in full size—or full price.

How does it work?

Bulu Box offers two different types of subscription boxes. The first option, Bulu Box, includes a variety of vitamins and supplements for all areas of health—for both men and women. The second option, Bulu Box Weight Loss, was designed with the specific goal of weight loss in mind. Each Weight Loss box contains 4 to 5 weight loss items like vitamin and supplement samples, fitness gear, and healthy eating tools. If you’re torn between the two, Bulu Box allows you to switch your box selection at any time during your subscription period. Simply log into your Bulu Box account and make the swap.

You can also choose from a variety of subscription offers, including a month-by-month subscription for $10 per month all the way to $110 for a full-year subscription (the full-year subscription also includes one free month). We thought the 3-month subscription at $30 might even be a fun gift idea for a health-conscious friend.

Once you’ve chosen your box and subscription timeframe, signing up online is easy. Simply provide your shipping and payment information and then sit back and wait for your first box to arrive. However, as with most boxed subscription services we’ve seen, your monthly subscription fee is set to auto-renew from the day you sign up. So you’ll need to cancel your membership if you no longer wish to continue receiving boxes.

Purchasing Full-Sized Products

If you like a product you’ve sampled from Bulu Box, the company makes it easy for you to purchase a full-sized version directly from their site. And once again, it’s conveniently delivered right to your home. We easily found each item in our box via the “shop” section on BuluBox.com.

Rewards Program

As an added incentive for its members, Bulu Box offers a unique reward points program for everything from subscribing, reviewing products, and referring friends. As you rack up the points you can apply them to any full-sized product purchase on the site. We thought this was a great feature of Bulu  Box and would encourage us to purchase products directly from BuluBox.com rather than Amazon.

Do These Products Meet NCAA and USAT Regulations?

Each product claims that their ingredients are 100% natural and drug free. However, Bulu Box recommends—and we at AG absolutely agree—that athletes check the NCAA and USAT banned substances list before taking any supplements. Both the NCAA and the USAT have strict regulations when it comes to supplements, and we’re all responsible for doing our own research prior to using any vitamins or supplements.

AG’s thoughts

We received our Bulu Box packed with a total of 6 different product samples, as well as an easy-to-read summary of all items contained in the box. The products included in our box were FRS pineapple mango chews (this was actually a full-sized 30-count bag—bonus!), Drinkwel multivitamins, CocoaWell – True Energy, Immuno-Viva Defend + Energy, Almased, and Crystal Essence Mineral Deodorant. In total, we estimated the cost of the box contents to be around $25-$30*. At $10 a box, we thought this was a good value—especially when you consider that many of these manufacturers do not offer a trial-size version of their product for purchase.

*Note: We did our best to price out smaller, trial-sized versions of these products in order to reflect the total value of the sizes you actually receive in the box. However, some of these products do not offer a trial-size for purchase, so in those cases we did our best to estimate.