How we work

The short version: we compare padel racket prices from UK shops, we earn a commission when you buy through our links, and we try to be useful enough that you come back anyway.

Where the prices come from

Retailers publish product feeds for sites like this one, and some run public product listings. We read those once a day, match each listing to the racket it actually is (by barcode where the retailer gives one, otherwise by name), and record the price. Every price table says when prices were last checked. If we have not managed to recheck a shop’s price for a day or two, the price stays up with its age next to it, because the shop almost certainly still sells the racket; after a week without a check we take it down. Price alerts are stricter: we only email you about a drop we have seen in the last 36 hours.

We show the total with delivery, not just the sticker price, because a racket shipped from Spain with a £12 delivery charge is not cheaper than one £8 dearer from a UK warehouse. Delivery is the retailer’s standard UK rate where we know it. Check it at checkout; retailers change these and we can be behind.

We do not track every shop in the country. The list of retailers we compare is on each racket page. If a shop you use is not there, tell us.

Where the specs come from

From the brands first, cross-checked against retailers. Brands and retailers disagree with each other more often than you would think, particularly about balance and player level, and when they do we go with the brand and say so in the notes. Weights are the manufacturer’s range; the racket in your hand will vary by a few grams.

“Who it suits” and “is this a good price”

Near the top of each racket page are two short answers. “Who it suits” is read from the specs: the brand’s stated level, the shape, the balance and the core. It is a translation of the spec sheet into plain English, not the result of us playing with the racket, and it says so on the page.

“Is this a good price” compares today’s cheapest delivered total with the prices we have recorded for that racket, and says over what period. It does not appear until we have at least two weeks of prices, because calling something the lowest price after four days of tracking would be true and meaningless. Sometimes the honest answer is that it was cheaper a fortnight ago, and then we say so. The price drops page works the same way: drops against our own recorded prices come first, and drops against an RRP come after them, labelled as such, because an RRP is not always a price anybody paid.

The review summaries

We have not hit a ball with most of these rackets. Where a racket page shows “What reviewers say”, it is a summary, generated with AI and then read by a person, of reviews published elsewhere: named YouTube reviewers, forum threads, and customer reviews on retailer sites that allow it. Each summary says how many reviews it drew on and lists the sources. It is a way of reading forty reviews in a minute, not a substitute for a first-hand test, and we label it as such.

Owner reviews on this site are from people who have bought the racket. We ask for proof of purchase and we do not accept reviews from retailers, brands or their agencies. We do not pay for reviews and we do not remove negative ones.

How we make money

When you click through to a shop and buy something, the shop may pay us a commission. It does not change the price you pay, and it does not change which shop we show as cheapest: the table is sorted by total price, full stop. Some shops we list pay us nothing at all; they are there because they sell the racket.

Where it does play a part is in what we choose to feature. The rackets we choose to put in front of you without being asked, such as the four on the home page, the example comparison, the picks in a guide and the suggestions on a brand page, are picked on merit first: a shape, a level and a price that suit the slot. Where more than one racket fits equally well, we will show one sold by a shop that pays us, and our listings lead with rackets we have a paid route to. We would rather tell you that than pretend the choice is made in a vacuum. It never applies to a price table, a search result or a filtered list, which are ordered by delivered price and nothing else.

Who is behind it

Padeal is run by Steven Mather, a solicitor in Leicestershire who plays racket sports badly and buys kit too often. It is a small independent site, not owned by a retailer or a brand. Questions, corrections and grumbles to hello@padeal.co.uk.