Whether you’re a veteran cannabis grower or a complete newbie just getting into the game, when you’re looking for seeds for your next (or first) grow, you want nothing but the best. Dozens of seed banks claim to sell you the hottest and best strains out there, but many will turn out to be nothing but an elaborate scam. Nowadays, pretty much anyone can build a nice-looking website, but that doesn’t mean that the seeds you receive will be as good – if you even receive anything at all.
To make your life easier, we’ve taken a look at the seed banks available online and put together a list of the best seed banks that ship to the US.
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To make it onto our list, seed banks have to fulfill a number of criteria. We looked at:
- Whether they ship to the US
- Their seed selection
- Their pricing structure
- Their customer service and online reviews
- Whether they offer stealth shipping
- Whether they offer a germination guarantee
These seed banks will consistently provide you with the highest quality seeds, best customer service, and most bang for your buck, and can safely be called the best seed banks that ship to the US.
1. I Love Growing Marijuana (ILGM) – Best Overall
I Love Growing Marijuana, or ILGM for short, is one of the most reputable and best online seed banks that ship to the USA and deservedly takes the top spot in our ranking.
ILGM was founded by Robert Bergman, a Dutch cannabis expert and experienced grower with over 20 years of experience growing marijuana.
Bergman has been producing and developing various strains of marijuana for many years and originally operated ILGM as a site teaching people how to grow cannabis themselves. Since he turned I Love Growing Marijuana into an official seed bank in 2012, the site quickly cemented its place at the top of the cannabis seed game.
Part of what made ILGM so successful is that the company doesn’t just sell you seeds. ILGM makes sure that you’ll know exactly what you’re doing once you get them and have as much growing knowledge as possible. I Love Growing Marijuana even offers an in-depth growing guide (click here to download it for free) and you can find much more information on their website and forum as well.
But, most importantly, I Love Growing Marijuana’s seeds are top-notch and even backed by a germination guarantee. If you’ve correctly followed their six recommended growing steps and nothing’s sprouting, ILGM will replace your seeds for free.
Seed selection:
ILGM’s seed selection covers an impressive array of strains that are loved all around the world. From classics like White Widow and Blue Dream, to Skywalker OG or their very own Bergman’s Gold Leaf, you’re sure to find a strain you’ll love. You can easily browse the ILGM shop base on the type of cannabis you want to grow. The selection is separated into feminized and autoflowering seeds and can be further filtered by a myriad of factors such as growing time, growing difficulty, yield, THC content, indica or sativa, and many more.
Almost all strains are available as feminized and autoflower versions, so you can choose what best fits your growing style and experience. For the undecided, ILGM also offers a variety of mix packs that all include three different strains.
Most popular strains:
- Girl Scout Cookies (feminized, autoflower)
- Gorilla Glue (feminized, autoflower)
- Sour Diesel (feminized, autoflower)
- AK-47 (feminized, autoflower)
- Super Skunk (feminized, autoflower)
- Blue Dream (feminized)
Pricing and discounts:
ILGM’s seeds are competitively priced, going for between $89-$109 for a pack of five and $189-$199 for 20 seeds. I Love Growing Marijuana also often runs a special 10+10 free seeds offer for all major holidays, where you can get 20 seeds for the price of 10. If you’re looking for a good deal, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Payment options:
ILGM accepts various payment options, including credit cards (both Visa and MasterCard), Bitcoin, eCheque, and more. If you need your payment to stay off the books, you can even send your payment in cash to an address in California, and ILGM will ship your order once your money arrives.
Shipping:
US shipping is free of charge (package tracking costs extra) and all orders come with a delivery guarantee. If your seeds don’t arrive after 25 business days, ILGM will send out your order again free of charge — no questions asked.
ILGM uses stealth shipping, which means that all seeds are packaged and shipped discreetly without showing the company’s name or the contents of the package. ILGM first sends all orders to its US office and then distributes them from there to their final destination. So even if your order gets caught in customs, your name’s not on the package. Thanks to ILGM’s delivery guarantee paired with its stealth shipping method you can rest assured that you will get your seeds every time.
What we liked:
- Free and fast shipping – most orders arrive in less than two weeks
- Delivery and germination guarantee
- 100+ strains available
- Fantastic customer service
- Free growing guide
What we didn’t like:
- Not the largest seed collection
2. Crop King Seeds
Crop King Seeds has an interesting history. The Canada-based company was originally founded in 2005 but quickly had to shut its doors again due to the very uncertain regulatory environment in Canada at the time. Fast-forward seven years to 2012 and Crop King Seeds had cropped up again – this time in the US, where Colorado, Washington, and a few other states had just voted to legalize cannabis.
Just a year later Crop King returned to Canada and set up its first physical storefront in Calgary. Since then, the company has expanded to its main office in Vancouver, from where it also ships its seeds, as well as over 100 retail partners that sell the company’s seeds.
Crop King Seeds is widely regarded as one of the best seed banks in the industry and while it used to have some serious customer service issues in its early years, the company worked hard to build up a good reputation and has vastly improved the entire buying experience.
