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The 12 Best Nice-Looking Pill Cases

Including a “sleek” pill case, compact jars, and other stylish options.

Photo: Marcus McDonald
Photo: Marcus McDonald

In this article

The average person in the United States takes at least one pill every day — be it a prescription medication, a supplement, or a vitamin. But finding a pill case that’s not just a piece of plastic labeled with the days of the week — let alone one that looks nice enough to leave out on your counter — is a challenge. And the best pill case for you isn’t just a matter of aesthetics: It can help you stay on track with critical medications, keep your pills from getting crushed, and even remove some of the stigma that you may feel. I spoke with a panel of design-minded pill takers, polled a group chat and members of our Strategist Hive Mind group on Facebook, and dug into our archive to find the best, actually nice-looking pill cases out there, whether you’re taking a single vitamin or several different medications every day.

What we’re looking for

Number of compartments

If you’re storing Advil for the occasional headache, you probably don’t need a case with seven separate compartments. But if you have a variety of medications you take day and night, more compartments will help. What you pick is dependent on how many pills you take and how often you take them. We included pill organizers ranging from single compartment cases to organizers with slots for every day of the week.

Labels

Most conventional pill cases have labeled slots for each day of the week, which can make them feel pharmaceutical. But that design can serve as a useful reminder of whether or not you’ve taken what you need on any given day. There are others that come with customizable labels, too, in case you’d rather sort your pills by type instead of day.

Access

Traditional pill organizers have individual lids that pop on and off. While there are plenty of those in our roundup, there are others that have twist-off or sliding lids. Again, this comes down to preference and what’s most easily accessible for you.

Extras

Some of the pill organizers come with added features such as mirrors, a protective outer case, and more. If there are any features that are actually useful, we’ll highlight them.

Best pill organizer overall

Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: Monday through Sunday | Access: Seven lids | Extras: Mirror

About half of the people we spoke to recommended this Port and Polish pillbox-compact as a “sleek” alternative to what you’d normally find at the drugstore. I tested a light-pink one and found that the satin-smooth case was as just cute as everyone said. It’s compact enough to throw in a bag without adding much bulk, and the mirror came in handy more than I thought it would for makeup touch-ups while out and about. Brittany Allyn, the blogger behind Thirty Waves who documents her travels on TikTok, appreciates this mirror when traveling “for last-minute-plucking necessities or to do the back of my hair.” Capacity-wise, each of the seven compartments provides enough room for approximately ten small capsules or four large supplements. Another fan, Strategist’s deals editor Sam Daly, says that after two years of owning hers and taking it on “many trips — whether it’s a cross-country flight home or a birthday-weekend road trip — it’s stood up well.”

Best pill organizer that’s less expensive

Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: None | Access: Seven lids | Extras: Magnetic closure

Here’s a pill organizer with the same amount of compartments as above but at less than a fifth of the price. Strategist contributor Alyse Whitney wrote about what she now calls her “Mary Poppins Medicine Cabinet, because it is small — a little larger than a deck of cards — but mighty, housing an array of neatly organized over-the-counter drugs including ibuprofen, Imodium, Lactaid, various allergy meds, Midol, and a few vitamins and supplements.” Its compartments come in three sizes: one larger section (3 by 2 inches), two medium (1.5 by 2 inches), and four small (1 by 2 inches) to fit different quantities and sizes of pills. And not only is it convenient enough for carrying around a mini pharmacy, it’s “so incognito that I have never been stopped at a concert, airport, or anywhere else where someone rustles through your bag,” she writes. While Whitney uses it for bringing medicine with her on the go, it could easily work as an organizer for daily pills and supplements. It comes in the baby pink (which Whitney owns), as well as baby blue, mint green, and white.

