Sure, it costs a lot and probably makes the most sense for those with support issues or an extreme dissatisfaction with their previous $1000 mattress. It’s important to remember that at $2,600, you’re not buying a mattress because it’s twice as good as a $1000 one; you’re spending $2,600 because even marginal improvements in support and sleep are worth the extra $160 a year over its 10-year warranty.
Another Supportive Alternative for Combination Sleepers
Dreamcloud’s been around since 2017, and in that time they’ve released three mattresses that aim for a luxury experience at a manageable price point. The latest two are variations on the brand’s original luxury hybrid mattress, which typically runs for around $1500, but has a sale price of $999 during Black Friday. For a mattress that’s a combination of foam and innerspring coils, it’s not surprising that this one falls in that medium-firm sweet spot of being just comfy enough to keep most average-weight people happy, and just supportive enough that your lower back won’t stage a protest in the mornings. It’s most likely a fit for someone who’s a side sleeper or a back sleeper (or both). Our tester called it a “a dreamy combo of pillowy and supportive,” with a design that’s “nice to look at even before you put the sheets on.”
It’s taller than a lot of mattresses out there at 14 inches, which can be helpful for people who want a little more elevation (and also a disadvantage for getting your fitted sheets to slide on without a struggle, as our tester found). There’s a plushy cashmere cover to it that feels soft to the touch, but if you’re worried about overheating with that kind of material, know that there’s also a gel memory foam layer right beneath it that’s designed to keep you cool.
The Best Memory Foam Mattress: Thuma
Part of the appeal of the Thuma experience is that your choices are limited. Thuma’s classic mattress is offered in only one variety: a foam slab (comprised of two layers of polyurethane foam, and one cushy latex subsection on top) all sewn up in a quilted Tencel cover. In this case, less is more. The mattress is an optimal blend of soft and supportive, and our tester reports that laying on it really does feel like sinking into a cloud—but a cloud with seriously firm underpinnings. The foam embodies all the good qualities of an innerspring/memory foam duet, except with none of the bulky heft that such mattresses typically carry. And it sits perfectly atop the Home Award-winning bed frame the brand offers while neutralizing the effects of body movement.
At around $1,000 bucks, it’s around the same price as the Leesa below, but we sense that its medium firm foundation will sit better with most combination sleepers than the slightly softer cushion of the latter. Best of all, the thing is ridiculously easy to set up. Arriving in three separate boxes, our tester notes that assembling the bed takes as little as 10 minutes and “offers the satisfying sensation of building a Lego set.” Even if, like him, you happened to miss the instruction manual that arrived in one of the boxes, assembly is so intuitive that it can still be completed in minutes without any head scratching involved.
Another Great Foamy Option
Like the Thuma, Leesa’s best-selling original mattress is composed of three layers of foam, but doesn’t feel anything like the cheaper bricks of memory quicksand. It provides the best parts of the material—solid support, a really comfortable give—while staying cool and keeping just a little bit of bounce. This one feels like a true medium, plushy yet supportive in a way that made our brains want to fall asleep the moment we laid on it.
The Best Mattress for Fine-Tuning Your Sleep: Eight Sleep Pod Pro
One of our Fitness Award winners last year, the five-layer foam mattress Eight Sleep Pod Pro edged its way into the fitness category purely based on the sleep tech baked into it that rival those of a smart watch. The Pod Pro includes medical-grade sensors that chart data like your heart rate, respiratory rate, and movement, which are easy to pore over during your waking hours via Eight Sleep’s app if you’re wondering why you look so worn out despite a supposed eight hours, for example. For the person who wants to get extra precise with fine-tuning their sleep preferences, the mattress also includes heating and cooling capabilities (between 55 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit) that each individual sleeper can adjust based on whether they tend to burn up or get the chills at night. The mattress even includes a built-in alarm that gently wakes each person with chest-level vibrations and a gradual temperature change, which sure beats the blare of a traditional alarm.
The Best Budget Mattress: Allswell
It’s easy to forget that what you’re sleeping on is just fine—or that it was just fine before it got a little old and lumpy. It might feel like your only options are to stay with your old mattress or upgrade to something that’s close to $1000. But there are a range of cheaper options that are worth considering for your starter apartment or mostly abandoned guest room. If you’re on a shoestring budget, we’d suggest the Allswell mattress. At $329, it offers the best value in mattresses that you’ll find anywhere. Allswell, a brand run by Walmart, is a hybrid consisting of an innerspring base and a memory foam top. It’s thinner and less supportive, but, surprisingly, it’s still pretty comfortable. Nearly all our testers were shocked when they discovered how affordable this mattress was. “This is the kind of bed you’d be excited to jump on if you were a kid,” said one editor who visited our mattress showroom. That a mattress this cheap comes with a limited 10-year warranty and a 100-night risk-free trial, is well, crazy.
Another Great Budget Option: Spa Sensations Serenity
Most mattresses that fall under $200 are a hard-as-rock innerspring or a tremendously saggy hunk of foam, the kind of thing you impulse buy for your guest room and forget about until a snoring partner gives you reason to get acquainted with it. Not this one. The Spa Sensations Serenity mattress is all killer, no filler, and a sister brand to the affordable mattress kings over at Zinus. It’s one that came to us via word of mouth (as many of reviewers will attest, it’s the kind of thing that’s so criminally cheap for the quality, you just have to pass it on).
The Editors of GQ
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