How we review pickleball gear.
Every gear site says it’s honest. Here is exactly what we do — who writes it, how we get the paddles, and what money never touches — so you can judge for yourself.
Every gear site says it’s honest. Here is what we actually do, so you can judge for yourself.
Who writes this
Pickleball Insiders is written by Jordan, a 4.7 DUPR player based in New York. One author, name on every review, rating stated so you know whose judgment you’re getting. A paddle that feels stable to a 4.7 in a hands battle may play differently at 3.0 — where that matters, we say so.
How we get paddles
Three ways, and every review states which one applies, at the top of the article:
- We buy them at retail, same as you.
- We borrow them through retailer demo programs — several retailers offer 30-day trials with full refunds. When we do this, we play the paddle for at least two weeks, photograph it, write the review, and send it back. Nothing is given to us, and we say exactly which program we used.
- Brands send them. When a company ships us a paddle free, the review says so in the first paragraph — “[Brand] sent us this paddle free of charge” — because you deserve to weigh that when reading our opinion. A free paddle never buys a favorable verdict, and we don’t accept units offered on the condition of a positive review.
When we haven’t played a paddle
We say that too. For paddles we haven’t held, we synthesize the independent testing labs — Pickleball Studio, Matt’s Pickleball, and Pickleball Effect — and we name whose numbers we’re citing. Those labs publish calibrated swing weight, twist weight, and spin measurements, and they sometimes disagree with each other by meaningful margins on the same paddle. Reconciling those disagreements, and translating what the numbers mean for a player at your level, is the work we do that the individual labs don’t.
What we never do is imply we tested something we didn’t. If a review doesn’t say “we played this,” we didn’t.
What the money never touches
We earn affiliate commission when you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you. That’s the business. What it doesn’t buy:
- Brands do not pay for reviews, rankings, or placement on any list.
- If the best paddle in a category is one we earn nothing on, it still wins the category.
- Commission rates never decide an ordering. Where two paddles are close and one pays us more, we say they’re close.
Corrections
Gear facts change — paddles get decertified, prices move, models get replaced. When we’re wrong or a page goes stale, we fix the page and date the fix. If you spot an error, email info@pickleballinsiders.com and we’ll correct it.
Last updated August 2026.