HEAD Pickleball Paddles: What the Range Actually Is Now

Updated October 12, 2026

If you came here from an older guide to HEAD’s pickleball paddles, most of what it told you is
gone. The entire Extreme performance family — Tour, Tour Max, Tour Lite, Pro — has
dropped out of HEAD’s range and survives only as clearance stock. The original Gravity family is
sold out or discounted across the board. What HEAD actually sells in 2026 is three families:
Radical, Gravity and Boom, in four price tiers.

The other thing worth knowing before you spend $200: no HEAD paddle is UPA-A
certified. Not one. HEAD’s 2026 paddles are legal for USA Pickleball rec and tournament
play and cannot be used in PPA Tour or Major League Pickleball divisions. That is a deliberate
commercial choice rather than a failure — UPA-A certification costs a brand $10,000 a year
plus $3,000 per paddle — but it decides the question for anyone with a pro-division calendar.

We have not played these paddles. One unusual caveat on sourcing: HEAD’s own
website blocks automated access, so every specification below comes from retailers and independent
testers rather than from HEAD. Where retailers disagree, both numbers are given. Our separate
review of the HEAD
Radical Elite covers the budget end in more detail, and found a lower price at other retailers
than the $59.95 JustPaddles quotes — which is itself a fair warning about HEAD pricing.

The 2026 range, by tier

Flagship — the “15” series, $199.95

Four paddles, all 15 mm, all thermoformed, all on what HEAD markets as a TRIFLEX core: a
three-layer construction mixing polypropylene honeycomb with EPP and EVA foam. Worth a caution
here — three retailers describe the layer order three different ways, one saying honeycomb
centre with a foam perimeter and another saying the exact opposite, so we are not going to state a
layer order. HEAD appears to sell TRIFLEX in Precision, Power and Versatility variants across the
three families.

• Radical Pro 15 — widebody, 16.0 × 7.75 in, 8.3 oz
  average, 5.0 in handle, micro-forged raw carbon face, 240 mm balance.
• Radical Pro EX15 — elongated, 16.5 × 7.5 in, 8.4 oz
  average, 5.5 in handle.
• Gravity Pro EX15 — 12K raw carbon, 16.5 × 7.5 in, 8.3 oz,
  5.5 in handle. $199.00 at Holabird, $199.95 elsewhere.
• Boom Pro EX15 — hexagon raw carbon, 16.5 × 7.4 in,
  8.1 oz, 5.5 in handle.

Mid — Radical Tour, $169.95

The Radical Tour 15 is the widebody at 16.0 × 7.75 in with a 5.0 in handle, and
the Radical Tour EX 15 is the elongated at 16.5 × 7.5 in with a 5.5 in handle and
an 8.6 oz average, which is heavy. Both use the micro-forged raw carbon face. Note that no
retailer publishes a core thickness for the Radical Tour 15; the name implies 15 mm and we are
not going to assert it.

Entry performance — Radical Team 15, $99.95

Same 15 mm TRIFLEX core and raw carbon face as the flagship, in a standard widened-face
shape at 8.3 oz with a 235 mm balance and a 5.0 in handle. This is the most
interesting paddle in HEAD’s range on paper, because it is the only place you can buy the current
core construction for under a hundred dollars.

Budget — the Xceed series, $89.95

Radical Xceed, Gravity Xceed and Boom Xceed, all fiberglass with a SpinOn lacquer finish rather
than raw carbon, listed at $89.95 from a $100 MSRP. The Boom Xceed is a 13 mm core. Treat the
9.3 oz weight listed for the Radical Xceed with suspicion — the near-identical Gravity
Xceed is listed at 8.1 oz, and 9.3 looks like a shipping weight.

What the benches measured

Only two independent benches publish numbers for current HEAD paddles, and they agree closely,
which is more than can be said for most of this category.

One to two points apart on swing weight is good agreement. The twist weight figures diverge
more, and PaddleReviewHub declines to put a number on the elongated at all. What the two do agree
on is the shape of the paddle: a 6.8–6.9 twist weight on the widebody is genuinely high for
forgiveness, and the elongated trades some of it for reach. If those terms are new, our guide to
swing weight and
twist weight is the short explanation.

PaddleReviewHub measured spin at roughly 2,200 RPM on both Radical Pro shapes, on its own
rig. A separate JustPaddles lab publishes spin figures for the whole Radical family on a completely
different scale, in the hundreds rather than the thousands, and one of its readings is obviously
broken. Those numbers are internally useful for ranking HEAD paddles against each other and cannot
be compared to anyone else’s, so we have left them out.

The naming problem is still the naming problem

Chris Olson of Pickleball Studio wrote a section headed “Please fix your marketing, Head” in
2023, criticising the brand for reusing model names year after year with no year markers. Three
years on, here is the current situation: the Radical Pro 15 and the Radical Pro
EX15 are two different paddles in two different shapes, and one bench calls them “widebody”
and “elongated” while another calls them “standard” and “elongated.” A shopper comparing reviews
will not reliably be able to tell which paddle each review is about.

The rule that works: EX means elongated. Radical Pro 15 is 16.0 × 7.75 in
with a 5.0 in handle; Radical Pro EX15 is 16.5 × 7.5 in with a 5.5 in handle. If a
listing does not give you both dimensions and the handle length, do not buy from it.

