Ask a room of padel players what level they are and you will get a lot of careful shrugs. The honest answer is that padel levels run on a simple ladder, from a first-timer learning the walls to a professional playing tournaments, and most social players sit somewhere in the middle without quite knowing where. There is no single global standard, but the common scale runs from beginner to professional, and the Playtomic app most clubs book on translates that into a number from 0 to 7. Here is how the ladder works, and how to place yourself on it honestly.
The short version: Padel levels go beginner, intermediate, advanced, professional. Booking apps such as Playtomic put a number on it, a scale that runs from 0 to 7, calculated from the matches you record rather than from how you feel on a good day. Most people who play weekly for a year land somewhere around the intermediate band. The quickest way to find your level is to record a few real matches and let the results, not the ego, do the sorting.
What are the padel levels?
Padel levels sort players into four broad bands: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and professional. A beginner is still learning the walls, the underarm serve, and where to stand. An intermediate rallies with control, volleys at the net, and reads a point before it happens. An advanced player attacks and defends by choice, not by accident. A professional competes internationally. Everything else is a finer cut of those four.
Clubs describe this in words, apps describe it in numbers, and the numbers are not standardised the way a golf handicap is. Some clubs use letters (A to D), some use a one-to-ten chart, and the big booking platforms use a rating that quietly echoes the tennis system it was borrowed from. The bands below are the plain-language version, the one that actually helps you pick a group class or a hitting partner.
| Band | Common number | What it looks like on court |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | ~1 to 2 | Learning the serve, the bounce off the glass, basic positioning. Rallies are short. |
| Lower intermediate | ~3 | Consistent forehands and backhands, starting to use the walls, still guessing on tactics. |
| Intermediate | ~4 to 5 | Reliable volleys, the lob, the wall exit, and the beginnings of a bandeja. Reads the point. |
| Advanced | ~5 to 6 | Switches between attack and defence deliberately. Chiquitas, viboras, court control. |
| Competition / pro | ~6 to 7 | Plays tournaments. Power, precision, and mental discipline under pressure. |
The gap that catches everyone is the one between lower intermediate and intermediate. It is the difference between hitting the ball back and choosing where it goes.
How does the Playtomic level work?
The Playtomic level is an automatic rating on a scale from 0 to 7, calculated from the competitive matches you record in the app. It moves like a chess rating: beat players above you and it climbs, lose to players below you and it slips. Friendly knock-arounds do not count. Only the matches you log as ranked feed the number.
Two things surprise new players. The first is that the rating is uncertain at the start. Your early number swings hard, sometimes by half a point after a single match, because the system has almost no data on you. It settles after roughly fifteen to twenty recorded matches, once the results have told it where you really sit. The second is that the number is decided by outcomes, not by how cleanly you hit. You can play a beautiful losing match and watch the rating dip. Padel is scored on points won, and so is your level.
This matters in Bali because most clubs on the island, Azoria included, take their bookings through Playtomic. When you join an open match or a level-graded session, the app is trying to put four players of similar rating in the same box, so the game is close and worth playing. A rating that reflects you honestly gives you better games. A rating you have inflated by only logging your wins gives you an hour of getting lobbed.
What is my padel level?
The fastest way to find your padel level is to stop guessing and record three or four real matches against players you do not know. The rating will find you. But if you want a read before you book anything, judge yourself on live points rather than on drills, and be strict about it.
You are a beginner if the serve is still a decision, the ball coming off the back glass still surprises you, and rallies rarely reach ten shots. You are somewhere in the intermediate band once your volleys are dependable, you can lift a defensive lob on purpose, you take the ball off the wall without panic, and you are starting to think one shot ahead of the one you are hitting. You are advanced when you choose to attack or defend based on where your opponents are standing, when the bandeja is a real weapon and not a hope, and when you can hold the net for a whole point.
Most players over-rate themselves by about a band, usually because they remember their best afternoon and forget the twenty ordinary ones. A useful correction: your level is the game you can play reliably on a Tuesday, not the shot you hit once on a Sunday.
How long does it take to move up a level?
For most people, six to eighteen months of regular play is enough to reach a solid intermediate level, and the range is that wide for a reason. Coaching compresses it. Playing twice a week compresses it further. A background in tennis, squash, or any racquet sport helps at the start and then quietly hurts, because the padel wall and the softer swing ask you to unlearn a few tennis habits before you can climb past them.
Beyond intermediate the ladder gets steeper. Moving from a comfortable middle rating into the advanced band is less about new shots and more about decisions: when to lob, when to hold, when to let a ball go into the glass instead of forcing it. That is the work coaching earns its keep on, and it is why the players who improve fastest are usually the ones being watched, not the ones grinding alone. If you want the honest, unglamorous route, our note on improving your padel in a week and the guide to the shots that separate the bands both help.
Playing at your level, at Azoria
At the Azoria Padel Club, the level ladder is not an abstraction, it is how the courts are run. Group sessions are banded by level, so a beginner is not stranded in a session built for people who already hold the net, and an intermediate is not stuck rallying gently. The Azoria Padel Academy exists to move players up a band at a time, and the coaches spend most of their afternoons on the decisions that matter more than the swing.
The social formats do the same work sideways. A well-run Americano mixes the boxes so a lower rating gets pulled up by an hour against better players, which is how most people actually improve. New to the game entirely, and not sure where to start, our guide to padel for beginners in Uluwatu and the primer on lessons and coaching are the two to read first. The five courts open for padel in Uluwatu from October 2026, and the waitlist is the way to be on court early.
Frequently asked questions
What are the levels in padel?
Padel players are grouped into beginner, intermediate, advanced, and professional. Clubs describe this in words or letters, while booking apps such as Playtomic put a number on it, on a scale that runs from 0 to 7.
What does the Playtomic level mean?
It is an automatic rating from 0 to 7, worked out from the competitive matches you record in the app. It rises when you beat stronger players and falls when you lose to weaker ones, and it settles after roughly fifteen to twenty recorded matches.
What is a good padel level for a social player?
Most people who play weekly for a year settle into the intermediate band, somewhere around a 3 to 5 on the Playtomic scale. That is a genuinely enjoyable level: rallies last, tactics appear, and the game rewards thought as much as effort.
How do I find my padel level?
Record three or four real matches against players you do not know and let the rating find you. Before that, judge yourself on live points, not drills, and assume you are about half a band lower than you feel.
How long does it take to get good at padel?
Six to eighteen months of regular play usually brings a solid intermediate level. Coaching and frequency speed it up. Previous racquet-sport experience helps early, then asks you to unlearn a few habits.
Levels are a useful fiction. They put four well-matched players in one glass box for an hour, which is the entire point of the game. Find yours honestly, play the people just above it, and the number takes care of itself.
Further reading
- Playtomic: padel levels explained. The platform most clubs book on, on how its own rating works.
- International Padel Federation (FIP). The sport's governing body, for the competitive end of the ladder.
- Padel, an overview. A neutral primer on the game, its rules, and its history.