Crop King Seeds has put a lot of money and effort into building its seed catalog and is so confident in its quality that it gives an 80% germination guarantee. If you follow the company’s very detailed germination guide and fail to germinate 80% of your seeds, they’ll send you new ones free of charge.
Seed selection:
Crop Kings Seeds has one of the biggest seed selections, with around 500 different products available. Like almost every other seed bank, Crop King Seeds offers regular seeds, feminized seeds, and autoflower seeds, and recently also added 44 different high-CBD strains to its selection.
Unfortunately, the Crop King Seed website isn’t the most comfortable to navigate and unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll have to browse through all seeds on offer until you find one that’s right for you. While the website has gotten much better than it was just a few years ago, there are still some improvements we’d like to see, such as proper filters by THC levels, growing time, etc.
Choose one of their classic strains such as White Widow, Trainwreck, Purple Kush, or Green Crack, or pick up a mix pack and let the King surprise you with 10-25 different seeds.
Most popular strains:
- White Widow (regular, feminized, autoflower)
- Purple Kush (feminized, autoflower)
- Gelato (regular, feminized, autoflower)
- Green Crack (feminized)
- Lambs Breath (autoflower)
- Northern Lights (feminized, autoflower)
Pricing and discounts:
The pricing structure of Crop King’s seeds couldn’t be simpler. All seeds in their respective category cost exactly the same and get cheaper the more you buy. All regular seeds go for $50 for 5, $80 for 10, and $150 for 25. Feminized and autoflower seeds are obviously more expensive at $75 for 5, $130 for 10, and $250 for 25.
Unlike ILGM, Crop King Seeds doesn’t run regular deals and discounts but you can get the occasional discount code by subscribing to the newsletter and keeping an eye out for codes online
Payment options:
Crop King Seeds offers all the payment options that have become standard on the seed bank market. The company accepts US and Canadian dollars, Visa, Mastercard, and Bitcoin. Canadian customers can also pay via Interac E-Transfers.
Shipping:
US customers can choose between regular shipping for $10 or express shipping for $30. When you opt for the cheaper option, you can expect your seeds to arrive in about two weeks, while the express version will take between 2-7 business days. Express shipping not only adds package tracking but also a delivery guarantee by Crop King Seeds. Should your order get seized by customs, they will reship it for free.
Crop King Seeds says that about 5% off all international orders get seized by customs, but the shop takes great care to hide your seeds. Don’t be surprised if your package includes random items such as pens, flashlights, or birthday cards. Your seeds will be hidden somewhere inside these items.
What we liked:
- Big selection of 500+ seeds
- Germination guarantee
- Consistent pricing between all strains
- Fast shipping
- Many payment options available
What we didn’t like:
- Difficult to navigate website
- Customer service still needs improvement
3. Seedsman
Update: Due to limitations arising from COVID-19, Seedsman temporarily moved its main warehouse from Spain to the UK and is only keeping an emergency maintenance stock of its most-sold seeds. Many strains you would usually find on the site are therefore sold out at the moment. As of June 1, 2020, Seedsman is only shipping orders placed by existing customers and is not taking on new clients. The company will revisit the situation in mid-June.
Seedsman has been in the online seed game for close to 20 years and is a seed bank with a mission. Established in 2002, Seedsman got its start by collecting and preserving cannabis seeds for genetic research, and that mission continues to this day. Besides providing customers with high-quality seeds by breeders from around the world, Seedsman also wants to make sure that a diverse pool of genetically-viable seeds remains in circulation. The more diverse a gene pool is, the more resistant the cannabis plants are to diseases and pests.
Why does Seedsman do all of this? That’s simple. The company is preparing for the day when politicians around the world begin to better realize the therapeutic applications of cannabis and that the best way to minimize harm to people is through regulation of cannabis and its derivatives under a legal framework. Seedsman believes in this cause so much, that it spends a percentage of its profit on helping promote the need for legal change within the UK and around the globe.
Seed selection:
The seed selection of Seedsman is probably its main selling point. The seed bank sells an astounding 4,998 different varieties of cannabis from 123 different breeders, including its own in-house brand of seeds. This absolutely incredible selection of seeds lets you get your hands on seeds that would otherwise be unavailable for various reasons. Maybe the seed bank you had your eyes set on doesn’t ship to where you live? No worries, you’ll probably find their seeds on Seedsman.
The Seedsman website is a pleasure to use. Its massive collection of seeds can be filtered by breeder, plant sex, bud color, yield, flowering time, preferred climate, and a myriad of other filtering options. Do you prefer to buy only Cup winners from recent years? There’s a filter for that. You can select to only see kush strains, cheese strains, haze strains, and a bunch of other strain families.
You could spend hours just browsing through Seedsman’s vast selection and looking at all the amazing strains you always wanted to grow and smoke. Well, now’s your chance. Another special aspect of Seedsman is that you can buy single seeds from the vast majority of breeders available. Most seeds are available as singles or in packs of three, five, or ten. You’ll also come across the occasional strain that you can buy in bulk, but that’s rare.
