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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 finding a case that you like 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. We talked 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 also 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 also 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 overall pill organizer
Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: Monday through Sunday | Access: Seven lids | Mirror
About half of the people we spoke to recommend this Port and Polish pillbox-slash-compact as a “sleek” alternative to what you’d normally find at the drugstore. Even though it’s made of plastic, content creator Remy Park says the case feels “satiny” and cute enough to display on her coffee table “along with my other morning-ritual items.” MPH student Marie Diaz says that this Port and Polish case even makes her “excited to take my meds.” Brittany Allyn, the blogger behind Thirty Waves who documents her travels on TikTok appreciates its mirror when traveling “for last-minute plucking necessities or to do the back of my hair.” The Strategist’s deals editor, Sam Daly, is also a fan. She’s had hers since April 2020, has taken it on “many trips — whether it’s a cross-country flight home or a birthday-weekend road trip” — and it’s “stood up well since then.”
Best less-expensive pill organizer
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 also 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 also 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 pill organizer with removable case
Number of compartments: Seven | Labels: None | Access: Five lids | Extras: Removable case
When I posed the question to my group chat, one of my most stylish friends, Danielle, sent me this pill organizer she found on Amazon because she wanted something “not fugly.” Instead, this organizer, with its removable outer plastic shell (that also serves as extra protection), looks more like a cute sunglasses case. It has seven separate slots, three of which are larger and the other four half-size. Because it doesn’t have seven identical compartments, it’s not quite enough space for a week’s worth of pills, but she says it works for a weekend-to-five-day trip.
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 with day and night distinctions | Access: 14 lids | Extras: Waterproof bag
For anyone who has to take pills twice a day, this highly rated organizer on Amazon has seven pill boxes divided in two with a total of 14 separate compartments. Each is labeled with days of the week and either a sun or moon decal, so you can easily separate day and night pills. All of the boxes are detached but fit in a waterproof-canvas carrying case, making it ideal for traveling and storage. As for its aesthetics, we thought this was the least bulky and medical-looking case of the well-reviewed options. Reviewers seem to agree as well. One who’s had theirs for about four months appreciates that it’s “more sleek, more compact, and more portable than the large rainbow-colored ones” and that it can hold “all my medications, vitamins, and supplements.”
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, she brought up a hodgepodge of items she travels with. Included was a Sephora travel set with a 20-ml silicone jar she uses “for small amounts of pills — throw in a few Advil instead of taking a whole bottle,” she says. If you’re not looking for a whole travel set, we found a pack of three 20-ml silicone jars that are very similar. An added benefit is that since these are silicone-based instead of plastic, your pills won’t rattle or wear down as much — a conundrum that one reader has asked us about before.
Best 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
• Brittany Allyn, content creator and blogger
• Marie Diaz, MPH student
• Sam Daly, Strategist deals editor
• Alyse Whitney, Strategist contributor
• Remy Park, content creator
• Iman Ogundeko, wellness content creator
• Hannah Starke, former Strategist audience engagement associate
• Karen Iorio Adelson, former Strategist senior writer
• Grace Martinez, influencer
• Strategist Hive Mind Facebook Group
• Gina Anderson, senior manager of communications for the Leading Hotels of the World
• Molly Young, former New York literary critic
• Ambar Pardilla, Strategist writer
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