This is just my personal bias showing, but please don't buy one of those big "package deals" that the MO places sell unless you have experience with all the species included, and would buy the same quantity of the same animals separately. Except for the small price advantage packages offer, you can get a much more diverse, useful, and survivable mix of inverts by shopping separately.
Despite their annoying run-on website, an IPSF "9 for $99" special is a good start if you select all the snails, hermits, worms, and Strombus that are offered, and especially if you add their pricey but otherwise great mini-stars. (If you search on my previous posts, you'll find a mini-review I wrote of my IPSF package.) For other additional useful snails like Nassarius, Cerith, and Margarita Nerites, and for reef-safe hermits like scarlets and black-and-whites (plus the all-important extra grow-out shells), you can't beat Premium Aquatics. PA has other appropriate inverts too.
Now for my rant: I may be alone in this, but I think "clean-up crews" and "janitor packages" are a bad idea, and one that the reef hobby needs to seriously rethink. They are a tool that MO places use to sell lots of inverts, but they don't do reefers, especially newbies, any favors (except maybe on price). My objections to packages are:
Too many critters recommended for too small tanks -- 3 or 4 snails and hermits per gallon may seem like a good idea when your tank is new and blooming diatoms and hair algae, but what is the "crew" going to eat 6 months down the line in a clean, mature tank?
Wrong species - MO places push Astrea snails without warning newbies that they can't right themselves without help. They include aggressive species of hermits without giving the new reefer any extra, larger grow-out shells, and then when the hermits kill the snails for shells, they sell the reefer more snails. They include sand-sifting starfish without warning the buyer that these can sterilize all the life in the DSB (especially a newly established one) of a small or medium tank in short order. They include small green serpent stars that grow into large, capable predators of everything including even fish. The list goes on and on.
Too little diversity - Trochus snails are great snails, and I wouldn't do without them, but they are BIG snails that can't get to a lot of places in the tank. (Same goes for Turbos.) They need to be combined with small grazers like Strombus for the nooks and crannies, Cerith snails for the sand line, Nassarius for scavenging, and etc. Hermit crabs too - different kinds eat different things in different parts of the tank, at different times of the day and night. Most places don't include worms or other detritavores, since the idea of janitor packages pre-dates DSBs. 50 Turbos and 50 hermits in a 55 gallon tank is not my idea of the right mix.
Wrong attitude - labeling critters as "cleanup crews" and "janitors" encourages new hobbyists to consider snails and hermits to be part of the tank hardware, almost like a filter or a skimmer, instead of as livestock that have particular needs and life cycles of their own.
It may be unreasonable to expect MO companies to tell the package buyer everything they need to know about reefing with each purchase, but I feel the MO places have a special responsibility with "janitor packages" and "cleanup crews," because the MO place is choosing the livestock mix, and because these packages are aimed at being he first purchase a newbie reefer makes for the new tank.
grimreefer - I hope this didn't come off as sounding obnoxious, as yours is a perfectly reasonable question, and I know you weren't expecting anyone to unload on it like this!
Sorry for the long rant....
