Which of these six tubeless sealants passed our screwdriver test?

Tubeless sealants have been around for a while now and the technology has gained almost universal acceptance across gravel and mountain biking. In road cycling, though, it’s fair to say that the reception has been more mixed – largely because the higher pressures of road tyres demand significantly better performance from the sealants.

Whilst the benefits of weight saving and lower rolling resistance aren’t to be sniffed at, the difficulty many sealants seem to have with plugging holes at the higher pressures means that going tubeless is not so obvious a choice. After all, if punctures still happen with relative frequency, why not stick with cleaner and simpler inner tubes?

To find which sealant is best for tubeless tires – and if it actually makes ditching the inner tubes worthwhile – we’ve taken six popular brands and put them to the test. 

Using a Schwalbe Pro One 28mm tire on a Zipp 303s wheel, we pumped up the pressure to 70 psi (the maximum recommended for the rim) and attempted to puncture the tyre with six screwdrivers of increasing size – starting at 1mm and going to 7mm – up until the tyre could no longer be topped back up to 70 psi without the hole reopening.

We’ve got more information about the test and everything you need to know about sealants further down the page. For now, let’s take a look at the results.

The Quick List

The Best Tubeless Sealants

Best on Test

Silca's Ultimate sealant launched in early 2022 and came with a raft of innovations and bold claims – notably an ability to seal punctures up to 6mm at 80psi and up to 8mm in lower pressure systems. Impressively, it has gone and lived up to the hype.

In our testing, we found that sealant was able to easily plug holes up to (and including) a 3mm diameter. On the 4.5 and 6mm diameter screwdrivers, the sealant would seal at a low pressure but the hole burst open when pumping the tyre back up to 70psi.

But on the second try pumping the tyre back up to pressure, the sealant managed to hold. It seems that after the hole reopened that first time, the 'dam' of carbon fibres around the hole was reinforced, enabling the sealant to ultimately plug the 4.5 and 6mm holes.

Going up to the 7mm screwdriver (which really is huge, larger than any nail you're likely to cycle over) the same thing happened with the hole reopening when pumped back up, but then resealing and able to handle higher pressures. It took an additional cycle over the previous two screwdrivers – but in the end, the Silca Ultimate sealant did manage to hold 70psi after being punctured with a 7mm screwdriver.

It is at the more expensive end of the sealants currently on the market – but its price is by no means an outlier. No other sealant we had on test was able to plug such a large hole and many failed on much smaller diameters. 

Of course, this doesn't mean it'll definitely plug every puncture of that size every time, but it's a highly impressive line in the sand and makes this the best-performing sealant we had on test. For road tyres and pressures, we'd fully recommend it.   

Best Value

There definitely is something about long stranded particles that really boosts sealing performance. Although Silca has made a lot of fuss about its carbon fibres and its research,  it appears that the Muc-Off sealant works in much the same way, with very similar-looking fibres visible in the plugged holes.

The Muc-Off No Puncture Hassle Tyre Sealant didn't seal quite as quickly as the Silca Ultimate sealant on the middle and larger sizes of screwdriver, but it still did the job nonetheless. 

And just like the Silca sealant, it did take two tries pumping the tyre up to 70psi after being punctured with the 6mm screwdriver for the hole to be fully plugged and able to hold the pressure.

At 7mm, the hole would seal at around 30psi, but it wouldn't hold pressures any higher than that – repeatedly inflating the tyre and the seal would break every time. 

Still, 6mm is a very good performance  – better than any of the other sealants we tested except Silca – and especially at these higher pressures we tested at. 

Essentially, the  Muc-Off No Puncture Hassle Tyre Sealant sits bang slap in the middle of the Silca Ultimate sealant (more effective but more expensive) and the Lifeline Tubeless Tyre sealant (less effective but cheaper). 

Which you go for out of these three is mostly determined by your budget and your aversion to punctures.

Best Price

Although the sealing ability isn't quite as good as the two sealants before it, the LifeLine Tubeless Tyre Sealant is still a sealant we can highly recommend as it's incredibly good for the price.

It doesn't have fancy qualities like the Silca or Muc-Off sealants; With its milky consistency, the LifeLine sealant looks like what you might call a 'normal' sealant, like that from Stan's or Orange Seal (both also on test). But in spite of that, the LifeLine sealant still performed better than most on test.

