Buy a ready-made bat with an allround wooden blade and smooth rubber on a thin sponge. Table Tennis England, the sport's governing body in England, recommends exactly that for beginners: a ready-made bat, an allround blade, and smooth ("reverse") rubber with a 1.5mm sponge. It will be slow enough to control while you learn the strokes, and cheap enough that you have lost little if you upgrade within a year.

What a bat is made of

A table tennis bat, called a racket in the rules, has two parts. The blade is the wooden paddle and handle. The rubber is the covering glued to each side, and in almost all modern rubbers it is a sheet of rubber on top of a layer of sponge. Our guide to blades and our guide to rubbers go into more detail; for a first bat you need only the basics below.

Ready-made or custom?

A ready-made bat comes assembled, with the rubbers already glued on. A custom bat is one you put together yourself from a blade and two rubbers bought separately. Table Tennis England recommends a ready-made bat to get started, though it notes that some coaches prefer beginners to start with a custom one.

The catch with cheap ready-made bats is that the rubbers are not meant to be replaced. Rubber wears out and loses grip, and on a recreational bat that means replacing the whole thing. More expensive ready-made ranges and all custom bats let you change the rubbers. Our guide to custom and ready-made bats explains when to switch.

The blade: choose an allround one

Blades are graded by speed, from defensive through allround to offensive. An allround blade, usually made of five layers (plies) of wood, gives you good control while still letting you attack. Butterfly labels them ALL, for players who mix attacking and control shots, and ALL+ for slightly faster ones.

Many faster blades add layers of carbon fibre. Carbon adds speed and enlarges the sweet spot, the area of the blade that gives the best contact, but it also adds cost. Table Tennis England warns that faster blades lose the feel you need for touch shots such as a short push. Save carbon for later.

Stiga grades its ready-made bats with stars from one to five, and says the more stars a bat has, the better you need to be to handle it. Its one-star bats are aimed at beginners, and three-star bats at players learning technique.

The rubber and sponge

Choose smooth rubber, which Table Tennis England calls reverse rubber because the pimples face inwards towards the blade. It grips the ball best and lets you learn to play with spin. Rubbers with pimples facing out, and long pimples in particular, behave unpredictably; Table Tennis England says it does not recommend them for beginners.

Sponge comes in different thicknesses, usually given in millimetres. Thicker sponge is faster and gives more spin, which sounds good but makes the ball harder to keep on the table. Harder sponge is also faster than soft. A sponge of about 1.5mm, as Table Tennis England recommends, is slower and easier to control. Our guide to sponge thickness and hardness explains the numbers.

The handle

Most shakehand blades come with one of three handle shapes. A flared handle is wide at the base and narrower in the middle; Butterfly says it is the most popular. An anatomic handle swells in the middle to fill the palm, and a straight handle is the same width all the way down. None is better than the others; if you can, hold a few before you buy.

What the rules say

For a game in the park, any bat will do. In a league or tournament, your bat must meet the ITTF rules for 2026. At least 85% of the blade's thickness must be natural wood. The rubber must be matt, black on one side and a bright colour, clearly different from black and from the ball, on the other. It must be a brand and type authorised by the ITTF, fixed so that the ITTF logo is visible nearest the handle. If you plan to compete, check that the description says the rubber is ITTF-approved, as it does for the Stiga, Butterfly and Decathlon beginner bats mentioned here. Our guide to approved rubbers and the racket rules covers the detail.

What to spend

Bats start at a couple of pounds, but a little more buys a better rubber. A ready-made bat from one of the main brands, such as Butterfly's Timo Boll Bronze or Gold, typically costs about £20 to £30, which is enough for your first months of club play. Decathlon's Pongori range and Stiga's one-star bats are other starting points.

A first custom bat costs more. An allround blade such as the Donic Appelgren Allplay costs roughly £30 to £40 on its own, and you then need two rubbers. Make that step once you are playing every week and know what you like.

Your next steps

Once you have a bat, read how to start playing as an adult and find a club near you. When you are ready to upgrade, start with blades explained.