Indian paddles start at 809 rupees. Only two of eight brands hold USA approval

India went from about 200 courts in early 2024 to 1,200 in the first half of 2025 (figures compiled by IBEF, under India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry). More courts means more equipment. Indian brands have lined up fast over the past year or two.

Seen from Japan, the price is the first thing you notice. A wooden paddle costs 809 rupees, and even carbon-faced models come in under 4,000. Meanwhile, only two of the eight brands we looked at appear on the USA Pickleball approved paddle list.

This article lines up the base, products and prices we confirmed on each brand's official site, alongside the cross-check against the approved list. Brand-by-brand detail is inIndia's Pickleball Equipment Brands.

In This Article

• The base, price band and approval status of India's eight main brands, in one table
• How paddle prices are spaced from 809 rupees up to 14,999 rupees
• The cross-check showing only two Indian brands hold USA Pickleball approval, and how we checked
• Why three brands each call themselves “India's first”
• Can you buy from Japan, and can you use them in Japanese tournaments?

India's eight equipment brands at a glance

First, the whole picture in one table. Prices are those displayed on each brand's official site on 18 September 2026, sale prices included.

1. Prices run from 809 to 14,999 rupees

The cheapest isVector Xwooden paddle at 809 rupees. The most expensive isStrokessthe top-of-the-line RAGE SERIES at 14,999 rupees. Even within “paddles” that is a spread of more than 18 times.

Lining up how the prices in between are spaced shows where the market sits.

• 809 rupees: Vector X wooden paddle
• 999 rupees: Airavat BLAST
• 1,350 rupees: the cheapest Gliderz model
• 1,796 rupees: Cosco Tango
• 1,890 rupees: Hundred N Force 40
• 1,952 rupees: Nivia K-500
• 1,990 rupees: Hundred Spirit X (USA Pickleball approved)
• 2,339 rupees: Vector X Beast 13mm
• 3,495 rupees: Strokess Carbon X 16mm
• 3,671 rupees: Cosco Carbon Arc
• 6,799 rupees: Nivia K-3000 PRO (USA Pickleball approved)
• 7,490 rupees: Hundred Raptor 80 Extend
• 9,301 rupees: Cosco Carbon Charge
• 10,999 rupees: Airavat IONIX
• 12,999 rupees: Airavat ASTRA and VALOUR (both out of stock)
• 14,999 rupees: Strokess RAGE SERIES

Products cluster below 2,000 rupees

Lined up, six brands have products in the band below 2,000 rupees. This is the band people buy in when they do not own gear yet. In a market where courts keep opening, whether you have a product here decides how much shelf space you get. Airavat spacing 22 paddles from 999 to 12,999 rupees is a way of going after that band.

The specialists own the top band

What is left above 6,000 rupees is Strokess, Airavat's top seven models, Cosco's higher carbon models, Hundred's top end and Nivia's two approved models. The vocabulary changes from this band up too. Strokess lines up T700 carbon, 18K Kevlar, titanium mesh and thermoformed edges, and splits its core into a 16mm control version and a 13mm power version. It is almost the same language the American specialists use, and the way the specs are written is moving towards the international standard.

2. Three different origins

Lined up side by side the eight look like the same “Indian paddle brands”, but where they came from changes what they are.

Two that started in pickleball alone

Strokessis a brand in Vadodara, Gujarat, run by Strokess Sporting Solutions. It also runs a court in Vadodara called “3rd Shot by Strokess”, which its official site describes as “Vadodara’s first DUPR-affiliated club”. Owning both the place it sells and the place people play is what separates it from brands that only sell online.

Gliderzis Gliderz Sports Equipments Private Limited in Pune, Maharashtra. It states that “100% of its paddles on Indian soil” and puts its startup recognition from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and its “Make in India” registration front and centre. It sells less through consumer e-commerce than through custom and batch production for clubs and companies, taken over WhatsApp.

Five that came in from other sports

This is the larger group.Hundredis a brand built on badminton, and its official site carries a racket series named after Srikanth Kidambi. It is run by Sunlight Sports Studio LLP in Telangana.Niviais the Jalandhar maker known for footballs and shoes.Vector Xis in the same Jalandhar, run by Soccer International Pvt Ltd, a company that carries FIFA certification on its footballs.Coscois in Gurugram, Haryana, andAiravatis a general sporting goods brand founded in 1985. That two of the eight come out of Jalandhar ties into the manufacturing-belt story further down.

Adding one shelf to a shop they already had means they move fast, and they are strong at the low end. Cosco's products have pages not only on Amazon.in but on quick-commerce apps like Blinkit and Zepto. That is distribution a pickleball specialist cannot build on its own.

The Meerut exporter that has lived off shipping abroad

Vinex(VINEX Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.) is a company in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, whose official site calls it “India’s largest Manufacturer and Supplier of diverse range of sporting goods since 1957”. It also publishes that the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council of India (SGEPC) named it number one for athletics equipment exports from India from 2004-05 onwards.

In pickleball it carries 9mm plywood paddles, balls, nets and net stands, but its customers are schools, local authorities and overseas buyers. It sells to an entirely different audience from the specialists competing on high-end carbon.

3. Only two of the eight hold USA Pickleball approval

Whether a paddle can be used in international or sanctioned tournaments comes down to the USA Pickleball approved list. Registration is per model, not per brand, and only those marked “Pass” appear.

Cross-checked against 5,336 models and 1,382 manufacturers

The Pickle Times editorial team pulled every page of the approved paddle list and, after removing duplicates, compared 5,336 models and 1,382 manufacturer names against the line-ups of the Indian brands (retrieved 18 September 2026). Two brands matched all the way down to the model name.

