What is the best value Tubeless Tire Sealant?

Tubeless tires are now a staple of mountain, gravel, and even road bikes, and the backbone of any tubeless set up is sealant. While writing this article I found 23 different sealants to choose from. I choose to analyze eight of the most popular sealant’s according to how much they cost to use.

(Subsequently I had the thought that I went about doing this the wrong way, more on that later.)

I assumed the recommended volumes for a 45c gravel tire, and I went with the larger volume if it was on the line. I also went with the claimed refill frequency, not the frequency in experience. The reality of all this is that in the summer sealant dries up, and if you get a puncture, sealant will leak out. Other factors including tire type and riding distance will all affect how much sealant you use. So you can think of this as a relative cost analysis. For example, if the claims are true, Squirt will stay liquid in your tires for double the length of time that Orange Endurance will.

Good Highlights – 6mm @ $25/year

According to the data, you can expect to have the ability to seal up to a 6mm hole for $25 a year. (Buy the most economical size and dividing the cost over several years)

E-Thirteen, Squirt, WTB, and Peaty’s all did pretty well and are the four cheapest on the list. I can only speak for Squirt, and I’ve never had a flat in the 3months I ran it on my MTB. I also really like the Bead block particles that it comes with.

Another win is the Silca Ultimate sealant. It is only $8 more per year than orange endurance, and seals twice as big of a hole. I am currently running it on my gravel and MTB and on my gravel bike my tires have stayed at the same pressure almost from the day I put it in (about a month.)

What’s the deal with Orange Seal?

By far the most common sealant I sell in the shop is Orange Endurance, but it has the lowest sealing capacity. In Orange Seal’s defense, a 3.18 (1/8in) hole may be all that is needed on a tame gravel road, and if you can guarantee that you won’t get a puncture greater than 3.18mm, it will work great.

A certified fail in my opinion is Orange Regular coming in at 4x the cost of E-Thirteen. You could get the same sealing capacity and pay a quarter of the cost. The only use I can think of for it is to put in tires on race day in order to stay in the Orange ecosystem. Even so, in the past I have mixed Orange and Stans (on my own bikes) and nothing has exploded or clogged more than normal. Maybe the perfect sealant is a mix of all the above?

Foaming Sealant?

Almost any sealant will work in a low pressure gravel or MTB tire (sub 50psi). But what about higher pressures in road bikes? Silca, Squirt, and Peaty’s all incorporate a foaming agent. This is important because both pressure and the centripetal force caused by a fast rolling wheel will glue the sealant to the same spot on the inside of a tire like the carnival ride. So if the sealant isn’t evenly distributed and a puncture occurs on a dry spot of the tire, it won’t have as much sealant to quickly fill the hole. The foaming agent to the sealant helps to give the sealant a little bit of movement on the inside of the tire (even while spinning) which can help seal the hole faster.

That sealant is chunky?!?

Another feature of Squirt, Peaty’s, Silca Ultimate, and Stan’s Race (just regular stans + chunks) is that the extra large solid particles in the sealant can help seal a bigger hole. I don’t know of any real data that proves it does better, but in theory it seems like a good idea. Some people even add glitter to the sealant for this purpose (doubtful whether glitter works). The downside to this approach is that those particles can’t be added through a valve stem, so there is more potential mess caused by taking the tire bead off.

Squirt sells their BeadBlock Particles separately so you could add them to any of the above sealants. Maybe this would help improve Orange Endurance.

Bottom Line

Most bikes with tubeless tires start around $2000, when you are paying that much or more for a bicycle, $25 a year doesn’t matter so much, so why not just choose the sealant with the highest sealing capacity? At the end of the day you just want the sealant to stop the hole while you are riding, if you have to get off and plug it or change a tube, the flow of that ride is pretty much ruined.

Other articles cover the actual sealing capacity for sealants, in reality, most of them work close to what they say.

My Experience as a Professional Bike Shop Owner

I have used Orange Regular and Endurance, Stan’s Regular and Race, Squirt and Silca Ultimate. Of those Silca Ultimate and Squirt are my favorite so far. Orange is the biggest mess when I take tires off, and makes the worst sealant boogers (yes, that is what cyclists actually call them). Stans smells like ammonia whenever you use it, and Squirt doesn’t seem to last very long in hot months and turns almost to water.

If someone is asking me what my sealant recommendation is, the answer is Silca.

Other Sealant Criteria

Smell and Toxicity are two categories I would argue matter more than people give them credit. There are also latex-free sealants for people who’s skin reacts to latex filled products. Operating temperature also might be of concern, if you ride a lot below freezing, you may want something like Orange Subzero.

If you have a fat bike that requires a lot of sealant, I would just choose the cheapest option on the list. Fat tires have greater resistance to flats anyways, so I don’t think a particular brand really matters.

Legitimate Sealant Companies

There is some weird sealant out there, like this one from amazon. Here are 14 other sealants (followed by incredulous parentheticals) that I did not analyze. The first 5 look the most legitimate to me. That makes 22 different sealants to choose from. Yeah, I didn’t know there were that many either.

• Effetto Mariposa (honestly looks pretty scientific actually unique)
• MilkIT
• Universal Vittoria (what makes it universal?)
• Slime (I can’t seem to find the slime page for the tubeless specific sealant)
• Fiberlink
• Juicelubes
• Schwalbe Doc Blue (Just rebranded Stans?)
• Reserve Wheels
• Specialized
• OKO
• Syncros
• Motul
• Rene Herse Supple (is it more supple than any other liquid?)
• BatSeal (for night-stalking crime fighters?)

Other analysis shoutouts

https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/which-tubeless-sealant-works-the-best