Best labeled seven-day pill organizer

Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: Monday through Sunday | Access: Sliding mechanism

Former Strategist audience-engagement associate Hannah Starke wanted a seven-day pill case “that I could throw in my purse or leave out on the desk without feeling like a grandma,” and she searched far and wide before finding this one, which comes recommended by a Strategist Hive Mind Facebook member. Starke likes that this rose-toned case “doesn’t look out of place next to a candle on my desk or a tube of lip gloss in my purse” but is still functional: “I used to carry tons of OTC pills on me at all times, and I think 75 percent of them ended up crushed at the bottom of my purse.” By contrast, this case is “secure” and has an easy-to-use slide-out function that allows her to “put a week’s worth of pills in and forget about it.”

Best less-expensive labeled seven-day pill organizer

Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: Monday through Sunday | Access: Twist-off | Extras: Outer hard case

Elizabeth Tikoyan, CEO and founder of chronic-illness support group and community Healp, found this pill organizer on TikTok, where people praised how heavy duty and “beautifully designed” it was. Convinced, she ordered one for herself, and it’s now become her everyday and travel organizer. It’s “both functional and heavy duty,” she says. “Surprisingly, you can just throw it into a bag and not worry about it popping open. Once it’s locked in, your pills aren’t going anywhere.” Along with having seven twistable compartments, the case nests in a larger hard case. Tikoyan’s able to fit a week’s worth of pills — about 10 per day — in her case, but she notes it’s still compact enough to throw in her purse. Since purchasing the organizer about six months ago, she’s had other friends ask her about it and even some who’ve replaced their “medical-looking ones” with this.

Best compact pill organizer

Number of compartments: Three | Labels: None | Access: Twist-off | Extras: Keychain

We once called this three-compartment case “the 007 of pill boxes,” because it’s waterproof and made of durable aluminum and connects to a carabiner. It’s a bit more utilitarian than others on this list, but former Strategist senior writer Karen Iorio Adelson says it’s still “a lot more stylish than one of those bulky plastic pill containers.” With three compartments, it’s great for someone who takes different types of pills on a less consistent basis (allergy medicine or migraine medicine, for example) and doesn’t want to tote around one of the larger multi-compartment cases. Or you could get a two-pack to organize your pills for (almost) a week.

Best two-a-day pill organizer

Number of compartments: 14 | Labels: Monday through Sunday | Access: Seven lids | Extras: Outer hard case

Chronic-disease advocate Katie Marie recently replaced her old two-a-day pill organizer with this “cuter” muted pink-and-beige set for morning and night medications. She prefers the look of her new organizer, and one major difference is that it doesn’t leave a plastic-y taste on her pills like her previous one. She attributes this to the material this one is made of: It’s also plastic, but she says it’s higher quality and more substantial. Plus the case’s lids are much easier to snap on and off, making refills less annoying. She often “recommends it to friends who’ve spent dumb amounts of money on pill cases,” she says, adding that this one is well-under $10.

Best pill organizer for travel

Number of compartments: 28 | Labels: Morning, Noon, Evening, Night | Access: 28 lids | Extras: Outer soft case

Out of the many organizers chronic-illness coach, blogger, and podcaster Nat Kelley has tried, Chronically Chic’s Weekender pill case is her favorite for travel. She can fit over 28 pills in it, and she especially appreciates the four compartments (morning, afternoon, evening, and night) for each day. “It’s perfect for a chronically ill gal,” she says. The four daily cases fit snugly inside of a larger soft case that zips up for extra security. This case is on the larger side, but the site also has more compact four-day options, if you’re looking for something more compact.

Best smart pill organizer

Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: None | Access: Sliding top | Extras: Connects to app

Another winner from my group chat: Two friends flagged how cool the EllieGrid looks (though they don’t own it themselves), and one said she bought her aunt Toni this after she was rediagnosed with cancer. Toni likes that it links to her phone and notifies her if she has missed a pill or dosage. There’s a bit of a learning curve, according to Toni, but she said it’s “incredibly worth it once it’s up and running” because it removed a lot of uncertainty from her day. With it, she can check her phone instead of counting pills and doing the math herself. It is much more expensive than the other cases listed, but it’s the only one that connects to an app. And it’s worth noting it’s a bit larger. It has seven compartments — four smaller ones that can each fit an entire bottle of small pills and three larger compartments that can each fit seven large pills.

