The Best Survival Gear Stores

Wednesday, March 22nd

2023 Survival Gear Store Reviews

Survival Frog

• Many products made in the USA
• Great warranty coverage
• 6-month return policy
• Educational website helpful for beginners and experts alike
• Positive reputation with customers, BBB

Survival Frog, whose motto is "Preparing Made Easy" , is a small Denver, Colorado, USA business carrying a large selection of outdoor and emergency preparedness products. All products ship directly from their Denver warehouse. In addition to survival products, they also provide preparedness education for beginners just getting started and to individuals who are more advanced in their preparedness and seeking to improve.

Categories are easy to shop

On the Survival Frog website, you will find categories for survival gear, food and water, energy and radio, kits, camping, and even PPE masks. Under survival gear, the catalog is broken down into their own branded merchandise, PPE masks, survival tools, warmth and shelter, lighting, power sources, personal safety, fire starters, knives, waterproofing, and bags and packs.

Plenty of options for food and water

In the food and water section, there is food, water, canned meat, nutrient survival, and cooking and water storage. There is also representation from various popular survival food brands such as Legacy bundles, ReadyWise, Backpackers Pantry brand, and Mountain House.

Quick picks for energy/radio, kits, camping

In energy and radio, they list radios, solar, power sources, and lighting, including the Biolite and Goal Zero brands of lights and generators. The kits page has survival kits for cars, first aid, warmth and shelter, food and water, and cooking. Finally, the camping category has tailored selections from all of the previously mentioned categories.

Most popular item: power station

The best-selling item on Survival Frog is the Goal Zero Yeti 400 110V Power Station, which provides AC, USB, and 12V power to devices without a loud, carbon monoxide-producing gasoline generator engine to power it. It connects to solar panels or to available power sources to recharge so you can recharge your devices.

Generous return policy and warranty coverage

The return policy is quite extensive. It includes a 6-month "any reason" refund guarantee and free shipping on all returns that happen within 14 calendar days from when your order was first delivered. The refund guarantee excludes food and water products shipped from Survival Frog's own warehouses. There is also a full 3-year product warranty on any product defects, replacing it with a new product, similar product, or store credit.

Best choice for survival gear

The vast majority of customers who reviewed Survival Frog had positive experiences. They love the product quality, food taste, and customer service. The few negative reviews were from six years ago related to product quality that seems to have been solved for a while now. Most of those complaints were handled by responses from Survival Frog. The BBB listing shows only one customer complaint closed in the last 3 years. For these reasons, we recommend Survival Frog as our top-rated survival gear store.

Be Prepared

• Most experienced retailer of survival gear, especially food
• Discounts available when buying as a group
• Helpful website
• Good customer feedback

Be Prepared, also known as Emergency Essentials, is not just another survival gear drop shipper. It has been in the business of helping people prepare for emergencies and disasters since 1987 when it began with the founder selling milk out of his living room. It evolved into a well-known brand among those who seek to always be prepared for any kind of emergency. Be Prepared also sells in bulk to groups of neighbors, family, and friends who want to save money. Their promise is to not use fear tactics to sell kits and to only sell you what you need, never what you don't.

Incredible variety of bulk foods

The Be Prepared website divides its offerings into four main categories: bulk food, food and survival kits, water, and gear. For bulk food, you can get #10 cans, or kits of them, for every food group and type of preparation possible. Choose from meat, vegetables, fruits, beans and legumes, grains and pasta, dairy and eggs, soups and stews, cooking and baking, drinks, shakes, desserts, entrees, and breakfasts. Gluten-free options are available. Also, under bulk food, you'll find options for making quick meals by dehydrating in and eating out of pouches made by the well-known Mountain House, Ready Hour, MRE Star, and DATREX brands. Food kits are available in bucket, resealable pouch, or #10 can packaging of 2-week, 4-week, 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year amounts. MREs come in 12 meal, 72-hour, or individual on-the-go bar packs.

Great options for water and emergency supplies

Water options include an assortment of water treatment chemicals and devices, 12 oz water cans (24-pack) that last up to 30 years, and a 5-gallon collapsible water container. If you need other gear for emergencies or survival, you'll find complete 72-hour kits, fire starters, emergency blankets, air purifiers, stoves, emergency radios, medical supplies, and books.

