You can't feel a hold through a screen.

Most of the time you're buying holds you've never touched. Maybe you pulled on a set at the gym, or saw them on a friend's wall, and figured you knew what you were getting. Then they show up bigger, smaller, more positive, or a lot meaner than the photo let on.

That gap, between what a hold looks like and what it actually does under your fingers, is the whole problem. So we grade ours.

What the grade tells you

Every product page carries a chart showing how that hold set performs across wall angles. The grade isn't the hold sitting on a shelf. It's what you can realistically set as a crux on a given angle using that set.

We sort every hold into five bands:

✗ = may not be usable at this angle for most people, or just not very fun.

We also show the holds in use wherever we can. A hand wrapped around an edge tells you more than a clean product shot ever will.

Reading the chart

Here's an example set read across five wall angles. If an angle lands on Hard, that's the range you can expect to build a crux around there. The same hold drifts easier shallow and meaner the steeper you go.

Example: a medium-depth crimp set. Every product page gets its own version of this chart.

The catch

Grading holds is subjective, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. Two climbers can disagree on the same edge. What you're getting is our read, built from setting and pulling on these holds ourselves. It's the most honest version of the information we can hand you before you've felt them.

Want a second opinion? Measure what's already on your wall and compare. A hold you already trust is the best reference point you've got.