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Choosing your first pair of climbing shoes can be confusing, especially when they feel nothing like sneakers or hiking boots. In this guide, we’ll break down everything from how to choose a climbing shoe, identify your size and fit, and selecting a size, so you can confidently pick the right pair to begin your climbing journey.

Climbing Shoe Types

We group our climbing shoes into three categories: All-round, Performance and Aggressive Performance. Plus sections for Kids Climbing Shoes and Vegan Climbing Shoes.

When starting out, we highly recommend All Round climbing shoes for their level of support, comfort, versatility and price.

All round climbing shoe with flat, neutral

All Round

Supportive, versatile and durable climbing shoes designed for all-day comfort. Perfect when learning good footwork or the go-to for comfortable, all day climbing in the gym and outdoors.

Profile: Flat, neutral
Rubber: Medium to hard (4-5mm)
Price: $130 - $230
Best for: beginners to intermediate

Performance climbing shoe with mild down turn

Performance

Great for bouldering, sport climbing, and technical routes when your all-rounders start to feel limiting. Trades comfort and durability for performance. A good middle ground between versatile and technical.

Profile: Flat to Mild Downturn
Rubber: Soft to medium (3-4mm)
Price: $219 - $350
Best suited: intermediate climbers seeking more precision

Aggressive Performance climbing shoe with noticeable downturn

Aggressive Performance

Great for highly technical or steep bouldering and sport climbing. Each shoe is usually catered for a very specific style of climbing and is not for climbing a variety of different routes.

Profile: Asymmetric, Mild to Very Downturned
Rubber: Soft to medium (2-4mm)
Price: $210 - $330
Best for: Experience climbers who are seeking a shoe for a specific climbing style.

all rounder climbing shoes selection

Why All-Round Shoes Are Best For Beginners?

Whether you've been climbing for a couple weeks or a year, starting with an All-Round climbing shoe is the smarter choice. While you could jump straight into a performance shoe, here's why we recommend beginning with an All Rounder:

1. Comfort Before Performance

Jumping into downturned shoes too early = pain. All-round shoes lets you build the foot strength and pain tolerance gradually without leading to toe injuries.

When beginning your climbing journey, the most important lessons to learn is how you position your feet and body. Sure, owning better shoes can help but you'll regret it if you are climbing in pain and don't learn good footwork now.

2. Price Does Not Equal Durability

Unlike other sports, price does not indicate durabilty. How durable a shoe is based on rubber type, how often you climb, your footwork, and how you treat your shoes.

Soft rubber shoes wear out quicker and need to replaced more frequently. Harder rubber is more forgiving and lasts longer. Most All Round shoes feature medium to hard rubber that is ideal while you're learning footwork or climbing alot.

3. Future-Proofing Without Guessing

As you gain experience, you'll learn what you like and don't like about your current shoes. This helps inform you what type of shoe you'll need to support the way you like to climb, the objectives you want to achieve, the type of rubber you need, and how much you need to downsize next time.

Moving towards downturned shoes is gradual process. Everyone is different. You may grow out of a type of shoe with a few months or a couple years. Be patient. Let your toes strengthen and adapt to being curled tightly, while also listening to your own body's tolerance for discomfort.

Friend recommendations are a great starting point, but remember: what works for one them might not work for you. Foot shape, size, sensitivity, support needs, and even the type of climbing can all impact how a shoe feels and performs.

Fit: How Climbing Shoes Should Feel

Getting the fit right is the most important part about choosing your first climbing shoe. A correctly fitted climbing shoe should feel:

Tight but not painful
Toes curled (not flat or scrunched painfully)
No large dead space or air pockets around the heel or arch
No painful points on a particular area
Minimal heel lift or wiggle

Note: climbing shoes also vary between models and brands. There are slight changes in the shape that can make all the difference when it comes to comfort. It's easiest to try on various pairs to compare what might feel the best for your foot shape.

Tightness on toes in an all round fit versus a performance fit

How tight should climbing shoes be?

Tightness is person and often reflects where you're at in your climbing journey. The sweet spot is tight but not painful, often described as uncomfortable, snug and toes curled. Exactly how tight depends on what fit you're going for:

All Round Fit: The shoe should feel snug all over, with no sharp pressure points or pain while climbing. Your shoes should be slightly curled and touch the front, but not painfulyl crunched. Find a fit that leaves no air pockets under the arch or heel. Some air under the heel is normal as long the heel doesn't slip off.
Performance Fit: A more aggressive, tighter fit is needed to stay snug after the shoe stretch. Toes are curled more tightly, which can feel borderline painful at first. How tight you go often comes down to personal pain tolerance, perference, and climbing style.

Why curled toes?

Curled toes help support our body weight onto tiny holds. If your toes are flat or pulling away from the front when the toe muscles engage, you'll lose precision, power and may feel like you're slipping off holds. Your climbing shoe may feel tight at first, but as it stretches, your toes will relax into the shoe and be less curled.

Rounded vs Pointed toe climbing shoes

Shape: Finding The Right Shoe For Your Foot

Foot shape affects fit just as much as size. It affects with how comfortable you feel in the shoe when fitting a shoe tightly. When we help people in store, we focus on finding a shoe that suits their foot shape and width. A mismatched shoe shape can lead to unwanted pressure points or simply not being able to tightly fit as needed due to pain.