Informative website is a solid resource

The Be Prepared resources page educates customers on the practical and useful ways to build emergency preparedness kits and stores of supplies for power outages, tornadoes, winter storms, droughts, floods, and fires. It also includes tutorials on how to survive longer-term non-physical emergencies such as economic struggles and travel emergencies.

Group buying options can save you money

With the Be Prepared group buying program, you can organize a group of preparedness-minded individuals (friends, neighbors, churches, and other organizations) to multiply the buying power and save money on bulk purchases with required quantities to obtain progressive discounts.

Mostly positive customer feedback

Be Prepared doesn't have a BBB listing. In other places we found, those who gave the site positive reviews loved the quality of the food, good customer service, sales, discounts, and selection. Of those who gave it low ratings, the reviews were from several years ago and included problems with products that were already several years old, or were minor glitches due to third-party shippers or busy seasons.

Reliable, experienced provider of survival gear

Because of their longevity and leadership in the emergency preparedness industry, their huge variety of food products, and their volume purchasing offerings for large groups, Be Prepared is a great option to go with.

ReadyWise

• Customers rave about the food quality
• Can buy enough food to feed a family for a year or more
• Good range of non-food survival gear choices
• 30-day return policy, comes with $15 restocking fee

ReadyWise specializes in dehydrated and freeze-dried, ready-made food for outdoor and emergency use. They offer up to a 25-year shelf life on all their long-term food storage products. Packaging is in a format suitable for both families and individuals. They also sell survival gear and assorted goods and supplies for use in emergency situations.

Abundant options in the emergency category

The website is divided into categories of emergency, adventure, and everyday meals. The emergency category focuses on items that are packaged and typically used for natural disasters. It consists of starter items, long-term, gluten-free and organic, meats, fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs, backpacks and survival bags, water filtration and storage, emergency supplies, and generators.

Up for an adventure?

The adventure category is focused on foods and supplies that are typically used for high-adventure outdoor activities. It includes entrees, breakfast, snacks, gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian, bags and bundles, cooking items, and other supplies.

Individual food packages available

Finally, the everyday portion of the catalog is for individually packaged meals along the lines of soups, fruit, vegetable snacks, and sweet treats.

Want to buy in bulk?

The larger bulk items are packaged in buckets of 120, 240, 360, 1440, and 4,320 servings of long-term emergency food. If you're looking to fill a bunker or shelter full of food, or want to have a year or more supply of food for your family, there is also a "Mother Of All Bundles" or M.O.A.B. bundle. It contains 144 total buckets of almost 17,000 servings of all kinds of foods. If your family enjoys things like cheesy lasagna, creamy pasta, pasta alfredo, chili mac, chicken noodle soup, stroganoff, and other savory staple foods, you'll find a lot of variety in the M.O.A.B. bundle. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to get it from their store to your door, but hey, shipping is free.

Check the deals section for extra savings

The deals section of the site contains a number of ReadyWise emergency preparedness items up to 50% off. Several other items are branded with the American Red Cross logo. There are also guides on the website on how to prepare for every emergency.

Customer feedback says "shop here"

ReadyWise has no BBB listing. Several thousand reviewers contributed their opinions on ReadyWise via other online reviews. The majority of customers rated the company as excellent with customer service, store selection, great-tasting food, high-quality packaging, and the availability of a payment plan. Those complaining had similar dissatisfaction as with other stores we've reviewed: not receiving their complete order, bad or damaged packaging, high prices, and not good taste to the food.

Solid choice despite short return policy

This is a good company to choose for buying survival food and other gear. However, if something goes wrong you're limited to 30 days on returns and subject to a $15 restocking fee. You might want to check with other companies on this list that omit these drawbacks, but if customer feedback is any indicator, you probably won't have any reason to be unhappy with the survival gear you buy from ReadyWise..

American Family Safety

• Many kinds of safety and disaster kits
• Easy-to-use website
• 30-day return policy
• Discounts for military
• Made in the USA

American Family Safety is a family-owned company that helps families deal with adversity arising from hurricanes, floods, forest fires, tornadoes, mudslides, terrorism, and even the threat of nuclear attack. Their safety and disaster kits contain water, food, lighting, clothing, and other essentials that the Coast Guard and FEMA recommend in times of emergency. Food and water products are approved by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, withstanding temperatures between 22 and 149 degrees, and having a shelf life of 5 years. All items are designed, manufactured, packaged, and distributed from Vista, California USA.