We could not confirm registrations for Strokess, Gliderz, Airavat, Cosco or Vinex. The list does carry two models, AQUA and SHADOW, under the name “VECTOR X”, but no product of that name appears in the current line-up of India's Vector X, so we cannot establish they are the same maker. We have not counted them here.

Don't judge by the series name alone

For Hundred, the shop line-up and the approved list do not overlap completely. The cheapest N Force 40 (1,890 rupees) is not on the list, and the approved Spirit X is the 13mm version. Variants in the shop such as “Spirit X Pop”, “Spirit X Blast” and “Spirit X Flow” do not appear. The cheapest name that matches is the Spirit X at 1,990 rupees, and when buying it is safest to check the Wide/Extend version and the thickness as well as the series name.

Hundred's own site, incidentally, carries no mark of that approval. You only notice it if you pull the list yourself.

How to read a paddle with no approval

Having no approval does not in itself mean lower quality. Applying costs money and effort, so it is natural for a brand selling only at home to skip it. What Gliderz claims is not USA Pickleball but approval from AIPA (All India Pickleball Association), a domestic body.

In India, though, the body the government (the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports) recognised as the national federation is IPA (Indian Pickleball Association), and its dispute with AIPA continues (as of April 2026). Because “whose approval” changes what it means, if you plan to play tournaments it is safer to read the organiser's rules first. The relationship between the bodies is set out inPickleball in India.

4. Three brands each call themselves “India's first”

One thing that stood out while researching: three brands each claim to be “India's first”, each in slightly different words.

• Strokess：「India’s first “Proudly Made in India” manufacturer of high-tech, durable, top-quality pickleball paddles」
• Gliderz：「India’s first AIPA-approved pickleball manufacturer」
• Airavat: “FIRST PICKLEBALL BRAND IN INDIA” (and its 4,999-rupee SYLNT is literally named “INDIA’S FIRST NOISELESS PICKLEBALL PADDLE”)

The wording differs slightly each time, so strictly speaking all three can be true at once. But there is no third-party verification, and which was genuinely first cannot be established. It is closer to the truth to see a market that has only just started, where nobody yet owns an “industry history”. As a basis for choosing a brand, the base, the price and whether it holds approval are easier things to verify than this kind of tagline.

5. Can you buy from Japan, and can you use them in Japanese tournaments?

No brand has an official distributor in Japan, as far as we could confirm.

Strokess's official store (Shopify) does include Japan among its shipping destinations (prices stay in rupees). Its shipping policy says “we dispatch hundreds of products to satisfied customers across the world”, with one to four days to dispatch and typically 10 to 15 days in transit. We found no shipping setup for Japan on the other brands' stores.

If you are thinking about tournaments, the approved list is what decides it. As above, only Hundred and Nivia are on it among the Indian brands, so in practice those two are the candidates. Hundred adds your name free of charge (Paddle Remix), and approved models starting at 1,990 rupees is cheap by any standard.

On Strokess: checking the product data on its official store, the only item in stock on 18 September 2026 was the top-of-the-line RAGE SERIES (14,999 rupees); the other seven were all marked out of stock. It is worth asking about stock and shipping before you order.

6. More courts brought more brands

There are clear numbers behind the run of new equipment brands in India. IBEF puts courts at about 200 in early 2024 and 1,200 by the first half of 2025. Players were 60,000 in 2024 and are projected to reach one million by 2028. Building one court costs 300,000 to 500,000 rupees, far less than a badminton court at up to 1.5 million.

The other is that the manufacturing base was already there. Meerut and Jalandhar have made and exported sporting goods since before independence. Plywood and carbon work, net stitching and the practicalities of exporting are all local. You can run paddles down an existing line instead of building a factory from scratch. That is why an exporter like Vinex naturally has a pickleball shelf.

Equipment is tied to where the capital is moving. On Shark Tank India season 4, Goodland Pickleball, which builds courts and makes equipment (co-founded by Hemant Chavan and Yogesh Chavan), raised 8 million rupees (80 lakh) from investor Aman Gupta for 6% equity plus a 0.5% royalty (Business Today, 30 January 2025). GoRally in Bengaluru has raised 64.6 million rupees (6.46 crore).

Four things to check when you look at an Indian paddle

• Whether it's certified: if you plan to play tournaments, is the model name on the USA Pickleball approved list? Among the Indian brands, only Hundred and Nivia
• Where the approval comes from: AIPA or IPA? Recognition of the governing bodies is under dispute in India, which changes what it means
• Base and production: does it make its paddles at home, or only import and resell? Some, like Gliderz, state outright that everything is made in India
• Price band: under 2,000 rupees is the entry band, over 6,000 rupees the top band. Even within one brand, the material and core thickness make it a different paddle

Full product lines and prices for each brand are inIndia's Pickleball Equipment Brands, and the state of venues, governing bodies and leagues is inPickleball in India.

FAQ

Here are the questions we are asked most often about this article.

Related Articles Worth Reading

• India's Pickleball Equipment Brands (all eight)
• Pickleball in India | venues, governing bodies and leagues
• Venues where you can play pickleball in India
• Pickleball Brand Directory

Reference Links

• USA Pickleball approved paddle list
• IBEF｜Pickleball in India
• Hundred India (official)
• Nivia (official)
• Strokess (official)

* Prices, line-ups and approval status are what we confirmed on each brand's official site and on the USA Pickleball approved list as of 18 September 2026. Check the official sites for the latest.