Balls are the purchase beginners get wrong: an indoor ball outdoors floats and dies, an outdoor ball in a gym skids and rockets. The difference, the four balls worth buying, and the small things, a bag, a grip, a net, that make playing easier.
Indoor and outdoor balls
Both are 2.87 to 2.97 inches across and weigh under an ounce, by rule. What differs is the plastic and the holes. The ball guide has the whole story.
40 small holes, hard plastic
Outdoor
Heavier and harder so wind doesn't move it. Fast, loud, and it cracks after a few weeks of play or one cold morning.
26 big holes, softer plastic
Indoor
Lighter and softer for gym floors, with less bounce. Lasts longer, quieter, slower. Also the kinder ball for beginners and kids.
What the court uses
Which to buy
Outdoor courts, outdoor ball. Rec-center sessions usually supply their own; ask. Keep a few of each in the bag.
Yellow, green, orange
Color
Pick the one you can see against the court and the walls. Neon green on green courts is the classic mistake.
Quick picks
The short answer for common situations. Each links to the full card below.
The ball most tournaments and most open-play sessions use: 40 machine-drilled holes, on USA Pickleball's approved list, sold in packs from 3 to 100.
Use
Outdoor
Holes
40
Colors
Optic yellow, plus lava, ember, purple, blue, green
Packs
3, 6, 12, 36, 100
USA Pickleball
Approved
Suits: Anyone playing outdoors. If you buy one kind of ball, buy this one.
Weigh: Like every hard outdoor ball it cracks in cold weather and after a few weeks of hard play. Franklin's own page is unreachable, so the hole count is from its listing.
The original outdoor ball, one-piece molded with 40 holes, harder and faster off the paddle than the X-40, and still the choice at some tournaments.
Use
Outdoor
Holes
40
Construction
One-piece, rotationally molded
Colors
Neon, yellow
Packs
12 (this listing); 3 and 24 elsewhere
USA Pickleball
Approved
Suits: Players who want the fastest ball, or whose local courts use it.
Weigh: Harder means it cracks sooner, and the seams on a one-piece ball wear differently. Sold mainly by third-party sellers; the maker's site is parked.
A full 22-foot net on a steel frame that sets up in a driveway or a tennis court in minutes, sold with or without wheels.
Width
22 ft
Height
36 in at the posts (listing)
Frame
Steel
Options
With or without wheels
Suits: Families with a flat driveway, or a group that wants to play on a tennis court with no pickleball lines.
Weigh: A portable net sags more than a permanent one and takes two people to carry. The listing says "regulation size"; Franklin's site is unreachable to confirm the 34-inch center height.
A beginner needs a paddle, a few balls and court shoes. Everything else arrives later, in roughly this order: an overgrip when the handle gets slick, a bag when the paddle keeps riding loose on the car seat, a pickup tube the first time someone drills you with a bucket of balls, and a net if the nearest court is a drive away. Eye protection is worth a thought too: a pickleball at the net is coming from ten feet away, and sports glasses with an impact rating are cheap.
