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Why does anyone buy a pickup truck? Full-size or midsize, a truck’s most important function is transporting goods. However, your pickup truck’s bed could be as long as you’d like, and you’d still be left wanting for organized space. The solution is simple: Just attach a tool box to your truck. Whether it’s a removable container or a fixed addition, a tool box or tool crate can add some volume and better-organized storage solutions to your vehicle without removing the existing space or compromising visibility and the safety of those in the driver’s cabin.

There is a staggering variety of low-profile tool boxes for pickup trucks: different sizes, prices, shapes, and manufacturers; the only thing they have in common, besides the low profile, is that they’re all made for pickup trucks. You only need to look to find what you need. However, this amount of choice can be paralyzing. Which brands are worth investing in, and which are not worth cheapening out on? What’s the difference between a crossbed and a “Lo-Side” truck tool box? Should you get a plastic box or an aluminum one? Let’s give those questions an answer, starting with one of the most common types of pickup truck tool boxes.

Husky Low-Profile Mid-Size Crossbed Truck Tool Box

A crossbed or crossover truck tool box is a storage solution designed exclusively for pickup trucks to make the best use of the truck bed’s width. They’re easy to recognize because they’re usually attached to the side rails near the seats. The low-profile version, like the Husky Low-Profile Mid-Size Crossbed Truck Tool Box, sacrifices height of the box to maximize rear window visibility. The Husky model is, in many respects, similar to most versions of this type of tool box: It opens by a lid on the top and leaves some free space below to let longer tools fit in the bed.

The Husky has one more ace up its sleeve. Many truck tool boxes have to be secured to the truck by drilling a big hole in the vehicle. Home Depot will even guide you through the process, but that doesn’t make it an inviting prospect. However, the Husky Low-Profile truck tool box comes with J-hooks, which grab onto the bed sides and keep the box in place, removing the need to drill any holes. That said, those hooks need something to hook onto. If your pickup truck doesn’t have a compatible shape of bed sides, you won’t be able to use them. This tool box is available in a few different sizes that will fit multiple vehicles, but all of them except the 61.86-inch are full-size, not low-profile, so we won’t consider them.

Crescent Dual Gullwing Crossover Truck Tool Box

The Crescent Dual Gullwing Crossover Truck Tool Box is similar to the Husky, since both are crossover boxes. The difference, and why we highlighted both, is that the Crescent has two lids that open to the outside in opposite directions, instead of one that opens toward the tail of the bed. This might make it more comfortable for certain jobs. Perhaps more importantly, it allows you to lock one door while keeping the other accessible. Just know that the container inside is just one for both doors, with the exception of two small containers on the sides.

One important aspect about this tool box to note is that, while it’s not referred to as “low profile,” it’s relatively small, with a height of just nine inches. User reviews seem split on this product, but most of them are positive. The most common criticism found in Home Depot’s product page reviews is that the aluminum tool box often comes with imperfections due to poor welding and the practical difficulties of returning such a large item. If you do get this product, know you might have to make some repairs or deal with a wonky tool box. Crescent is just about the cheapest brand of truck tool boxes carried by Home Depot, so issues like this aren’t too surprising. The $418.00 price of the Dual Gullwing box isn’t pocket change, sure, but this is the kind of truck tool box that it gets you.

Husky Full-Size Chest Truck Tool Box

The Husky Full-Size Chest Truck Tool Box is a big aluminum box with space for plenty of tools and comes with an organizer and a mounting kit. You’ll have to check for compatibility before buying, but one thing you can know for sure: While it’s not exactly low profile, it’s just 19 inches tall, meaning it probably fits in your truck. Unlike the storage solutions we looked at before, this is no crossbed tool box. Instead, the Chest Truck Tool Box attaches directly to the truck bed itself. This might make it a little less practical, since you can’t fit anything below it and securing it is a little more difficult, but it’s certainly easier to use as a regular tool box.

This box is installed by attaching it to the bottom of the truck bed using blind fasteners, meaning it probably requires drilling a few holes. Properly installing this truck tool box might not be the easiest experience, but the product comes with an instruction manual and some of the necessary equipment. If you have truck bed rails, you might be able to attach the box to those, as one user did. This allows the box to slide back and forth in the bed when needed, which makes it more convenient for certain use cases. Overall, opinions on the Husky truck chest are generally positive, and there are nowhere near as many users sharing problems with the construction quality as with cheaper brands.