Toe Box

The toe box is the shape of the front of the shoe, where your toes will be curled tightly. Most All-Round climbing shoes have a slightly asymmetric shape, where the curvature of the toe box skews towards the big toe. This skew depends on the toe box design, but we describe it in this guide as Rounded (the shoe gradually curve) and Pointed (the shoe curves more to a point).

foot shapes

Foot Shape

Your foot shape affects what sort of toe box would be better suited to ensure all your toes evenly curled and the tightness spread, where no individual toe is in pain from a pressure point. We explain four common foot shapes and their suited toe box shapes:

Slanted is when the big toe is longer than the smaller toes. Your big toe will experience the most curl while your smaller toes might not curl as much. Most climbing shoes are designed for this shape foot. If your big toe is significantly longer, choosing a climbing shoe with a more pointed toe box will offer greater comfort.
Triangle is when the second toe is longer than the big toe. Your second toe will curl the most and the big toe may not curl at all, but it needs to touch the front. Go for softer, stretchier fabric uppers with a rounded toe box shape.
Rhombus & Square is trickier. Often the last three small toes may feel crushed. A rounded toe box is your best bet but choose a soft or stretchier material. A wider toe box or high volume shoe can help alleviate some of the pressure, as long as it's not too loose on your foot as a whole.

Foot Width

The width of a climbing shoe can affect performance and comfort. When you stand on your toes, the toes naturally want to spread out for balance. Climbing shoes are designed to keep the toes together to create a strong structure, but at the same time you don’t want your toes to dig into each other.

This one is self-explanatory. If you have a wide foot, look for ‘High Volume’ or wider models. If you’ve got a narrow foot, look for ‘Low Volume’ or shoes with laces to get a tighter fit. Note: this simple approach only applies for All Round shoes, while in Performance its different.

Climbing Shoe Sizing

Sizing & Stretch Explained

Do Climbing Shoes Stretch?

Yes, but not like they used to. Climbing shoes today stretch less thanks to improved designs, fabric innovations, and more complex construction aimed at limiting unwanted stretch. A simple guide line is:

Material	Expected Stretch
Synthetic	~0.5 size or less
Leather	~ 1 full size

Stretch typically occurs in two phases:

0-6 weeks: upper material softens, shoes start molding to your foot
2-12 months: fabric continues to stretch. Rubber components and powerband soften and stretch a bit.

The powerband wraps around the back of the shoe and holds your heel in place. As the shoe breaks in, this band will soften, and your heel will sit into the shoe and fill any small air pockets.

It's common these days that climbing shoes contain a combination of components designed to stretch and not stretch. The Butora Endeavour features a hemp inner lining for comfort stretch control (hemp restricts stretch). While, the fabric above the toes are unlined with the intension to stretch.

stretched climbing shoe

Image of how the shoe has stretch over a couple years

Sizing Tips

Choosing a size is not a simple answer. It varies between brands and models. Here are some tips to guide your decision:

Start with your street shoe size as a reference. Most modern shoes are now made close to this size, but you may need to go up or down based on preference.
Try on rental climbing shoes at your gym and note the brand, model, size, and how tight it feels
Come into our store (we highly recommend this if you can make the trip)
Email us at info@climbinganchors.com with your:
- Street or rental shoe size (or measurement from heel to toe)
- Foot shape (slanted, triangle, rhombus, square)
- Width (average, narrow, wide)
- Budget

It’s ok to err on the side of comfort for two reasons:

When starting out, most people don’t stand on super tiny holds that require the tightest of shoes
If the shoe stretches too much, you can still climb in it. While if the size is too small, you may not want to climb in the shoes at all.

Remember, don’t stress if the size isn’t right. We offer a free shoe return service.

How do you know if the size is too small or big?

Too small: If the size is too small, it will be very difficult to get your foot into the shoe and you will immediately feel pain. Also, a size can also be too small if to your own liking - and it's important to weigh up how much you want to be comfortable vs. the performance.

Too big: Your shoes are too big if your toes move freely, lie flat, or the heel slips. If you can scrunch your toes inside the shoes and they're not touching the front, then it's best to try the next size down.

LEARN MORE

Shoes need care! Check out our guide on looking after your shoes. Here's a few tips to get you started:

Taking off your shoes between climbs will allow your toes to breathe.
Walking around in your shoes will cause the rubber to wear quickly.
The rubber will peel from the shoe if they’re left in a hot car or in the sun
Combat odour with Boot Bananas
Resole your shoe before it’s too late!

Matt Hamlyn

As an outdoor enthusiast all my life, I fell into the world of gravity sports after seeing a friend's trad rack back in 2007 and thinking "what's that?!" Since then I have been climbing, skiing and slacklining around Australia and the world. My favourite styles of climbing are the adventurous multi-pitch trad routes of Arapiles, the steep sandstone cave bouldering local to the Sydney basin, and European alpine peaks that can take all day to slog up and what feels like mere minutes to descend, finished off with a cold pint in a warm pub.

Our mission is to feed the stoke for climbing by offering the most comprehensive range of equipment to climbers in Australia.
Whether you’re looking for technical climbing gear or friendly, expert advice, we’ll have what you need. ⁣

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Best Climbing Shoes for Beginners

Climbing Shoe Types

Why All-Round Shoes Are Best For Beginners?

1. Comfort Before Performance

2. Price Does Not Equal Durability

3. Future-Proofing Without Guessing

Fit: How Climbing Shoes Should Feel

How tight should climbing shoes be?

Why curled toes?

Shape: Finding The Right Shoe For Your Foot

Toe Box

Foot Shape

Foot Width

Sizing & Stretch Explained

Do Climbing Shoes Stretch?

Sizing Tips

How do you know if the size is too small or big?

LEARN MORE

Matt Hamlyn

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