The sealant managed to plug the smaller holes quite quickly, up to and including the 4.5mm screwdriver – still no mean feat. But taking the step up to the 6mm proved too much for the sealant and it was unable to hold significant pressure after that.

If cost is a large concern for you, this sealant would likely be your best balance between puncture protection and price – it is one of the cheapest and its performance is well above par.

Best Eco-Friendly

Effetto Mariposa's Végétalex Tyre Sealant is quite different to anything else we've used. It's got a gloppy, almost oily, gelatinous consistency to it, which is a result of its plant-based ingredients – it's fully biodegradable and totally plastic-free.

That thicker consistency could be what gives this sealant its impressive claimed longevity. Although it starts at three months, Effetto is explicit that this is the minimum in the most extreme conditions – not just the lower band of what most people will experience in more 'normal' use.

But longevity wasn't what we were testing for here – so back to its puncture-sealing abilities. The sealant managed to plug the 1, 2 and 3mm screwdrivers without much of a problem. 

Going up to 4.5mm, it took quite a long time for the air to finally stop leaking out and a seal to form at a (very) low pressure.  When trying to pump the tyre back to pressure, the hole kept on reopening – unlike the Silca and the Muc-Off sealants, the Végétalex seal didn't seem to strengthen after being broken open.

But sealing a 3mm hole at road pressures is all that the sealant claims to be able to do, so it can't really be faulted for its performance – even if it does fail on smaller holes than some of the other sealants on test.  

Best For Low Temperatures

Stans No Tubes tyre sealant really is a classic and perhaps one of the best-known options out there. The claims of cold weather performance are quite exceptional for this sealant – not many state that they'll go down to lows of -30°F / -34°C.

When it comes to the sealing ability on our road setup, though, the performance was a little off the mark. The sealant claims that it's good for holes up to 6mm in diameter, but presumably, that is referring to the lower pressures of an MTB or gravel system, as we found the sealant unable to plug punctures larger than 3mm at road pressures.

That said, 3mm is still a significant sized hole. It's not like the pin-prick of an upturned tack, it's the size of a pretty vicious nail – something you'd typically very much try and avoid, rather than simply cycling over it.

For use in milder climates, from this test we'd recommend LifeLine's sealant as it's cheaper and plugged larger holes. But in particularly cold climates, this would be our go-to choice. 

Best for small holes

Another sealant stalwart, Orange Seal is a brand with a long history. However, in this test, the results weren't superlative.

To be fair, the sealant did manage to plug holes up to and including 3mm at 70 psi, which is on par with both the Stans and Effetto Mariposa. The Orange Seal Regular sealant also plugged those smaller holes faster than the Stans No Tubes sealant was able to.

However, the claimed longevity is significantly less than all of the other sealants we tested, which stands to saddle you with increased maintenance and cost. The temperature rating also isn't as low as some of the other sealants with equal or better sealing ability.

So, in terms of the actual sealing ability the Regular sealant is in line with most of the sealants we had on test. It's the claimed temperature rating and longevity that let it down. 

Orange Seal does have an Endurance sealant which is claimed to last between 2 and 4 months and a Subzero sealant which is claimed to go down to -20°F / -29°C, but both of those only claim to be able to seal punctures up to 3mm – the Regular sealant was claimed to be 6mm.

How we tested

First up, let's go through the tyre and rim combo. We were using a 28mm Schwalbe Pro One tyre on a Zipp 303s rim. Like an increasing number of today's best road bike wheels, there is a pressure limit of around 70 psi. 

This is a lower pressure than what early adopters of road tubeless may have been using. But considering the continuing shift to wider tyres and, of course, the growing number of brands going for a 70psi pressure limit, we thought that this made a good benchmark for our test.

We brought a total of six screwdrivers with shaft diameters of 1, 2, 3, 4.5, 5, 6 and 7mm. The process was to add 60ml of sealant and then start with the 1mm screwdriver, puncture the tyre, spin it until it seals, and then pump it back up to 70psi.

If the tyre could continue to hold 70psi after the puncturing, then the next step was to repeat with the next size up – until the tyre could no longer hold 70psi without the hole reopening.

So as not to be too wasteful, we cleaned out the tyre of sealant after each test, patched it up with a stick-on tyre boot, and went again with the next sealant. In the end, we did still end up using two tyres in total. 

Best tubeless sealants: what to look out for