Starting at a new company without knowing anyone there can be quite nerve-wracking. But wearing a t-shirt and a jacket or carrying a laptop bag or backpack with your company logo can give you some sense of belonging even before you begin. That’s one of the many things a new hire swag kit can offer to new employees, and one of the reasons why Dropbox carefully curates its swag for new team members.
That said, what’s exactly inside the Dropbox new hire swag kit? What makes its approach different from other tech companies like Apple and Microsoft? And what are some of the key learnings you should know and apply to your own onboarding swag kit?
What’s inside Dropbox’s new hire swag kit?
Dropbox pairs everyday work items with a genuinely personal welcome. Here are the things that they include in their employee welcome kit.
A commuter backpack that handles the daily commute and gives a new hire somewhere to carry everything else.
A tech pouch that’s great for organizing the cable and charger chaos most of us quietly live with.
A reusable mug that not only nudges people off disposable cups but also helps with brand visibility whenever a new hire drinks coffee.
A bag of coffee, which costs little but does a surprising amount of the emotional heavy lifting, especially for new hires who love caffeinated drinks.
A handwritten welcome note, which is an item that your new team members will actually remember, because it reads like a person was thinking about them.
Why Invest in Onboarding Swag
You need to invest in your new hire’s swag kit because the first few weeks make or break a hire, and a welcome kit is one of the few things you can put in someone’s hands to prove they chose right.
The first month decides more than you think
Strong onboarding improves new-hire retention by 82% and productivity by more than 70%, according to Brandon Hall Group research. The trouble is that almost nobody nails it. As a matter of fact, Gallup found that only 12% of employees strongly agree their company does onboarding well. This makes it even more important for you to get your onboarding kit right.
For a remote-first team, the kit is the office
Dropbox runs on a Virtual First model, where its roughly 2,100 employees can work from anywhere and gather in person only a few times a year. With no lobby and no welcome lunch, the welcome kit on the doorstep becomes the company’s first real welcome. That single delivery carries a lot of weight, so it pays to get it right.
Good swag keeps working long after week one
A welcome email gets read once and buried after a week. But a good backpack or hoodie hangs around for years and quietly carries your brand into coffee shops and video calls.
What Dropbox’s New Hire Welcome Kit Gets Right
Strip away the logo, and Dropbox’s new hire welcome kit still works as a blueprint. Here are a few reasons why:
Useful beats flashy - A backpack and a mug get used daily. A novelty gadget gets a drawer. The best new employee swag earns its place by getting picked up again and again. And this is the exact technique that Dropbox used.
A handwritten note - Anyone can drop a printed insert into a box. But a handwritten letter signals that a human was behind the note and the message. It’s also usually the cheapest line item in the entire kit.
Sustainability built in - That reusable mug in Dropbox’s new hire swag kit is no accident. Dropbox frames it as a way to cut waste, and that choice reads loud to candidates who care about where they work. Swapping single-use items for things people keep happens to be good for the planet and good for the brand.
What swag items should go in your new hire swag kit?
What you want to add to your own company’s new hire kit will always depend on your brand identity and budget. That said, we’ve got a couple of ideas that you could use to emulate Dropbox’s style when it comes to new hire swag kits.
Branded apparel
An apparel item in an employee welcome kit is usually a staple, as it’s one of the most used items in and out of the office.
Some apparel swag items you can include in your new hire swag kit:
Bella + Canvas Unisex Jersey Short Sleeve Tee ($7.69) - This Airlume combed cotton tee takes a printed logo beautifully. It’s also soft and lightweight, which is perfect for any team.
Jerzees Adult NuBlend Fleece Pullover Hooded Sweatshirt ($15.49) - Made from 50/50 cotton-poly blend with virtually pill-free fleece, this hoodie is an outer layer perfect for any casual occasion.
Gildan Adult Ultra Cotton T-Shirt ($4.99) - Heavyweight cotton and a classic fit make this one a wash-after-wash staple, and a reliable canvas when you want bold logo work on a simple shirt.
Drinkware
Few items earn permanent desk space like a good bottle or tumbler. So make sure to pick one that your new hires will actually use and keep.
Some drinkware items you can include in your new hire swag kit:
30 oz Stanley Quencher H2.0 Flowstate ($45.00) - Stanley’s cult-favorite tumbler brings double-wall insulation, a 3-position lid, and a comfort-grip handle built for commutes and desk life alike.
