Insoles and Orthotics
An over-the-counter insole solves a narrower set of problems than most shopping pages admit, and which one helps depends far more on what your foot is doing than on the brand printed on the box. This section collects every insole and orthotic guide on Podiatrist Tested, grouped by the question that usually brings people here.
On this page
The standard these are held to. Nothing on this site carries a score or the seal unless the pair has been measured and worn. Everything else is labelled as a specification analysis, and says so on the page. No brand has ever paid for a score, a ranking or the seal. How we test · Our independence
Start with the problem
Most people arrive with a symptom rather than a brand in mind. These are the condition-led guides.
- Best Insoles for Plantar Fasciitis — where arch height and heel-cup depth matter more than cushioning.
- Best Insoles for Flat Feet — why a soft insole under a collapsing arch usually disappoints.
- Best Insoles for Supination — the lateral wear pattern, and what actually changes it.
- Best Insoles for Standing All Day — the concrete-floor case, where fatigue rather than collapse is the problem.
- Best Insoles for Work Boots — volume, safety-toe clearance, and the boots that will not take a full-length insert.
Head-to-head comparisons
Newest in this set: Dr. Scholl’s vs Powerstep — the drugstore comparison most people actually face, decided on what each company publishes about its own product rather than on packaging claims. One brand publishes a shell material and an angle of correction; the other publishes adjectives; and their top prices differ by four cents.
When two models look interchangeable on a retail page, the difference is usually shell stiffness or volume. These compare them directly.
- PowerStep Pinnacle vs Maxx vs Pulse
- PowerStep Pinnacle vs ProTech vs SlimTech
- Currex vs PowerStep
- PowerStep vs the Good Feet Store — what the in-store price actually buys.
Fit, volume and compatibility
The most common reason a good insole fails is that it never fitted the shoe it went into.
- The Orthotic Volume Rating — whether a given shoe has room for an orthotic at all.
- Best Shoes for Arch Support — when the shoe should be doing the work instead.
- Carbon Fiber Insoles — the rigid-plate option, and the narrow set of problems it is actually for.
What an insole is actually proven to do
Every guide above is built on clinical reasoning plus measurements of the products themselves. This section is the other half: what the published trials found when somebody tested an insole against a control, rather than against a marketing claim. It is a shorter list than the shopping pages imply, and three of the strongest findings are negative.
| What it was tried for | What the review found | How much evidence sits behind it |
|---|---|---|
| Ulcer recurrence in a diabetic foot | Custom insoles cut recurrence — 9.9% against 25% in the largest trial. The clearest benefit anywhere in this literature. | 10 randomised trials, 1,686 people |
| Plantar heel pain | Orthoses help, but as second-line care: stretching and taping are the first step, and focused shockwave outperformed orthoses long-term. | 51 trials, 4,351 people |
| Pain with a flexible flat foot | Pain at rest and while walking favoured orthoses; pain while running did not reach significance, and the authors state plainly that they cannot conclude orthoses are useful here. | 9 studies, 621 children and adults; GRADE low |
| Knee osteoarthritis pain | No relief. Insoles and lateral wedges did not reduce pain. | 13 randomised trials, 1,086 patients |
| Gait and balance in Parkinson’s disease | No difference between custom insoles and a sham insole on either timed-up-and-go or gait. | 1 triple-blind randomised trial, 42 people |
| Prescribing footwear by arch type | Probably makes little or no difference to injury risk (RR 1.03). This is the premise most arch-support marketing rests on. | 3 trials, 7,203 people, all military; moderate certainty |
Each row is a published systematic review or randomised trial, named in full with its journal and DOI on the guide it links to. None of it is our own data, and none of these reviews tested a specific product named on this site.
The row people find hardest to accept is the one that is not in the table: custom against stock. Across these reviews nobody has shown a custom orthotic beating a well-chosen prefabricated one for pain — the flat-foot review found no meaningful difference between the two, and the plantar-heel-pain review found custom did not beat prefabricated at any time point measured. Where custom clearly earns its cost is the first row, and the jobs a stock shape physically cannot do. That is the distinction the next section draws.
Over-the-counter or custom?
Worth being direct about, because it decides whether anything on this page will help you. An over-the-counter insole is a shaped support made in a stock size range. It can be enough for a foot with normal structure that is simply being overloaded — most plantar fasciitis, most standing-all-day fatigue, most mild overpronation. A custom orthotic is made to a cast or scan of one particular foot, and it exists to do things a stock shape cannot: correct a fixed deformity, offload one specific spot, accommodate a significant leg-length difference, or protect a foot with an ulcer history. If a stock insole has genuinely been worn for six to eight weeks, in a shoe that had room for it, and the pain has not moved, that is the point where a clinical assessment is worth more than another purchase.
General education, not a diagnosis. Podiatrist Tested reviews footwear and insoles; it does not treat patients.
Related sections
Recently reviewed
Individual shoe pages state their evidence tier, published measurements and who should skip them.
HOKA Clifton 11
Spec AnalysisHOKA’s product page carries a podiatric seal claim the APMA database does not support for this version, and a women’s stack height that contradicts HOKA’s own drop. Not tested by us.
Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins
Spec AnalysisUntested. A heel panel engineered to stay open cannot also be a rigid heel counter, and Skechers publishes no stiffness figure for it — nor a drop, a weight or a width.
New Balance Made in USA 990v6
Spec AnalysisNew Balance publishes no weight, drop or stack height for the 990v6, but it does publish B through 6E widths — and that range is why it still matters. Not tested by…
Measured, worn, scored — never sponsored
No brand has ever paid for a review, a score, a ranking or the seal. Where we earn a commission the link says so, and the score does not change.