Two types of kits: safety and disaster

The American Family Safety website divides the kits into two main categories: safety and disaster. The kits are further divided into subcategories for convenience in finding just the right kit tailored for specific locations and scenarios. Safety kits are divided into home, office, car, school, senior, transit and commuter, pet, and outdoor. Disaster kits are divided into blackout, flood, earthquake, hurricane, wildfire, terrorism, winter, water supplies, MRE food rations, and first aid supplies.

Tools make it easy to decide

The website's Kit Helper feature assists you in deciding how to tailor your kit for your location, types of potential disasters, people in your home, pets, and other factors. For example, running the Kit Helper for a 6-person, 1-dog household in Florida yielded three affordable kit options that appeared to meet the needs of that family. The family kit was a 5-person 72-hour kit. For the sixth person, you should buy a 1-person kit because it's not really possible to ration the resources of the 5-person kit. The dog kit was particularly comprehensive and contained more items than most people might anticipate for a dog's needs in a disaster.

Helpful side-by-side comparison

If you want to compare some of the 72-hour kit contents side-by-side, there is a handy comparison chart to see all the items contained in each 3-person 72-hour kit. And the website includes a planning and preparation page with dozens of links to authoritative websites and articles on disaster survival.

Corporate survival kits available

There is also a section for corporate kits that can be tailored to your brand look and feel and values. Corporate kits are customizable as to the items they contain and can create goodwill by showing employees that the company cares about their safety, health, and well-being.

30 day return policy, military discount

American Family Safety has some customer-friendly policies. The site offers a 15% discount to all active-duty members, veterans, and reservists. Also, customer support allows for a money-back return of any product within 30 days of purchase. However, all returned items must be new, unused, and unopened.

No customer feedback found

On the downside, no customer satisfaction reviews or BBB entries were found for American Family Safety.

Nice site, just needs some shopper reviews

The site is beautifully designed and well-organized. However, without reviews or a BBB listing to compare customer experiences, we have to stop short of giving American Family Safety our highest rating for survival gear retailers. We hope that, in the future, the company makes it easier to see what customers have to say about their products and the overall shopping experience.

The Ready Store

• Fantastic range of survival gear options
• Helpful, informative website
• Insider customer program available
• Can subscribe to buy desired gear over time, according to budget

The Ready Store began as a small family business selling emergency preparedness kits to friends and family. Eventually, the demand for their comprehensive kits grew large enough to create a larger business operating out of a 19,000 square foot warehouse.

Many different kinds of food

Food is divided into categories of main entrees, freeze-dried vegetables, freeze-dried fruits, meats and proteins, eggs, potatoes, breakfasts, snacks and desserts, dairy, drink mixes, sauces and seasonings, and soups. You can shop for items by whether they are freeze-dried or dehydrated.

Well-known and loved food brands

Brands available at The Ready Store include Saratoga Farms, Mountain House Meals, EasyPrep, Daily Bread, Campfire Meals, Harvest Right, and Yoders.

DIY, MRE options

Packaging is available in #10 cans, pouches, buckets, and 6-can ReadyPacks. You can also buy long-term food kits and high-end freeze dryers for do-it-yourself freeze-drying of your own food items. Packaging is also available as cases of MREs of full meals or just entrees and in individual or long-term supply quantities. In case you want to heat an MRE to make it taste better, you can buy their very effective flameless MRE heater, which is a chemically induced heating system. We recently tried this and it's like magic without the mess!

Plentiful water choices

If you're looking for water storage options, The Ready Store offers purifiers, containers, barrels, and accessories as well as boxed drinking water supplies in multi-day quantities.

Abundant availability of emergency gear

Emergency gear sold by The Ready Store includes survival kits and backpacks, seeds and plants, MyMedic first aid kits, cooking and fuel, blender bottles, and pet supplies.

