Steel shafts are less expensive to manufacturer and easily able to make consistent from shaft-to-shaft. Steel shafts are made from a single material, so creating a new model is limited to geometry changes to the shaft such as the outside diameters along its’ entire length, wall thickness, distance between each step (unless it is a stepless shaft) and usage of additional metals (such as chromium, vanadium and nickel) in the alloys. Premium steel shafts cost about the same as low end graphite shafts.

Graphite shafts were originally designed to make a lightweight alternative to steel shafts. However, there are graphite shafts that actually weigh more than some steel models, but this is very rare. Steel shafts range from approximately 90g to 130g, while graphite shafts can be a low as 39g. The most popular weight range of graphite shafts for woods is 60-70 grams and for iron shafts the weight is closer to 70 – 80 grams. One of the biggest advantages to graphite shafts is their lighter weight.