Blackbox

Blackbox is a new shipping company from the creators of Cards Against Humanity.

Our mission is to help you sell and ship stuff directly to your fans for a fraction of the cost and effort of doing it yourself. Blackbox works like a co-op: if we all go in together, we get the cheapest pricing, the fastest shipping, and the best service. The shipping is fast. We pay your sales tax. You can customize the packaging and the inserts. It’s pretty great.

We think the future will favor independent creators selling their own products, without publishers or bloodsucking middlemen taking most of the money. In fact, we’re betting the company on it.

If you want to see how Blackbox works in action, you can order a press kit.

A booklet and some extra goodies, delivered to your door.

Buy Blackbox Press Kit
Boxes Shipped Worldwide
6/6/16 16:03
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That’s more boxes than most people have fingers!

Ship with Blackbox

If you’ve got an awesome project to share, simply fill out this form. Our accounts team will contact you.

Hey there! Blackbox is happy to hear from you. We’re receiving a lot of emails right now, and we will be in touch in a couple of weeks. Watch this video in the meantime.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Blackbox?

Blackbox is a shipping company for independent artists. We take care of everything that happens after your customers click the “buy” button… the checkout process, credit card processing, customer service, and the worst part, the actual shipping. We’ll even pay your sales taxes for you.

Is Blackbox right for me?

Blackbox lets creators focus on making new stuff instead of doing boring things like printing shipping labels or packing boxes.

Maybe you’re planning a Kickstarter campaign and you need to figure out how to ship rewards to your backers (and how much to charge). Or maybe you have a project that’s outgrown your garage. Reach out to Blackbox, send us your stuff, and we’ll take it from there. Then go back to the important part: making your next thing.

What’s special about Blackbox?

Many businesses ship things for you. Most of them compete on price and volume. We have a different philosophy. Blackbox is designed around artists with the following philosophy:

  • Quality and simplicity are more important than saving a few pennies on shipping. Our price includes the beautiful Blackbox checkout button, our real-time dashboard, and our dedicated customer support team.
  • Artists own the relationship with their customers and can talk to them whenever and however they want. That relationship works best without bloodsucking businessmen in the middle.
  • Regular humans don’t care about the sales channel and they shouldn’t notice it. Artists know how to create the best experience for their customers and do so by customizing packaging, inserts, and the sales page.
How do I use Blackbox to sell stuff?

You make an account with Blackbox, and then we generate a little “buy” button that you can copy and paste onto whatever website you want. Customers check out without ever leaving your page.

How do I use Blackbox to fulfill a Kickstarter campaign?

Working with Blackbox is part of the planning process for your Kickstarter project. Shipping is often the most complicated part of a Kickstarter project, and we only work with projects before they have launched. (If your project has already launched and you haven’t figured out shipping, may God have mercy on your soul.)

We’ll help you generate a shipping estimate for backers, and if your campaign is successful, we’ll work with you to get rewards to your backers. Blackbox ships worldwide and has fulfilled the largest Kickstarter campaigns in history.

How much does Blackbox cost?

Having Blackbox ship your stuff to customers is cheaper than doing it yourself. Blackbox works like a co-op of indie artists. If everyone pays for postage, warehouse space, and packaging themselves, the cost is very high. But if we all pool our resources, we’re as big as any company purchasing at volume. This gives us access to the best rates with USPS and FedEx, leverage with warehouses, and great pricing on packing materials.

As a rule of thumb, it costs about $5 plus 5% retail price to ship one item that weighs one pound with Blackbox. That price is comprehensive and includes customer service, the Blackbox buy button, the real-time dashboard, and all of the other stuff we offer.

Where’s my stuff being stored?

Blackbox has warehouses all around the world and we figure out where to put things on a case–by–case basis. It’s our problem now.

What if I want to ship something weird?

We can ship pretty much anything, including posters and fragile items. Just get in touch with us and we’ll help you figure it out, weirdo.

If I go with Blackbox, can I still sell elsewhere?

Yes. We really could not care less.

How does this work with Amazon?

You’re free to sell your stuff on Amazon. If you want us to deliver your inventory to Amazon, we can do that. Blackbox is also compatible with Amazon Exclusives (Exclusives allows you to sell on your own website).

You’ll have to deal with Amazon yourself.

Whoa, that header animation is incredible.

Isn’t it? Paul Robertson made it for us.