Customer-friendly perks

The Ready Store offers a loyalty program called ReadyCLUB. Customers can join to get 2% cashback plus free shipping on all orders for a year. Shipping takes 2-5 business days to most of the contiguous U.S. states. And if you're not a ReadyCLUB member, you still get flat rate shipping between $6 and $12 based on the range of your purchase price.

Subscribe to stock up over time

The Ready Store website has a handy "Where to Start?" section that gives people new to survival preparedness a tutorial on where to begin. The guide asks for your state, type of community, and how many people you're preparing for, then gives you education and product options for getting started in your area. At the end of the tutorial, you can add products to a subscription system called "ReadyQ" , set a budget for how much you want to spend on survival readiness products, and The Ready Store will ship you what you want on time for when you want it without going over your budget. Any out-of-stock items will be skipped until they are available. And, if you're a ReadyCLUB member, you'll get a 6-month price lock on anything you add to the ReadyQ.

Price matching if you find it cheaper elsewhere

Price matching is available. If you find a Ready Store product to be more expensive than a competitor's offering, The Ready Store will match that price.

Generous 180-day money-back guarantee

If a product is damaged or defective, you refuse or return an order, or are generally not happy with your purchase, The Ready Store offers a 180-day money-back guarantee. You are required to call their toll-free number to get authorization to return the product(s). The Ready Store will cover the costs of returning the items if they are damaged or defective, but you will be responsible for paying return shipping for any other reason. There is a 15% restocking fee in some cases.

Customer feedback is less-than-impressive

Sadly, reviewers are not happy about recent interactions with The Ready Store. Complaints within the last year described problems with orders taking a long time to ship, missing or damaged items, items out of stock, problems with getting customer service to respond appropriately, thoroughly, or quickly to issues, and problems with getting refunds. Their store has some amazing items, but unfortunately, due to their issues with customer service and restocking fee, we have to give The Ready Store a lower rating than we'd like.

1 800 Prepare

• Impressive options for pre-made kits
• 30-day return policy
• Backpacks, buckets, and even automobile survival kits

Created by two emergency responders, 1 800 Prepare offers disaster preparedness products and kits for natural and man-made emergencies and disasters. With 1 800 Prepare, you can create your own emergency preparedness or survival kit from individual items in the online store, or you can purchase pre-made kits.

Nice selection of products

On 1 800 Prepare, you'll find a thorough selection of first aid kits, survival tools, food and water, radios, flashlights, and all other kinds of items for either everyday use or for emergencies. The store is divided into four main categories: backpack kits, bucket kits, automobile kits, and food. You can also read the blog for useful tips on how to maximize the survivability of various possible disasters.

Impressive selection of backpack kits for individuals and families

The backpack kits are for when you need to flee a disaster with only a backpack full of items. They come in a range of sizes, from one- and two-person kits to family blackout, child, hiker, and hunter kits. However, if you have a larger family, say six or eight people, you will likely need to purchase multiple two-person backpack kits. There are no all-inclusive kits for larger family needs. One fun item found in nearly every kit is a deck of 52 survival poker cards, which have educational information printed on each card about how to survive various situations.

Good shelter-in-place bucket kits available

For shelter-in-place disasters, especially with flooding that might ruin a backpack kit, 1 800 Prepare sells sealable bucket kits that can withstand watery weather conditions and protect the items inside. There are 2-, 4-, 5- and 10-person bucket survival kits that will cover your needs for 72+ hours. Items are packed into 5-gallon buckets and include items for food and water, light and communications, shelter and warmth, tools, hygiene and sanitation, and first aid. Each bucket has a toilet seat lid and toilet bags with chemicals to treat human waste before being disposed of. Other bucket kits are more specialized for automobile, hurricane, and classroom lockdown scenarios.

Don't forget a kit for the car

The two automobile kits 1 800 Prepare offers are designed for storage in a car trunk, SUV hatch, or truck bed. They include various assortments of roadside emergency items, such as a reflective triangle to signal other drivers about your disabled vehicle, jumper cables and other automotive tools, flashlight, survival blanket, food and water.

Food options limited to energy bars

1 800 Prepare offers food in the form of 6-packs and cases of 144 energy bars of assorted flavors, including cherry, vanilla, tropical fruit, raspberry, orange, lemon, coconut, blueberry, and apricot. Food is shelf-stable for up to 5 years.