Best single-compartment pill case

Number of compartments: One | Labels: Customizable | Access: Twist-off | Extras: Magnetic

On the other side of the pillbox spectrum are single-compartment cases, which are best for people who just need to store one kind of pill or vitamin. One of the most stylish among these is Cadence, a brand that makes multiuse magnetic capsules from ocean-bound plastic in seven shades to hold your pills (or Glossier moisturizer or small Mejuri hoops). Two of the people whom we spoke to said that the capsules work well as pill cases, including beauty-and-wellness content creator Iman Ogundeko, who says she can fit a month’s worth of small vitamin-D pills in one capsule and a week’s worth of larger pills. “I love that you can customize each capsule in different colors and put emoji or words on the case in order to signify what you’re storing,” she says. The feature that influencer Grace Martinez appreciates the most about the capsules are their “easy to handle” hexagonal shape and magnetization, which makes them easier to find at the bottom of a bag, since they stick together.

Best less expensive single-compartment pill case

Number of compartments: One | Labels: None | Access: Twist-off

When Strategist associate editor Jenna Milliner-Waddell spoke to Gina Anderson, senior manager of communications for the Leading Hotels of the World, for a story on the best toiletry bottles, Anderson brought up a hodgepodge of items she travels with. Included was a Sephora travel set with a 20-milliliter silicone jar she uses “for small amounts of pills — throw in a few Advil instead of taking a whole bottle.” Because that set is currently out of stock, we found a pack of three 20-milliliter silicone and three 10-milliliter plastic jars that are very similar. An added benefit is that with the silicone jars, your pills won’t rattle or wear down as much — a conundrum that one reader asked us about before.

Most delightful pill case

Number of compartments: One | Labels: None | Access: Twist-off

In addition to snail mucin products and colorful sheet masks, Tony Moly, one of our favorite Korean beauty brands, makes fruit-shaped hand creams that you can “repurpose for small sundries” after use, says former New York literary critic Molly Young. While not something you can immediately use as a pill case, we thought it was a delightful and discreet option for stashing pills in. When in the office, Young kept the peach on her desk for Advil, adding that “it’s never not fun to offer someone an Advil out of a lustrous synthetic peach.”

Best at-home pill organizer

Number of compartments: Four | Labels: None | Access: Two lids | Extras: Stackable

Strategist writer Ambar Pardilla was gifted Open Spaces’ Storage Gems and now uses them “almost exclusively” for her accumulated collection of Excedrin. Pardilla suffers from migraines and would “stash the capsules around because when one hits, I don’t like to fumble for the bottle.” Instead, she has her Excedrin in the bottom half of her acrylic trays for easy access. “It just makes something really dull — grabbing a pill — feel not as dull,” she says “The effect is very Jonathan Adler–esque.”

Some more pill cases we’ve written about

Our experts

• Karen Iorio Adelson, former Strategist senior writer
• Brittany Allyn, content creator and blogger
• Gina Anderson, senior manager of communications for the Leading Hotels of the World
• Sam Daly, Strategist deals editor
• Marie Diaz, MPH student
• Grace Martinez, influencer
• Iman Ogundeko, wellness content creator
• Ambar Pardilla, Strategist writer
• Remy Park, content creator
• Hannah Starke, former Strategist audience engagement associate
The Strategist Hive Mind Facebook Group
• Alyse Whitney, Strategist contributor
• Molly Young, former New York literary critic
• Nat Kelley, chronic illness coach, blogger, and podcaster
Elizabeth Tikoyan, CEO and founder of chronic illness support group and community Healp
• Katie Marie, chronic disease advocate

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The 12 Best Nice-Looking Pill Cases