Find the Best Mattress Reviews for 2023

GUIDES

Mattress Reviews: The Challenge

Best Overall Mattresses

These mattresses are the overall best. We’ve included a wide range of mattresses from different categories and types. That means these mattresses are some of the best examples of the type of mattress they represent. If you’re wondering about an entire category of mattress, these are a good place to start.

Memory Foam Mattress Reviews

These mattresses take advantage of the unique qualities of memory foam. They all use memory foam as the primary comfort layer, which offers more hug and contour, pressure relief, and a slower response to your body weight.

Foam Mattress Reviews

The mattresses in this category all use some type of foam as a primary construction material. The foam can be latex, elastic polymers, patented blends, or memory foam. No matter what the specific type of foam, mattresses made from foam are noted for their increased responsiveness, hug and contour sensations, and the balanced feel they offer.

Hybrid Foam and Spring Mattress Reviews

The mattresses in this category utilize some combination of springs and foam together. Combing springs and foam can allow the mattress to take advantage of the beneficial qualities of each, while minimizing the drawbacks of each material. As a result, they generally have more bounce, edge support, responsiveness, and cooling. The spring component of the mattresses also creates a more traditional feel that many sleepers look for.

Latex Mattress Reviews

These mattresses have a primary comfort layer made from latex. The latex element gives a balanced level of hug and contour along with better bounce, cooling abilities, and responsiveness.

Mattress Reviews by Specific Aspects

If you have a primary consideration when looking for mattresses, then look no further than these links! We’ve sorted and organized reviews to help you find the best mattresses for your back pain, couples, side sleepers, and more. Once you’ve read the reviews to find the best mattresses for those qualities, make sure you check out other similar mattresses to ensure the best possible sleep experience.

Understanding Our Reviews

Our mattress reviews use a combination of personal experience and research to bring you a consensus view of the different options on offer. In the process of researching and writing these reviews we’ve learned what kind of information mattress shoppers are looking for. As a result, we promise to do our best to ensure that any possible concern someone could have regarding these mattresses is addressed.

Another important thing to note about our reviews is that we’re not going to bring you information about mattresses that aren’t any good at all. Therefore, don’t be surprised to see that almost all of our reviews will be generally positive, and many of them will be rather enthusiastic. This is because we don’t want to waste your time with inferior products, or give bad mattresses publicity that they don’t deserve.

Every one of our reviews rates the mattresses on 12 different aspects. These aspects include the comfort and support offered, the materials and value of the mattress, edge support, smell, sex, and financial things like trial offers, refunds, warranties, and the company behind the product.

The goal of this intensive review process is to ensure that mattress shoppers have all of the information that they need to make the best mattress decision and enjoy many years of relaxing, restful sleep.

Understanding the Results

This section will explain what we look for in each of the different categories. We’ll give some examples to make it clear, and then will discuss what we think makes those particular aspects good or bad.

Materials

The materials a mattress is constructed from determine a lot of the qualities that it will have. This category evaluates the materials used in the construction of the mattress while also taking a look at the overall construction. We look at how many layers the mattress has, how thick each layer is, and will note any specific aspects of the materials being used.

The Good

A good mattress will have plenty of thickness for the comfort layer. Generally the best mattresses have 4” or more of material for their comfort layer. A good mattress should have materials and construction that allow for breathability and that provide desirable mattress qualities, like hug and contour. Moreover, a good mattress will be constructed from hypoallergenic materials and will be constructed in a durable, high quality fashion.

The Bad

While we don’t review bad mattresses, the ones that we do review which suffer in the materials element are usually those that have less than 3” of primary comfort layer thickness. Moreover, the materials used may not provide the best breathability, may have issues with cooling or other traits we look for in the best mattresses. These mattresses probably won’t have any kind of special materials and will provide the basic acceptable level of sleep quality and comfort.

Comfort

Comfort is an evaluation of how comfortable a mattress is. While we realize that everyone has different preferences when it comes to mattresses and ideal comfort, there are plenty of traits that are universally appreciated in mattresses, and plenty of traits that no one looks for in a mattress except perhaps those with extremely specialized needs.

The Good

Mattresses that do well in the comfort category have a balanced comfort dynamic. They do a great job of reliving pressure points, providing the type of contour and hug the material is intended to deliver, and avoids creating the conditions that trap too much heat, prevent breathability and airflow, or use materials that are less than pleasant against the skin. We do our best to evaluate the comfort of each mattress within the framework of the type of sleeper that it attempts to cater towards. Therefore, we won’t knock points off because a mattress designed to be extremely soft is too soft, or because a mattress intended to be firm is too firm.