Certification: approved where it counts for most people

Retailers list the Radical Pro 15, Radical Pro EX15, Radical Tour EX 15, Radical Team 15,
Radical Tour 2026, Gravity Xceed 2026 and Boom Tour EX as USA Pickleball approved with PBCoR .43,
and JustPaddles’ own filter returns 24 USAP-approved HEAD paddles. We were not able to verify most
of those against USA Pickleball’s list directly — the list is a JavaScript-driven filter that
would not return a HEAD-filtered result for us — so treat them as retailer assertions rather
than confirmed listings, and check your exact model before a sanctioned event.

The one HEAD entry we did confirm directly on the USA Pickleball list is a paddle nobody is
selling yet: HEAD “Project RHEON,” status Pass, listed 03 September 2026. No
retailer carries it, no price exists, and no specification has been published. Something new is
coming; that is all anyone can honestly say about it.

On UPA-A the answer is clean and negative. PickleTip’s UPA-A list, last fully verified 13
September 2026, contains no HEAD paddles at all, and the official UPA-A certification page does not
mention the brand. Our page on
delisted and decertified
paddles explains what the two lists actually govern.

Where HEAD honestly sits in 2026

The strongest finding in a week of looking is an absence. Pickleheads’ twelve-paddle 2026
ranking contains no HEAD, and its “other brands worth knowing” passage names Paddletek, Engage,
Gearbox, Onix and Franklin without mentioning HEAD. Pickleball Effect’s database holds 494 paddles
from 57 brands and contains zero HEAD entries. Pickleball Paddle Lab’s 2026 ranking has none.
PaddleReviewHub’s pro gear tracker follows 38 professionals and not one of them plays HEAD.

Against that, the reviewers who did test the current paddles were reasonably positive. Austin
Hardy at Pickleball Playbook called the Radical Pro 15 “a polished, premium paddle that earns its
$199 price tag,” and argued the 15 mm core “fills a genuine gap” between 16 mm control
paddles and snappier 14 mm ones. DUPR’s own top-ten list includes the Radical Pro EX15. Drew
McCartt at Pickleball Union rated the EX15 4.0 out of 5 as “a comfortable, forgiving paddle for
avid rec players who prioritize all-court balance over raw explosiveness,” while saying plainly
that it “does not provide the explosive, effortless power or heavy spin” of premium alternatives.
PaddleReviewHub’s summary is the bluntest: “buy it for HEAD + spin, not category-leading foam pop.”

Put those together and the honest position is that HEAD in 2026 is a credible mainstream brand
with a genuinely modern flagship, no pro-tour presence, and almost no standing among the testers
who drive enthusiast buying. At 4.7 the thing I would actually weigh is that last point: when four
independent benches have never put a brand’s paddle on a rig, you are buying without the data you
would have on almost any competitor at the same price.

What to buy, and what to skip

Best of the range: Radical Pro 15, $199.95. It is the one paddle here two
benches have measured and both liked, the 6.83–6.9 twist weight is high, and the widebody
shape suits doubles. PaddleReviewHub calls it “our preferred Radical PRO shape for doubles.”

Best value: Radical Team 15, $99.95. Same core construction and raw carbon face
as the flagship at half the price, in a standard widened shape. Nobody has measured it, which is
the caveat. Our roundup of
paddles under $100
puts it in context against the rest of that bracket.

The bargain, with a condition: clearance stock. HEAD’s run-out pricing is
aggressive — the Boom Tour EX at $89.95 from $199.95, the Radical Nite at $99.95 from
$219.95, the Gravity Tour EX at $89.95 from $189.95, and the Radical Tour Graphite at $31.61 from
$149.95, which is 79% off. These are real paddles at real discounts. They are also a
generation behind and will not be restocked, so buy the grip size you want first time.

The Radical Elite is the clearest single example of a HEAD run-out, and it shows what to watch for. Read on 11 October 2026: Pickleball Nation lists it at $39.95 with no compare-at price and states plainly that “This item has been Discontinued”, recommending alternatives on the same page. Christy Sports has it at $59.95 against a $64.95 list, in stock, flagged “Low Inventory. Act Quickly!” and labelled “Season: 23/24”. The $69.95 list price we cited earlier in the year has disappeared from Pickleball Nation’s page altogether. A $20 spread between two retailers with one of them calling the paddle discontinued is a run-out, not a promotion — and HEAD has published nothing, which is why we are not saying HEAD has discontinued it. Pickleball Nation’s own specification block contradicts itself twice on that listing, giving a 13mm core in the spec table against 15mm in a feature callout, and a 4.125-inch grip against 4.25 inches. Our Radical Elite review works through what it is worth at each of those prices.

One warning about HEAD clearance pricing generally: it is not stable and retailers do not agree with themselves. JustPaddles currently shows the Boom Tour EX at three different prices on three of its own pages — $89.95 on the Boom series page, $119.95 on the product page, and $89.95 again on the sale page, described as 40% off on one and 55% off on another. Check the product page and the sale page before you buy, and do not assume the first price you see is the one available.

Skip: the Xceed series unless you specifically want fiberglass. At $89.95 for
a fiberglass face you are ten dollars away from a Radical Team 15 with a raw carbon face and the
current core.

Don’t buy a HEAD paddle if you play PPA or MLP divisions, where no HEAD paddle
is certified; or if independent bench data is part of how you choose, because for most of this
range it does not exist.

Check current HEAD listings on Amazon, or compare at
Pickleball
Central and Holabird,
whose catalogues do not match each other.

If you want more power than this range offers, our
power paddle rankings
cover where the measured numbers actually are, and our
control paddle
guide covers the other end. For how we source and evaluate gear, see
how we evaluate gear.

How we review gear — including how we get the paddles we test and what the money never touches — is documented in our review methodology.