Buyers Products Plastic All-Purpose Truck Tool Box Chest

The Buyers Products Plastic All-Purpose Truck Tool Box Chest is available in multiple sizes, two of which (13.5 and 17.25 inches tall) should fit in most pickup trucks. Of course, you should always check fitment, but this one’s likely a safe bet. This box has one advantage over most of the competition: It’s affordable. In an industry where $400 looks like cheapening out, $134.96 gets you a functional, sturdy box, according to some users. Plus, it’s a rare case of a tool box being manufactured in America.

What’s Buyers Products’ secret? The brand isn’t known for its affordable storage solutions, and it’s not hard to guess what made this one an exception. It’s all plastic. Now, we’re not going to argue that plastic is the best material for making a durable tool box. It can’t be recycled indefinitely, and it certainly isn’t as resistant as aluminum. However, plastic can be useful. It’s lightweight, rain barely affects it, and most importantly, it’s cheap. Buyers Products’ plastic boxes are available in two sizes: tall and wide, and short and large. The first is 17.25 inches high, relatively thin at 19 inches wide, and a whole 44 inches long. The second is overall a little smaller, with a height and length of 13.5 and 15 inches, while it’s quite a bit wider, at 32 inches. The overall smaller box is slightly cheaper, currently discounted to $104.09 on Amazon at the time of writing.

Weather Guard Full-Size Chest Truck Tool Box

Forget “low profile.” At 19.25 x 20 x 62 inches, the Weather Guard Full-Size Chest Truck Tool Box is just small, even if it’s quite long. However, that might be a good thing. For one, according to Weather Guard’s website, this tool box is designed to “maximize rear window visibility,” which sounds like a worthy goal. Most tool boxes on this list are no taller than this one, so whichever you choose, your rear window will be unobscured. Still, there are other reasons to go with the Weather Guard, such as the peace of mind that only a lifetime warranty can give you. Of course, for this quality and warranty, you’ll have to pay dearly; currently, the Weather Guard is sold for $932.00.

That’s not all this expensive box offers. Perhaps you’re in need of the situational but certainly useful zero clearance lid, meaning the arch that the lid draws when opening doesn’t go over the sides of the box. This lets you place the tool box as close to the walls of the pickup bed as you want without impacting usability. The Weather Guard gives the impression of a solid tool box made to last, reinforced by user reviews and helpful manufacturer videos for adjustments and repairs. It’s refreshing to see a toolmaker encourage its customers to modify and repair their products, especially as we seem to be leaving right-to-repair in the past and moving into closed proprietary systems.

Weather Guard Lo-Side Truck Tool Box

Another Weather Guard box. What do the two have in common, besides the price just shy of $1,000? For one, they both have great reviews, although the 56-Inch Lo-Side Truck Tool Box has fewer. The Weather Guard Lo-Side Truck Tool Box is designed to be positioned on the sides of the truck bed, but unlike some similar tool boxes, it remains quite low. It’s only 13 inches high, after all. Every box in the Lo-Side line comes loaded with Weather Guard 1KEY Ultralock, which the company calls “the next advancement in truck box security.” That’s quite a niche market to claim to have advanced into, but the claim is backed by a useful explanation video.

The Lo-Side Box is available in a variety of sizes: We have the 56-inch we’ve been talking about, the even lower profile 56-inch one, a tiny 41-inch low-profile version, and the massive 87-inch Lo-Side Box that can hold as much as 7 cubic feet of stuff. All of them are just 13 inches high, but you might want to double-check their length for compatibility with your pickup truck. Like other Weather Guard boxes, this product comes with a limited lifetime warranty. Though that’s a great company policy, it’s not the only tool box brand to offer a lifetime warranty.

Vevor Wheel Well ABS Truck Bed Storage Box

Calling the Vevor Wheel Well ABS Truck Bed Storage Box “low profile” might raise a few eyebrows, but there’s no denying its unique shape; it’s designed to help you save as much space as possible. It’s also not shaped like a box. Rather, this storage solution is meant to fit in that little space between the portion of the truck bed taken by the wheels and the tailgate, an area that would otherwise be empty. The Vevor Wheel Well Storage Box even rotates out towards the tail of the truck bed for easier access.

