You will know what a cat tree actually provides, how to get the same thing from what you already own, and when buying one still makes sense.
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The cat tree is treated as the first purchase of any household taking in a cat. What it sells is height and a surface to scratch, and both can be covered another way.
A cat tree combines three things in one object: a high spot, a vertical scratching surface and a hiding place. Nothing says those three have to live in the same piece of furniture.
Kept apart, each tends to sit better: the high spot where the cat keeps watch, the scratching surface where it stretches after a nap, the hiding place where it is quiet. One object cannot be in the right place three times over.
A cleared wardrobe offers exactly what a cat looks for up high: a view, a space nobody else climbs to, and a wide surface. It simply has to be empty, steady, and reachable by at least two footholds.
Put something washable on top; an old blanket will do. What makes a wardrobe unusable is not its height, it is the boxes and suitcases already up there.
Cats scratch mostly when they stretch after sleeping, and along the routes they use. A board fixed near where your cat sleeps therefore earns its keep more often than the post of a cat tree parked in a room it never rests in.
Splitting the two has a very practical benefit: when the scratching surface is worn out, you replace a board rather than a whole piece of furniture.
A cat will not land twice on a platform that wobbles. A tall, light model shifts on impact, and the thing ends up ignored without anyone understanding why.
Before buying, push the column halfway up with your hand. If it sways in the shop, it will sway at home with a cat on it. When a model offers a wall fixing, that is what settles the question, not the weight of the base.
A high spot is for watching. Put it in the corner of a room where nothing happens and it shows the cat nothing, so the cat carries on climbing the sideboard in the living room.
If yours sleeps elsewhere, move the object before you decide it dislikes it. Beside a window, or in the room where you actually live, the same piece changes status entirely.
Three situations change the answer. A rented flat where you cannot fix anything to the wall. A home with no reachable high furniture at all. And an ageing cat, for which a staircase of closely spaced platforms replaces a leap it no longer makes.
In those cases what matters is not the number of levels on the box, it is the gap between platforms and how steady the whole thing is. A low, wide model helps more than a spectacular column.
The rest of the time, start by looking at what your home already offers. The purchase can wait, and it will be a better one.