Most popular strains:
- Alaskan Purple Auto by Seedsman
- Gelat.OG Feminised by Seedsman
- Amnesia FAST by Seedsman
- White Widow Auto by Seedsman
- Wedding Cake Auto by Pheno Finder Seeds
- Pineapple Express #2 by G13 Labs
Pricing and discounts:
To say that Seedsman is competitively priced would be an understatement. Prices start at $4.47 for a single seed of Special Kush #1 by Royal Queen Seeds and go up all the way to $669.32 for 100 seeds of Passion Fruit by Dutch Passion. In between, you can find anything your heart desires for very fair prices.
Seedsman also runs promotions all the time to push its own brand of seeds and you can almost always find a great deal. For returning customers of the site, Seedman also has a loyalty program that lets you collect points that you can spend on discounts for future orders. Be aware that points expire after 180 days since your last points were earned or spent.
Payment options:
Buying seeds on Seedsman couldn’t be easier. The site accepts every major form of payment including credit cards, Bitcoin, check, money order, cash, wire transfer, and a number of online payment providers. When you pay with Bitcoin, Seedsman gives you a huge 15-25% discount on your order.
Shipping:
Seedsman ships all of its products worldwide and uses stealth shipping methods whenever necessary to make sure that your order gets to you. Delivery costs depend on the final weight and size of your order, but free shipping promotions are regularly available, so make sure to check the promotions page before placing your order. Most orders are dispatched within 1 to 3 business days and should arrive in the US in under 25 business days. From what we’ve read online, three weeks seems to be the average time that US customers had to wait for their order.
Seedsman offers stealth shipping as a paid upgrade and we strongly recommend that you use the option. Your seeds will most likely be shipped in a DVD case or another stealth object and your name and address will be handwritten on the envelope, with no logo or promotional text for Seedsman.
What we liked:
- Almost 5,000 types of seeds available
- Very easy to use website with countless filter options
- Very easy payment process
- Stealth shipping option available
What we didn’t like:
- Customer service can be hard to get ahold of
4. Ministry of Cannabis
Like all other entries on this list, Ministry of Cannabis has been in the business for a long time. Founded in Amsterdam in 2007, the company has since relocated to Barcelona, Spain, and has managed to build a strong reputation for innovation in strain breeding, research, and development. All of this adds up to a great end product for buyers from around the world.
From top-notch seed quality and customer service to participation in 420-related events around the world, Ministry of Cannabis has demonstrated that it is serious about its commitment to the growing community and its loyal customers. Despite not being one of the most well-known names when it comes to seed banks, there are pages upon pages of positive reviews that sing this company’s praises. Be it exceptional yields, super-fast shipping, or outstanding customer service, Ministry of Cannabis seems to provide it all and is rightfully one of the best seed banks that ship to the US.
Seed selection:
Ministry of Cannabis is a seed breeder, meaning that it breeds all of its own strains and sells only them in its shop. The selection is small with only twenty-something strains available, but they are all top-notch and some of the best cannabis you will grow. You will find feminized seeds, autoflowering seeds, and mixed seed packages, with varieties like White Widow and Northern Lights being offered alongside their own hybrids, such as Zensation, Carnival, and Mamacita’s Cookies. Their mixed packages offer great value (six seeds per package in a mixed box) and let you try a variety of feminized seeds tailored to your tastes.
Ministry of Cannabis offers a germination guarantee and provides extensive information on its website regarding how to plant and grow your seeds for the best results.
Most popular strains:
Pricing and discounts:
Ministry of Cannabis’ seeds are priced very fairly, with packs of 10 going for between $50-$85 depending on the strain. The mix packs mentioned earlier cost between $42.50 and $54.81. If you’re wondering about the weird values, that’s because Ministry of Cannabis bills all orders in Euros, no matter where you’re located.
In addition to frequent giveaways, Ministry of Cannabis also ships out free seeds with every single order. You’ll receive one free seed for orders under €30, two free seeds for orders from €30 to €120, and five free seeds for all orders over €120.
Payment options:
Ministry of Cannabis bills only in euros, but accepts several forms of payment, including credit card, debit card, bank transfer, Moneygram, Bitcoin, and cash. Payment options are very well outlined on their payments page, and give you some good information as to the pros and cons of each method.
Shipping:
Ministry of Cannabis ships globally, and that obviously includes the US. Orders usually ship within 24 hours, though delivery times will vary depending on where you are in the world. If you require a tracking number, you can use a courier or registered mail. If you choose to ship without a tracking number, your order will be shipped via regular mail. All orders are stealth-shipped, meaning that packages are unmarked except for an initialed code marking the specific strain. Shipping is free for orders over €75 and the vast majority of packages arrive in the US within 15-20 days.
What we liked:
- Top-notch quality seeds
- Carefully bred and tested strains
- Germination guarantee
- Extensive guides on growing
- Great customer service
What we didn’t like:
- Small selection compared to other seed banks
- Orders billed in Euros only
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