30-day return policy, steep restocking and shipping fees

There is a 30-day money-back guarantee on all 1 800 Prepare products that are returned in new, unopened, unused condition. Returns for mistaken orders or unwanted but undamaged products incur a 20% restocking fee. And, they do not pay for the initial shipping and handling cost or the cost of shipping to return the product.

Good but not great

No customer satisfaction reviews or BBB entries were found for 1 800 Prepare. That lack of feedback, along with the store's 20% restocking fee, no free shipping, and a limited 30-day money-back guarantee makes it difficult to rate 1 800 Prepare any higher. But, we like what they have to offer for ready-made kits, so if you don't find them with a more established survival gear store, 1 800 Prepare is a good alternative.

Titan Survival

• Lots of paracord choices
• Some options in other product categories
• Niche retailer

Titan Survival is a small, family-owned business in the business of selling specialized survival tools and supplies. Their products are inspired by the items in use currently and in the past by the U.S. military and survival enthusiasts. They started as TITAN Paracord, manufacturing their own high-quality paracord, and branched out to include other survival items.

Most robust category: cordage

The Titan Survival website consists of six main sections: cordage, combustion, cover, clothing, container, and miscellaneous. The cordage section has a selection of military-style paracord in multiple colors, compositions, lengths, diameters, and strengths. There are also various paracord accessories to complement or improve your use of paracord for various applications.

Small selection in the combustion category

Under combustion, you'll find various fire starters, a fire kit, and even a Zippo lighter gift set.

Even fewer options for cover

The cover category contains survival blankets and a sleeping bag.

Good selection of clothing - even a camo bikini!

The clothing area offers branded and camouflage clothing, face masks, caps, jackets, and even a camouflage bikini.

Containers = bags and water bottles

If you're looking for containers, you can select from drawstring and tote bags, a backpack, and a water bottle.

Miscellaneous is...miscellaneous

Miscellaneous items include two camouflage pillows, a solar power bank for USB charging, and a camouflage iPhone case.

Not as much to choose from as competitors

The sense we get of Titan Survival is that while it offers some survival comforts and useful tools, the selection isn't as comprehensive as other sites in terms of a wide array of many preparedness options. For example, you won't find any food options and only one water survival option (a water bottle), which are two main priorities in emergency situations.

Decent but needs more inventory categories

For customers interested in this specialty selection, the reviews are quite positive in the majority of cases. A few people complained of items easily scratching or losing their paint finish. However, because it's such a niche site that doesn't offer comprehensive emergency preparedness options like others in survival gear reviews, we're giving Titan Survival a lower-than-average rating.

Armory Stock

• Veteran-owned
• Made in the USA
• Only site that carries garden seeds for long-term food emergencies

Armory Stock is an online, veteran-owned camping, survival, and tactical equipment store. They offer made-in-the-USA brands of emergency kits, survival kits, first aid, paracord, and more.

Decent options for food

The website shop is divided into categories of long-term food storage, paracords, preparedness seeds, survival and emergency kits, and survival products. The long-term food storage options include food storage buckets, fruit and vegetable buckets, gluten-free food, and meat buckets.

Pre-made kits for various situations

Survival and emergency kits include food storage kits, backpack kits, bucket-style kits, children's kits, cooler bag kits, duffle bag kits, emergency roadside kits, pet emergency kits, and preparedness package kits.

Basic survival product selection

Survival products include first aid kits, food & water, hygiene and sanitation products, and tools.

Paracord - and garden seeds

The site offers nine different colors of bulk amounts of paracord (in cases of 36) and six different sets of herbs, fruit, medicinal, and salsa garden seed options.

Comparable selection on kits, not food

The variety and quantity of survival and emergency kits is numerous, even if they are the kits from the same manufacturers that most other sites offer. However, the number and variety of food bucket options is somewhat lacking compared to other sites we have reviewed.

Glitchy website = lowest ranking

The site only offers a contact form to get in touch with them for customer service and publishes no return or satisfaction policy. The page where the physical location store list would have been published was malfunctioning at the time of this writing. There were no BBB records or verified purchaser reviews from which to make a determination on customer satisfaction. For these reasons, we suggest shopping around more at other stores.