Most cat trees sold in Australia are wrapped in carpet, because carpet is cheap, it comes in rolls, and it staples on in seconds. It is the wrong surface, and not only because it wears out.
The problem with carpet is what it teaches
Put a carpet-covered post in a carpeted house and you have told your cat, in the clearest possible terms, that carpet is for scratching. Cats do not distinguish between the carpet on the post and the carpet on your hallway floor or your stair nosing. They are matching texture.
Sisal does not exist anywhere else in your home. That makes it unambiguous, and unambiguous is exactly what you want when you are trying to redirect a behaviour.
Carpet also fails mechanically. It is a looped pile, so claws catch in the loops and pull them out rather than shearing through. Within months it pills, snags and starts shedding fibres, and some cats will stop using it once it stops giving clean resistance. A few will catch a claw badly enough to be put off entirely.
Sisal rope
Sisal rope is wound around a post under tension. It shreds progressively in the direction the cat pulls, gives audible feedback, and holds its shape as it wears rather than falling apart.
It is the best surface for vertical posts, and it is what cats choose in preference tests. The trade-off is that it is more expensive and slower to apply, which is exactly why budget trees do not use it.
Look for tightly wound rope with no visible gaps. Loose winding unravels once a claw gets under it.
Sisal fabric
Woven sisal fabric rather than rope. It works well on flat and curved surfaces where rope cannot be wound — the inside of a bowl-shaped bed, for instance. It wears more evenly than rope and is less prone to unravelling, though it gives slightly less of the shredding sensation cats seem to enjoy.
This is what we use on the woven sisal interior of the durian bed, where the surface is a curve rather than a post.
Cardboard
Corrugated cardboard is genuinely popular with cats and very cheap. It is also a consumable — a well-used cardboard scratcher is finished in weeks, and it produces a remarkable volume of confetti across your floor.
It has a real place as a horizontal option alongside a vertical post, particularly for cats that prefer to scratch lying down. It is not a substitute for a durable primary scratcher.
Dense scratch pads
A firm, tightly-woven pad, usually mounted flat or at an angle. Good for horizontal scratchers, easy to wipe down, and it does not shed. The important question with any pad is whether it is replaceable.
Replaceable is the feature that matters
Every scratching surface is a consumable. It is supposed to wear out — that is the surface doing its job. The real question is whether wearing out costs you a panel or a piece of furniture.
On a cheap tree, the carpet is stapled and glued to the structure. When it goes, the tree goes. On the pieces in our scratcher range, the scratch pads are velcro-fastened and come off in one movement, so a worn pad costs a few dollars rather than a few hundred.
Ask this question before you ask about durability. A surface that lasts three years but takes the furniture with it is worse value than one that lasts eighteen months and unclips.
The short version
- Vertical posts: sisal rope, tightly wound.
- Curved and flat surfaces: sisal fabric or a dense replaceable pad.
- Cheap extra option: cardboard, and accept it is disposable.
- Avoid: carpet, on both durability and behavioural grounds.
If you are choosing a full tree rather than a standalone scratcher, the surface question is part of a bigger one — see what you are actually paying for in a cat tree.