---
title: "TheStack vs SuperSpeed: only one of these needs a launch monitor to work at all"
url: "https://ifrothgolf.com/read/the-stack-vs-superspeed-training-system"
type: "comparison"
topic: "training"
author: "Jordan Hale"
published: "2026-09-12T10:00"
publisher: "ifrothgolf"
---


# TheStack vs SuperSpeed: only one of these needs a launch monitor to work at all

> Two speed systems that disagree about method. One hands you a fixed ladder of three sticks and gets out of the way. The other builds you a personal prescription and cannot run a single session until something is measuring your swing.

## In short

- SuperSpeed at around $190 is the right default: three fixed sticks, a prescribed ladder, no other hardware required, and you can do the first session tonight. TheStack at around $375 is the better system for a narrower buyer, because the app builds an individual force-velocity prescription instead of handing everyone the same weights — but it does not measure anything, so it needs a radar or launch monitor that reads a swing with no ball, and the membership included is one year rather than forever. Own a monitor already and TheStack is the obvious buy. Own nothing and it is a two-to-three-times bigger purchase than the price tag suggests. Either way the programme is three sessions a week for months, the gains fade when you stop, and neither box solves that.

Buy the SuperSpeed set. For most golfers thinking about adding clubhead speed between now and spring, the three-stick set at around $190 is the right call, and the reason has nothing to do with which system is cleverer. It is that SuperSpeed works as a standalone purchase and TheStack does not.

TheStack is the more sophisticated product and, for a narrower group, the better one. It is also a closed loop that cannot close without a second piece of hardware, and that is the single fact most likely to move your decision. Everything below is the case for each side of that.

## Why this is an autumn question

Speed work is one of the few things that survives the walk back onto grass, which we set out in [what transfers indoors](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/what-actually-transfers-indoors): overspeed training is a physical adaptation rather than a skill, so a session in a garage in January is the same physical event as a session on a range in June. Nothing to recalibrate, no ball flight required. That is why speed sticks get bought in September and it is why this comparison is worth having now rather than in March.

The mechanism itself — why swinging something lighter at maximum intent raises the ceiling on the club that matters — is covered at length in [swing speed training, explained](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/swing-speed-training-explained), and I am not going to repeat it. This is only about which box to buy.

## SuperSpeed: a fixed ladder you can start tonight

The [SuperSpeed Golf Training System](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/superspeed-training-system) is three CNC-milled sticks, two lighter than your driver and one heavier, with app-guided protocols and Padraig Harrington's name on the marketing. Around $190. The sets come in light, standard and junior weights, which matters more than it sounds: a slower swinger loading a standard set is training the wrong stimulus, and the fact that there is a correct box for them on the shelf is a quiet strength of the range.

The design philosophy is a ladder. Everybody on a given set swings the same three weights in the same prescribed order, and you progress by moving through protocol levels rather than by responding to your own data. That is a real limitation and it is also the entire reason this is the easier product to own. There is nothing to pair, nothing to charge, no number to enter and no reason session one cannot happen this evening in the garden with the sticks and a phone.

## TheStack: the programme is the product

[TheStack](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/the-stack-speed-system) is one engineered training club — 41.5in for adults, 38.5in for juniors — plus five CNC-milled weights that combine 30 different ways from 0g up to 300g. The app baselines your current speed, builds a force-velocity profile from it, and then prescribes which weight you swing and how fast for a six-to-ten-week block, adjusting the load as you move. A year of app membership is included, and that membership carries Stack Putting and Stack Wedging alongside the speed programme. Around $375. The weight case doubles as a phone stand for filming your swings, which is a small thing and the sort of small thing that tells you a person who uses the product designed it.

The idea underneath is better than a ladder, and it is worth being clear about why. Two golfers with identical driver speeds can be limited by completely different things — one is short of raw force, the other has plenty of force and cannot move light objects quickly. A fixed protocol gives them the same session. TheStack looks at the profile and gives them different weights. If you have ever done a training block that produced nothing, that mismatch is one of the more likely explanations.

## The dependency that is not on the box

TheStack does not measure anything. It needs a separate device that will read a swing with no ball involved — a radar or personal launch monitor with a swing-only mode — and without a number arriving after each set, the app has nothing to build a prescription from and no way to decide whether to progress you. This is not an accessory that makes the product nicer. It is the loop the product is built around, and a Stack with no speed device is a well-made weighted club with an app that keeps asking a question you cannot answer.

So the honest cost comparison runs like this. SuperSpeed: around $190, and nothing else, ever. TheStack: around $375, plus whatever a suitable device costs you — TheStack sells its own, the [Stack Radar](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/stack-radar), which reads a swing with no ball and pairs straight to the app, and the wider [launch monitor](https://ifrothgolf.com/launch-monitors) end of our catalogue climbs quickly from there — plus a subscription from year two, because the included membership is twelve months rather than forever.

For a golfer who already owns a radar, none of that applies and the arithmetic inverts completely: the marginal cost of TheStack over SuperSpeed is roughly double the fixed-protocol price for an individualised programme, which is good value for anyone who has already demonstrated they will train. For a golfer who owns nothing, TheStack is a two-to-three-times more expensive project than it looks on the product page.