Of course, you can lock the tool box so it doesn’t rotate, which makes it safer for the box’s contents when the vehicle is moving. The product even has space for a padlock, to block the rotation from all of those who don’t know the combination. More importantly, the lid of the tool box can be locked with the key that comes with the unit. The box is designed for the Ford F-150, models 2015 to 2021, but it’s compatible with other vehicles as well, and installing it is relatively straightforward, since only the hinges need to be attached to the truck bed. While most reviews are positive, some users note that the Vevor Wheel Well box isn’t built to premium standards. That said, at $99.85, it’s on the more affordable side of wheel well tool boxes.

FGJQEFG 34.5-Inch Aluminum Truck Bed Tool Box

With a height of just 6.5 inches, the FGJQEFG Truck Bed Tool Box is about as low profile as you can go. It’s so low profile that its own page on Amazon calls it the “flat/wide” model. What’s with the brand name, though? Can you trust a random array of letters with your tools? Well, at least 413 users did, and most of them gave it a positive score. Still, this isn’t the kind of brand you want to trust blindly. Plenty of reviews talk about the box arriving dented or damaged in some other way and being asked for a $25 return fee.

And what do the positive reviews say? Some acknowledge that this is a good storage solution for the price, but that it’s not exactly heavy-duty. Many of the users who enjoy this product also report that it was dented. It seems like this tool box might only make sense if you’re willing to work with its limitations and don’t plan to rely on it too heavily. If you’re fine with those limitations, this product can save you hundreds of dollars. If you aren’t, you’ll only buy time before you have to spend those hundreds of dollars. It goes without saying, but acquiring a $121.99 tool box isn’t the best way to buy time.

Confote 34-Inch Aluminum Stripes Plated Tool Box

Another tiny 6.4-inch-tall box, the 34-Inch Confote Pickup Truck Tool Box is the smallest truck tool box made by this brand, and yet it promises to be a “heavy duty construction” that is “built for a lifetime.” Is it? Maybe. While it’s probably the same aluminum with steel latches everyone else uses, users seem to be quite happy with it. That said, some highlight issues that might make it less than ideal for some uses. As usual, many of those issues, like the non-functional lock on some units, seem to be the fault of inconsistent quality between units. It’s hard to recommend a model that is clearly designed to have a lock but might arrive without one.

At the same time, it’s hard to be too surprised at those inconsistencies. As they say, you get what you pay for, and at $119.99 for an aluminum truck tool box, you’re certainly not paying premium prices. If you’re comfortable saving money on a potentially faulty tool box, Confote is one of the cheapest options on the market. Just be aware of what you’re getting into. There’s a reason why tool boxes aren’t on our list of tools that it’s fine to buy cheap. Confote makes two other models of pickup truck tool boxes, both bigger than the 6.4-inch one. One is 14.3 inches tall, 35 inches long, and 19.3 inches wide. The other is just as tall, but shorter in both length and depth.

TBAPFS 30-Inch Aluminum Tool Box

We’ve seen a lot of truck tool boxes like this one on this list. What’s special about the TBAPFS? Aside from its name, the only noticeable aspect of this metal box is the price. At just $49.99, this tool box is less than 10% as expensive as some of the other products by well-known brands. Hell, it’s half as expensive as the least-known brands on this list. That begs the question: Can you trust the 30-Inch Aluminum Tool Box? It’s hard to say. We have not tried this product first-hand, and we certainly won’t recommend it blindly. However, its users don’t share our skepticism.

Reviews for the TBAPFS are overall very positive, with a score of 4.6 out of 5 stars. Can you trust Amazon reviews? Maybe. The e-commerce giant says it has taken actions against the fake reviews that were present on the store, in part by using AI to protect against fake reviews. That said, even if those reviews are all genuine, they might not apply to your use case or, as is the case here, not be specific enough to be very useful. It certainly helps to read the product page, which promises to deliver a “corrosion-resistant and weather-resistant” box designed to prevent leakage and that comes with a stainless steel security lock. Plus, while the brand’s name doesn’t inspire confidence, TBAPFS is focused on car accessories.