The Bad

Mattress can get dinged in the comfort category if they don’t do an excellent job of providing the qualities or traits that we look for in the best mattress. This might be because the materials they are made from don’t allow for good airflow, causing them to become uncomfortably warm, or because the mattress lacks the kind of pressure point relief that we expect from better mattress.

Support

We’d like to note up front that support is different from firmness in our reviews. A soft mattress can still offer excellent support. When we talk about support we do so in the sense of how well the mattress keeps your spine in a normal alignment while sleeping. In order to consider the support a mattress provides as great it has to provide relief from pressure points and pain that can come from sleeping in an awkward position

The Good

The mattresses that do the best in the support category keep your spine properly aligned while avoiding pressure points and other such elements that can interfere with the quality of the rest provided. The very best mattresses for support are great for all styles of sleeper, and will give those who rest on their side, back, or belly a good night’s sleep. Good mattresses will provide generally good support, but might not be perfect for those who have specific support needs.

The Bad

A mattress that loses points in our support category fails to deliver the relief the body needs from the pressure points created by laying down. These mattresses provide only average support for keeping the spine properly aligned, and might only be suited to specific styles of sleeper. As a result, these won’t be for everyone, though if your sleeping style matches what the mattress is best at, then it can still be a phenomenal mattress for you.

Value

Price plays a large role in the value of a mattress, but it isn’t everything. For example, a mattress that costs $300 more than a competitor but that will also last five years longer provides a much better value even though the sticker price in nominally higher. Therefore, this category looks at what you get for the amount of money that you pay, and is a good overall measure of the quality of a particular mattress.

The Good

The very best mattresses will provide outstanding qualities at a competitive price. They will be made of high-quality, durable material, and will offer excellent support, comfort, cooling, and quality for the cost. Because this is a relative assessment, we compare a mattress to its nearest competitors when determining the value it offers. After all, a mattress that costs $4,000 shouldn’t be able to be compared to one that costs $400, or it would be a rip off.

The Bad

Mattresses can lose points for value in a number of different ways. The mattress might be priced higher than its competition, offer a thinner primary comfort layer, use average materials, materials that lack any special qualities, or a mattress that suffers from some other problem. While we don’t review any mattress that are outright bad, a lower rating in this category indicates that we think you might be paying more than you should be based on what the mattress you’re getting offers.

Cooling

Even people who would rather be warm than cool generally agree that the more a mattress holds heat, the more uncomfortable it is. Therefore, the cooling category is an evaluation of how well a mattress releases heat and avoids trapping it or warming up. This is also a bigger concern for some mattress types more than others. For example, foam mattresses are much better at trapping heat, and therefore are less cool, than spring mattresses. To address this we try to do an apples to apples comparison as well as comparing the sleep experience to mattresses overall.

The Good

The best cooling mattresses use innovative construction techniques and materials to provide a cool, relaxing sleep surface. The best mattresses will be able to hold a person with a cover without the temperature of the mattress surface getting much hotter than the general temperature in the room. Spring and coil mattresses will generally provide the coolest surfaces, as this construction type allows for ample airflow within the mattress to keep heat from getting trapped.

The Bad

Mattresses that lose points for cooling are usually constructed from materials that trap a lot of heat and don’t provide the airflow needed to release it. As a result, their sleeping surfaces get progressively warmer the longer the night goes on. While these mattresses will still be fine for most sleepers and can have many other desirable traits, people who sleep hot will likely find them less comfortable than they would prefer a mattress to be.

Edge Support

The edge support category is one of the most underrated characteristics that you can find in a mattress. Good edge support means that the mattress will be more comfortable for people who sleep close to the edge of the bed, those with partners, those who are a bit heavier, and people who like to sit on the bed. Moreover, edge support can be an important quality for grown up fun in bed, and more robust edge support will make a mattress better overall.

The Good

The best edge support mattresses have an edge that holds up very well while sleeping. People should be able to lay down on the very edge of the bed without the edge collapsing and dropping the person onto the floor. Even the best mattresses will have some give on the edge if you are sitting on it or putting your whole body weight on it in some way.

The Bad

Mattresses that fare poorly in edge support will show a higher degree of edge sinkage in our tests. Heavier sleepers may have a hard time sleeping along the edge of the bed. Moreover, sitting on the edge of the bed will compress or sink in the mattress significantly. The mattresses that fare good enough for us to review but that have edge support issues will have a sinkage that is almost 50% of the total thickness of the mattress, which risks dumping someone off the side.