## What both of them ask of you

Roughly three sessions a week, fifteen minutes or so each, sustained for months rather than weeks. That is not a caveat, it is the product. Maximum-intent swinging is a physical stress your body probably is not used to, so it wants a proper warm-up beforehand rather than being used as one, and it wants volume built gradually if you carry any back, shoulder or elbow history.

And the gains behave like gym strength: they arrive in slow instalments and they fade when you stop. Speed training works. It is not free, and the price is paid in Tuesday evenings for as long as you want to keep the yardage. The uncomfortable thing about writing up this category is that both of these products do what they claim and a large proportion of both end up in the corner of a garage by December. Where the two genuinely differ on adherence is the feedback: TheStack's graph is a real motivator for the sort of person who responds to a graph, and it is one more piece of admin between the door and the first swing for everyone else. Be honest with yourself about which one you are, because that is a better predictor of your result than either spec sheet.

## Who should buy neither

Three cases, and the first is the common one. If you have never had your clubhead speed measured, you do not yet know that speed is your constraint. Spend an hour on a monitor at a fitting centre before you spend anything on sticks, because a golfer losing distance to strike quality gets nothing at all from an overspeed block.

If your driver misses are scattered rather than tight, skip it too. Speed multiplies your dispersion as cheerfully as it multiplies your carry, and adding four miles an hour to a swing that finds the heel is a way of hitting it further out of play.

And if you already know your training habits, believe them. An unused speed trainer is the most common speed trainer in golf. Neither of these products contains a solution to that, and the more expensive one contains slightly more friction.

## The call

If you own nothing and want to train speed this winter, SuperSpeed at around $190. It is the lower commitment, the lower cost and the version most likely to still be in use in February, and the fixed ladder is a perfectly good stimulus for a golfer who has never done any of this.

If you already own a launch monitor or radar that reads a swing without a ball, buy TheStack instead, and it is not close. The individual prescription is the meaningful upgrade in this category, and the measurement dependency that makes it a bad first purchase for everyone else is already sitting in your bag. That is the whole decision. Everything else about these two products is a rounding error next to whether there is something in the room that can count.

## The takeaway

SuperSpeed at around $190 is the right default: three fixed sticks, a prescribed ladder, no other hardware required, and you can do the first session tonight. TheStack at around $375 is the better system for a narrower buyer, because the app builds an individual force-velocity prescription instead of handing everyone the same weights — but it does not measure anything, so it needs a radar or launch monitor that reads a swing with no ball, and the membership included is one year rather than forever. Own a monitor already and TheStack is the obvious buy. Own nothing and it is a two-to-three-times bigger purchase than the price tag suggests. Either way the programme is three sessions a week for months, the gains fade when you stop, and neither box solves that.

## FAQ

### Does TheStack need a launch monitor to work?

Yes. TheStack does not measure swing speed itself. The app builds and adjusts your programme from measured numbers, so it needs a separate radar or personal launch monitor that can read a swing with no ball impact. Without one, the app cannot baseline you, prescribe a weight or decide when to progress you, which makes the device a requirement rather than an optional extra.

### Is TheStack worth the extra money over SuperSpeed?

It depends entirely on whether you already own a speed-measuring device. If you do, the extra outlay buys an individually prescribed programme built from your own force-velocity profile instead of a fixed ladder, which is a genuine upgrade. If you do not, you are adding the cost of a radar on top, and a golfer new to speed training will get most of the available benefit from the cheaper fixed protocol.

### Is TheStack app free after the first year?

No. The purchase price includes a twelve-month app membership, which also covers Stack Putting and Stack Wedging. Continued full app access after that first year becomes a subscription, so budget for it as an ongoing cost rather than a one-off purchase.

### Can you use SuperSpeed and TheStack together?

There is no good reason to. Both are structured overspeed protocols with prescribed loads, recovery periods and progression rules, and running two at once means neither prescription is being followed and neither set of results tells you anything. Pick one system, complete a full training block, and judge it on the numbers at the end.

## Products mentioned

- [The Stack TheStack Speed Training System](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/the-stack-speed-system) · $300 approx — The prescribed programme: individually loaded, app-driven, and useless without a speed device to feed it.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/thestack-speed-trainer-award-winning-app?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link) · also stocked by Golf Swing Systems, Amazon (US), Amazon (UK)

- [SuperSpeed Golf Training System (3-Stick Set)](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/superspeed-training-system) · $190 approx — The fixed protocol: three sticks, the same ladder for everyone, and you can start the first session tonight.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SZXD2Q?tag=ifrothgolf-20&ascsubtag=md_superspeed-training-system) (affiliate link) · also stocked by SuperSpeed Golf

- [The Stack System TheStack System Stack Radar](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/stack-radar) · $300 approx — The measurement half of TheStack, and the line item that decides which of these two is really cheaper.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/stack-radar-launch-monitor-club-speed-training?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

---

Source: [ifrothgolf](https://ifrothgolf.com) — independent golf-gear editorial.

Canonical URL: https://ifrothgolf.com/read/the-stack-vs-superspeed-training-system

Quote or cite freely with attribution and a link to the canonical URL.

Affiliate disclosure: ifrothgolf may earn a commission on purchases made through the retailer links above, at no extra cost to the buyer. It never changes what we recommend. https://ifrothgolf.com/disclosure