Yeti 26 Oz. Straw Bottle ($48.99) - Backed by YETI’s reputation for nearly indestructible drinkware, this bottle keeps drinks icy for hours thanks to double-wall vacuum insulation.
TYESO ROAM Tumbler 2.0 | 25 oz ($21.29) - For larger cohorts where budget matters, this double-wall stainless tumbler with an integrated handle delivers a premium feel at a mid-tier price.
Bags
A bag gets used out in the world, so it doubles as walking advertising. It also gives new hires somewhere to stash the rest of the kit on day one.
100% Cotton Canvas Tote Bag | 12 oz ($3.79) - For under four dollars, you get a heavyweight, reusable tote that adds a sustainable everyday-carry layer to any new hire swag kit.
Structured Backpack ($43.09) - Waterproof nylon and smart pocket organization make this a commuter favorite, and a built-in trolley belt slides it right onto a suitcase handle for travel days. A close cousin to the backpack Dropbox itself includes.
Coloma Backpack ($53.19) - Made from recycled polyester with a 28L roll-top design and dual laptop access points, this is the premium pick for new hires who are also travelers and daily commuters.
Tech accessories
These are the small problem-solvers a new hire grabs without thinking. Tangled cables and dying phones are universal headaches, and the fix lives right here under this category.
5-IN-1 Charging Cable with USB-A/C Hub ($11.48) - Covering both Apple and Android, and doubling as a laptop hub, this is the item a new hire will actually keep in their bag.
Echodeep Outside Noise Reduction Headphones ($30.99) - These suit focused work and travel without stretching the budget thanks to their recycled ABS plastic material.
Stay Powered 1200 mAh Power Bank with Type-C Tip ($6.98) - Pocket-sized at just 0.14 lbs, this lithium-ion power bank delivers a quick phone top-up through an integrated Type-C tip.
Office supplies
Notebooks and pens rarely top a wish list, yet they come out in every meeting. Choose ones that feel a notch above the supply-closet default
Signature A5 Notebook ($4.49) - A soft-touch hardcover notebook with a ribbon marker, elastic closure, and back pocket. Polished enough to show up in a meeting, affordable enough to include in every kit.
Kaco Pure Gel Pen ($1.44) - A 0.5mm gel pen with a soft-touch matte finish and color-matched ink. A dollar-fifty add that elevates the feel of the notebook it's paired with.
Wellable™ FSC® 100% Bamboo Sticky Notes Pad ($5.98) - A bamboo-covered set with a habit tracker, lined notepad, and colored flags for the note-takers on your team.
Add-ons
These are the cheap extras that make a box feel complete. None of them dent the budget, and together they can help relieve stress or just help out on a day-to-day.
Lightweight Round Stress Reliever ($1.29) - A soft, squeezable stress ball that ties into a wellness-forward kit. A small wink at the reality of the first few weeks in any new job.
Small Insert Card | 4” × 6” ($0.89) - The simplest way to slip in a welcome message or a QR code, and the natural home for the handwritten-note trick Dropbox uses.
Die Cut Vinyl Sticker | 2” x 2” ($0.29) - A durable, custom-shaped vinyl sticker that works great on laptops, water bottles, or notebooks. At under 30 cents, it’s a no-brainer add-on that employees love to collect and display.
What can you learn from how other tech companies handle welcome kits?
Apple
Apple keeps things spare and personal. New hires get a t-shirt printed with the year they joined, a sheet of stickers, and a short welcome note, and the company’s famously well-prepared first day handles the rest.
Slack
Slack’s kit sounds exactly like Slack. Next to a laptop sleeve and an insulated bottle sit a tongue-in-cheek notebook and a candle labeled “A job well done,” with welcome cards and QR codes that point new hires toward resources. The whole set carries the brand’s playful voice, which proves that a little copy and personality can turn ordinary items into something people actually remember.
Netflix
Netflix wraps its swag in culture. New hires receive branded gear like a shirt, jacket, or insulated cup before day one, but the heart of the welcome is the onboarding buddy assigned to them and the run of “Episodes” sessions in its New Employee Welcome program.
Different as they are, the three share one move worth copying. Every kit feels unmistakably like the company that sent it.
Learnings from Dropbox’s New Hire Swag Kits
The Dropbox new hire swag kit works because it respects the person opening it. Useful swag items and a note that sounds like a real human wrote it go a long way. What you need to remember is that you don’t need Dropbox’s budget to copy the thinking, just pick the items people will genuinely use, and the rest will take care of itself.
