Stride Soles Review – Custom Insoles At A Fair Price

Wide feet, tight Achilles, and some injuries have led me down a path of foot problems. This combination of struggles has led me down the path of searching for custom insoles, but the price and process left me wanting more. I took a swing with some Stride Soles custom insoles at the tail end of 2026, and wanted to share my thoughts.

Transparency Note

The Stride Soles were sent to me for free for sake of review. I have an affiliate link with them as well. If you use the link included, I get a small kick back. I have not been steered in any direction, forced to write anything, or otherwise share anything but my experiences.

A Little More Background On My Feet

I cover a lot of my feet troubles in this article about my favorite wide shoes. But the basics are that my feet are wide, I have a heel imbalance between my left and right foot due to my fractured calcaneus bone, and I struggle with some knee pain and mobility issues due to all of that.

I considered regular insoles from the store, but getting them to match my heel lift issue was a no go. And I figured anything that wasn’t accurate, was going to make any issues I had worse.

Stride Soles Process

The team reached out to me in July and offered a free consult and pair of insoles. I had been highly debating going the route of talking with a local team, but based on previous experiences with local podiatrists and custom insole processes, never bit. I had podiatrists tell me that I didn’t need to worry about strengthening my feet, local insole companies who messed up multiple X-Rays and exams (that I paid for) in the process, and a lot of time spent struggling, frustrated, and paying for things I never got.

The Stride team set up a call to walk me through the process, but honestly that probably wasn’t necessary. You walk through some simple questions online, create an account, submit some basic info, then download their app. The app helps record videos, take pictures, and submit additional information about the way you walk, your foots function, shape, and more. All of this, plus what you submit including injury history, goes into their process.

A couple weeks later you have a custom set of insoles at your door.

Testing The Stride Soles

Play

I told the team I would be pretty rigorous. They recommend you buy multiple pairs, one for each set of shoes. I did not. So these went into my normal walking around shoes, my lifting shoes, as well as my water shoes that I use for soccer days where the field is gross. At least once a week these were taken out, put in, and then out and in again of different shoes for different purposes.

I coach my daughter in soccer, basketball, and flag football. We ride our bikes regularly. I put in my daily cardio on the treadmill and stair climber. I lift weights 5 days a week including deadlifting over 500lbs and squatting over 400lbs on a regular basis. We go on family hikes, walk the dog, and much more. I clock over 10k steps a day on average. We stay busy!

Performance Of The Stride Soles

Lets take a look at these in a couple of views. First being how they managed to work through all my demands. The Stride Soles fit into my shoes whether we were working with my favorite daily drivers, my squat shoes, or anything else I tried. In fact, they made all of my shoes fit even better than before, because I didn’t have some random combination of basic insoles and custom pieces tossed together.

I typically wear my squat shoes without any socks, to remove any extra sliding surfaces when I’m fully loaded up. They handled that just fine. And more than a couple of times they got pretty sweaty, soaked in everything from rain water to sawdust and more. They’ve been hand washed, aired out, and come back for more later that day.

There are only two small areas where we see any kind of “wear and tear” on the Stride Soles so far. First is on the underside, where the (I believe it is 3d printed) base has some loose strands. And second is on the top side with the thin layer of cushion. You can see that this is starting to warp a bit around the edges.

I actually don’t think either of these is a huge concern, at least not yet. The strands don’t seem to fully be a functional part of the insole, and the padding, as long as it doesn’t get exponentially worse, wouldn’t effect anything. But these are two areas for me to keep an eye on over the next several months. If anything changes in this arena, I’ll let you know.

So the Stride Soles worked in every shoe, in every iteration, and held together fairly well even after a lot of abuse.

The last piece is… did they work? Meaning, did these seem to address any issues I was facing?

In the first couple of weeks, it was an immediate change. My knee pain disappeared entirely. My right calf that was chronically tight, my tight right foot, arch, toes, etc. All gone. Everything felt much more “normal”. This went on for about 2 months, and then something changed. I’m not sure what, and honestly still haven’t figured it out yet. But that knee pain came back. The only thing I can assume is the weather change triggered me to sleep differently, because my knee pain seems to be pretty heavy in the early mornings and fade throughout the day.So maybe a heavier blanket or sleeping a certain way is aggravating something.

So kind of a 50/50 result here. I thought I was entirely out of the woods, but then not so much.

Should You Buy A Pair of Stride Soles?

As someone who was looking at custom insoles, this is an absolute no brainer in my opinion. The process is easier, they are cheaper, you can customize to a number of factors, they have a great warranty, support, and much more. I can’t think of a reason to go to a local custom insole location, where you would pay 2x as much to get the same product. I know this, because my mom did that exact thing. She paid over $400 for a set that doesn’t fit in all of her shoes.

I think the key piece to the puzzle lands on being realistic. Making sure that you aren’t treating these as a magic bullet that will solve every problem you face, and instead part of a comprehensive solution towards it. If you are working on your mobility, strength, and overall function of your feet, legs, hips, and more. If you are paying attention to your daily routine, habits, and what seems to negatively impact your pain levels. And you add in a good pair of custom insoles like the Stride Soles, you probably have a winning combination.

I asked the team at Stride Soles for a few additional insights to wrap us up.

Regarding your limb length difference, I told our team in Germany to add a .3cm lift on the left side. We are actually the only company I know of online that offers Limb Length Discrepancies built into the orthotics, so it’s actually a fairly common request we get these days. Basically using CAD they just bump up the base of one side.

Regarding the differences between our orthotics and going to a local provider, there is no standard way to make an orthotic, so it’s hard to know exactly what each clinic will do. There is tons of variability across who sells them—PT vs DPT vs MD vs shoe store—how everyone was trained to capture the foot (3D scanning vs. foam box vs. plaster casting), and the materials used (TPU vs. ETPU vs. Polypropylene vs EVA).

I can say with certainty that we gather more data and provide a better service than 90% of people selling orthotics in person. The one part we don’t do, which a few doctors do is pressure plate measurements. We do our best to mimic this test using gait videos patients send in, but that is one thing that’s just not possible online. Everything else though is done like the top clinics world wide. This is a deep topic.

Wrap Up

I did an update on my wide shoe article to keep everyone up to speed with how well the shoes held together over time. I’ll do the same here. If there is no update above, then that means they are still working as intended. Fingers crossed, as these are still a couple hundred bucks, that this remains the case for awhile.

💲Want a pair of Stride Soles for yourself? You can check them out right here. Use Code: GML to save 20%.

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