Sex

Everyone of a certain age knows that beds are used for more than sleeping. Sex is an important part of almost every romantic relationship, and therefore how well a mattress facilitates sex is an important quality for a mattress to have.

The Good

Mattresses that score well for sex provide excellent comfort and support. It is resilient enough to support nearly any position, and has sufficient bounce to help maintain a rhythm. Moreover, mattresses that are good for sex frequently have excellent edge support, expanding the possibilities for adult play time.

The Bad

If a mattress loses points for sex that’s because it has a few drawbacks. It’s important to remind readers that a lower score here doesn’t mean that sex is awful or impossible on this mattress, but that it lacks some of the qualities that make a mattress preferable for sex. These might include insufficient edge support, too much sinking, excessive hug, or a lack of bounce which can interfere with rhythm. On the whole, these mattresses usually create a situation where people have to work harder to achieve their goals.

Smell

Some people may not think about how a mattress smells, but mattresses, and newer mattresses particularly, do have a smell. This category doesn’t just measure how agreeable or off-putting the smell is, but also evaluates how quickly the smell dissipates. Foam mattresses are the most likely candidate to have a stronger smell at first, which is why the smell quickly leaving is a desirable quality.

The Good

Mattresses that fare well in the smell category have minimal to no smell when they are brand new. Moreover, a mattress can still rank highly in this category if it has an odor, but that odor dissipates quickly once the mattress is out of its packaging and set up. A minor odor that doesn’t linger isn’t a reason to knock points off in our view.

The Bad

Mattresses that don’t do as well in this category have a stronger smell, one that is particularly disagreeable, or one that lasts for longer. In general, the mattresses that fare the worst in this category have a scent that will stick around for 1-2 weeks. The smell will decline over the course of that time, but it is going to be noticeable for far longer than the best mattresses.

Company

Frequently who you do business with is just as important as the nature of that business. That’s why we’re letting you know of any notable qualities about a company that produces a product we’re looking at. The way that we evaluate a company takes into account the quality of their product and manufacturing process, honesty, transparency, customer service, and community involvement.

The Good

The best mattress companies are those that have a legacy of making a quality product at a competitive price while paying attention to environmental concerns and taking an active role in their community. Moreover, the best companies also provide excellent customer service and offer a high degree of transparency when it comes to their sales processes and pricing.

The Bad

Companies that don’t rank as well are usually still pretty good. They might have issues with price transparency, lackluster customer service, questionable marketing efforts, or similar qualities. They don’t take an active role in their community or they may have the best environmental track record.

Refunds

Refunds are important. If you don’t like a product, you should be able to get your money back. This category checks how well a company manages refunds, what kind of requirements they have, and what, if any, fees are associated with the refund process.

The Good

The best refund policies cover shipping or pickup, and refunds are issued quickly with minimal questions. The best policies don’t have a large number of restrictions or use fine print to create loopholes.

The Bad

Companies that lose points for refunds usually charge a shipping and/or restocking fee, may have a refund process that is overly cumbersome, or suffer from similar issues.

Trial

Most mattress companies offer trial periods these days. This goes along with the increase in online mattress sales, where consumers might be nervous about buying a mattress that they haven’t had the chance to lay on or sit on and evaluate for themselves.

The Good

The best trial offers extend for more than 75 nights and offer a full refund if you aren’t satisfied. The trial period doesn’t have any limitations, restrictions, or loopholes, and the process of returning the mattress if you’re not happy is simple and easy.

The Bad

Companies that offer 30 nights or less for their train period will lose points in this category. A company can also get poor marks if there are tedious or overly difficult process to return the mattress before the trial is over, or that charge fees or shipping costs if you decide you don’t want the mattress.

Warranty

The last aspect we look at for mattresses is the warranty. Almost every mattress comes with some kind of warranty. There are some key differences, however, in what each warranty covers and what kinds of terms and conditions it has.

The Good

The best mattress warranties run for more than 10 years. They cover all the materials and construction with few or no restrictions. Additionally, they offer a replacement if indentations of 1” or more form on the mattresses. The best warranties are also easy to understand and don’t have loopholes or restrictions.

The Bad

Mattresses that don’t get the full value of the warranty will have limited time periods, although all the mattresses we review offer at least a 10-year warranty. The terms of the warranty might not be the best, and the indentations the warranty covers will be 2” or deeper. Moreover, a company or mattress can lose points if the warranty is worded in a confusing or misleading way.

As you can see, we’ve done our best to ensure the highest-quality reviews we can muster. Feel free to check out the different mattress reviews we have to offer, or look into the different categories to find the best mattress for your primary mattress concern.