Why does my soil not drain at all?!?!

Ok so i just mixed my soil with about 15% perlite and then put it in a 3g square pot, then wanted to check to PH so I flooded it with water to wait for the run off...and nothing, just a pool of water in the top of the pot, so i shoved my hands in there to mix it up and it was just all mud and still nothing drained =\

Did I do something wrong or should I wait longer? The pot does have holes in the bottom, like 8 of them.

holes are too small, and perlite is blocking them up

Ok so i emptied that mud pot and started over, this time I put some newspaper on the bottom (just one sheet) with some perlite, and then filled the rest with soil that has probably about 25% perlite now. I watered it quite with a lot of water, it didnt drain but after about 10 min its just small pools still on the top of the soil, I feel like this draining is not good enough, but maybe im wrong, please help!

didnt drain AKA nothing out of the holes, but the water levels went down for sure, not super quickly tho

i do a layer of pea stones at the bottom of pots to make sure this doesn't happen

if i don't have those i smash up a clay pot with a hammer, and use the smithereens instead

and if i don't have any of that i do a small layer of straight perlite, which works great, it's just that perlite is much more expensive than pea stones or clay pots

Is it dirt out of the ground or bagged soil? I mix my compost/soil from out of the ground with appx 25% perlite or vermiculite and 25% semi composted leaf/grass, this help loosen it up so it's not mud. I tried growing in straight dirt(in a bucket) my first year and it was a total failure. What happened to you happened to me,puddles on top of the dirt, but I left it to drain,as it drained through it compacted the dirt. I ended up with a sickly plant which was caused,most likely, by very limited root growth. I ended up using Roots Organinc soil the next year(adding perlite) with great results. I'm now composting and mixing my own soil for large pots/garden and using Roots soil as a starting soil. You could always buy a small thing of peat and mix it 50/50 with your base dirt.

Perlite actual absorbs a shit ton of water and expands, defeating the purpose of aeration (sorta). Just mix alot more perlite in your soil, like 60 or 70% vs your current 25. Worse case you have to water a little more frequently