Pickleball Balls

The ball is the cheapest thing in your bag and the one that changes the game most. Play with a dead ball and every dink floats, every drive sits up, and you spend the session correcting for your equipment instead of learning shots. Play with the ball your club actually uses and everything you practise on a Tuesday transfers straight to Saturday morning. This page covers the two families of pickleball, how to pick between them, and how to tell when a ball is finished.

Indoor or outdoor: the decision that actually matters

Every pickleball is a hollow plastic sphere with drilled holes. The two families behave nothing alike.

Outdoor balls carry 40 small holes in a harder, denser shell. The extra mass and the tighter holes let them hold a line through wind, which is most of what you need on an Australian outdoor court. They come off the face faster, bounce higher on acrylic, and punish a lazy reset. The Franklin X-40 is what most Australian clubs default to, and the one to practise with if you compete. The JOOLA Heleus, JOOLA Primo and Selkirk Pro S1 sit in the same category.

Indoor balls carry 26 larger holes in a softer, lighter shell. On timber or sports vinyl that softness is the point: the ball sits down, rallies run longer, and the noise drops to something a shared hall will tolerate. The Franklin X-26 is the usual pick. Take an indoor ball outside and any real breeze will move it, so it is not a substitute.

Quiet foam sits outside both families. The Pickleball Labs Silent Pickleball is a foam ball for apartments, garages, aged-care rooms and any court with a noise limit attached to it. It flies slower and lands softer than either plastic ball, which also makes it a useful indoor drilling ball for touch work at the kitchen line.

If you want the long version, we wrote it up in indoor vs outdoor pickleballs, and the Franklin ball buying guide compares the X-40 and X-26 model by model.

Picking one in about thirty seconds

• Ask what your club plays with and buy that. Consistency beats optimisation.
• Outdoor court with any wind in it: a 40-hole outdoor ball.
• Timber or vinyl indoor court: a 26-hole indoor ball.
• Noise is the constraint (unit, garage, shared hall, early morning): quiet foam. There is more on that in the Silent Pickleball write-up.
• Drilling solo or feeding a ball machine: buy bulk, in whatever ball you compete with.

Size, colour and what is actually regulated

A tournament-legal pickleball runs roughly 74mm across and sits in a narrow weight band of about 22 to 27 grams, with a specified bounce off a hard surface. Within that band, manufacturers differ on shell hardness, hole pattern and seam construction, which is why two approved balls can feel completely different in the hand. Colour is not fixed, but it has to be uniform and consistent through a match. Optic yellow reads best against a green outdoor court; lime green shows up better on pale timber indoors.

How to tell when a ball is finished

Balls die long before they split. Four tells, roughly in the order you will notice them:

• The bounce dies. Drop it from waist height next to a new ball. If it comes back noticeably lower, it is done.
• It goes out of round. A ball that wobbles in flight has taken a set from repeated hard contact.
• It goes soft. Squeeze it. Give means the shell has fatigued, and a soft ball makes every third-shot drop float.
• The surface scuffs smooth. Less texture means less for a raw carbon face to bite, so your spin quietly disappears and you blame the paddle.

Cold makes outdoor balls brittle, so winter morning sessions crack more of them. Heat does the opposite: a tube left in a car boot through a Sydney summer goes soft. Hard club sessions can retire a ball in a session or two. Social play stretches the same ball over weeks.

Pack sizes, and what we stock

Three and six packs are for trying a ball or keeping a spare in the bag. Twelve packs are the sensible default for anyone playing weekly. Hundred-packs are for clubs, coaches, schools and ball machines, where the per-ball cost and not running out are the entire point.

We stock Franklin X-40 outdoor and X-26 indoor across three, six, ten, twelve and hundred packs, JOOLA and Selkirk outdoor balls, and the quiet foam ball. Everything ships from Sydney, with free Australian delivery over $150 and local pickup available from Mount Colah.

Clubs, schools and councils ordering in volume: we invoice on purchase order, and you deal with Ben and Chris directly rather than a form. Email support@pickld.com.au with the mix and the rough player numbers.

Common questions

How long does a pickleball last?

Anywhere from one session to a couple of months, depending on how hard the group hits and how cold it is. Competitive outdoor play with big drives will crack or soften a ball inside a session or two. Social doubles on a warm day can run the same ball for weeks. Judge it on bounce and roundness, not on whether it has split.

Can I use indoor balls outdoors?

You can, but you will not enjoy it. A 26-hole indoor ball is lighter and softer, so even a light breeze pushes it off line and drives lose their pace. If your court is outdoors, use a 40-hole outdoor ball.

What ball do Australian clubs use?

Most outdoor clubs and social sessions we deal with run the Franklin X-40, and it is the ball to practise with if you are heading toward tournament play. Indoor venues on timber usually run the X-26 or a similar 26-hole ball. Worth asking your own club before you buy a hundred-pack, because there are exceptions.

Why do pickleballs crack?

Cold plastic is brittle plastic. Outdoor balls crack most in winter, on hard flat drives, and after the shell has already fatigued from a few sessions. Storing balls somewhere temperate rather than a car boot helps more than most people expect.

How many balls do I need for a ball machine?

Enough to fill the hopper and keep feeding without stopping, which in practice means a hundred-pack. Machines are hard on balls because every feed is a full-pace contact, so use the cheapest ball you are happy training with rather than your match balls. There is more in the ball machine buyer's guide.

Are pickleballs the same as wiffle balls?

No, though they look similar. A pickleball is moulded to a controlled diameter, weight, hardness and bounce so that play is consistent, and the approved ones are tested against those tolerances. A wiffle ball is not built to any of that.

Next: pick the paddle you are hitting them with, sort out a net if you are building a court at home, or see the rest of the pickleball equipment range. New to the game? Start with the rules and scoring guide.