Want to create onboarding kits with the same impact and quality as Dropbox’s?
Building one great swag kit for one local hire is the easy part. Doing it for forty hires spread across a dozen countries, every quarter, on time, is where most programs fall apart. Closing that gap is exactly what a swag management platform like PerkUp is built for.
PerkUp is a swag management platform made for remote and global teams. Rather than mailing every swag kit from a single warehouse, the platform fulfills from a warehousing network spanning 65+ countries, so a swag kit is headed to an employee in Berlin or Bangalore and ships domestically without customs frictions. That local fulfillment also trims the carbon footprint of each shipment, which pairs neatly with the reusable-mug thinking Dropbox includes in its own kit.
What’s more is that with PerkUp, you can actually automate your new hire swag kit sends. Connect your HRIS, and a new hire’s start date can trigger their kit on its own, with no manual action needed from your side. You can run On Demand swag for apparel, where sizing makes inventory risky, alongside bulk for the items you know everyone wants, all inside one dashboard, thanks to PerkUp’s swag flexibility.
You can also opt to let your new hires pick their preferred swag from a swag store that combines both bulk and On Demand swag. Just set your budget, point new hires to a branded store, and let them choose what they actually want.
New hire kits are only one slice of what PerkUp handles. The same setup powers work anniversaries, event swag, client gifts, and global rewards, so the system you use for onboarding keeps paying off long after someone’s first week.
New hire swag kits built with PerkUp
While reading about Dropbox’s new hire swag kit can give you the inspiration, knowing how teams actually pulled off onboarding swag with PerkUp can give you the push to actually start this swag program within our company. So, here are some of the new hire kit examples we’ve done recently.
Turing
Hiring across two continents usually means two versions of everything, including the welcome kit. But Turing skipped that compromise and shipped more than 600 new hire kits to teammates in both India and the US, each one consistent and aligned with the brand.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo’s new hire kit leans all the way into their duck mascot character, swapping the predictable tee-and-notebook formula for mascot-covered items new hires actually want to show off, thanks to its ingenuity.
Vectra AI
Vectra AI packed a backpack, a water bottle, a blanket, socks, and a handful of branded extras into one new hire kit. The mix covers the commute and the couch, suitable for both daily work and the weekends.
GrowthZone
For their new hire kit, GrowthZone branded the mailer box itself, then backed up the packaging with a YETI inside. The pairing signals quality before anyone reads a single logo up close.
Ambition
Ambition stacked its onboarding kit with premium swag items: branded apparel, a backpack, drinkware, and a hat.
None of these kits looks alike, yet every one has the same effect that Dropbox is going for: making new hires feel more welcome.
Frequently Asked Questions About New Hire Swag Kits
Can you automate new hire swag kits with your HRIS?
Yes! With an HRIS integration, a new hire’s start date can trigger their kit automatically, so onboarding swag goes out without manual lists or reminders. PerkUp connects with 200+ HRIS like BambooHR, Rippling, and ADP, queuing each kit the moment someone is added to the directory.
How do you personalize onboarding kits at scale?
You actually have two options when you partner with PerkUp: recipient choice, where your new hire picks from a curated branded store within a set budget, and rule-based automation tied to HRIS events. Together, they let your new hire in one city receive a localized kit while a different role triggers a different setup, with no manual coordination needed on your end.
How do you ship new hire kits to international employees?
The cleanest approach is to fulfill from inside the recipient’s region instead of mailing across borders. PerkUp’s network covers 65+ countries, so kits sent to places like Mexico, India, or the EU arrive as domestic shipments, and the platform handles customs paperwork in the background when cross-border shipping is unavoidable.
Should I send the swag kit before or on the first day?
If you can, sending it before the start date is the stronger move. When new hires open a branded welcome kit at home before they've even logged in for the first time, it builds excitement and reinforces that they made the right choice. For in-office hires, having the kit waiting at their desk works just as well.
Should remote and in-office new hires receive the same kit?
The core swag items can stay the same, but it's worth tailoring a few things based on the work setup. Remote hires, for example, might appreciate items that make their home workspace feel more connected to the team, like branded desk accessories or a quality webcam cover. In-office hires might get more value from items they can use around the office, like a reusable coffee mug or a tote bag.
