Visit a retailer that carries our products and try out our mattresses and pillows to see which one works for you. Each of the Authorized Retailers shown here carries authentic BedInABox® products, backed by our product warranties.When Casper, Leesa, Tuft & Needle, and other online mattress retailers started selling beds in a box in the U.S., their share of sales was so small that traditional manufacturers brushed them off. But now those same major players have taken notice and are working hard to debut their own online-only foam mattresses. In doing so, they're adopting the most alluring policies of the newer companies while aiming to beat them at their own game. Cocoon by Sealy (shown above) is one of 20 mattresses we’ve just bought for testing, but it’s unlike any Sealy you’ve seen before. For one, it comes folded up tightly in a box—as does the typical bed in a box sold online. This Sealy foam mattress comes in two choices, soft or firm, and is sold online only for $850 (queen size), the same price as Casper’s The Casper.
Another mattress, the Dream Bed, comes from the retailer Mattress Firm, which recently bought Sleepy’s. This bed in a box also comes in two choices. For $829, you can get the Original Dream Bed; for those who sleep hot, the $999 Cool Dream Bed has a gel-infused layer on top. We're testing this bed in a box, too. Read our special report on why Americans can't sleep. As with Casper, Leesa, and Tuft & Needle, shipping is free for both the Sealy and Mattress Firm foam mattresses. You get 100 days to decide whether you like the Cocoon, the same as for the $850 Casper, the $890 Leesa Medium Firm, and $600 Tuft & Needle T&N in our mattress Ratings. For the Dream Bed, it’s 180 days. And both companies have matched the return policy of their smaller competitors: If you’re unsatisfied within the trial period, you’ll get your money back. For the Cocoon bed in a box, Sealy will arrange to donate the mattress to charity—as do Casper and Tuft & Needle. You don’t have to put it back in the box.
But the Dream Bed goes one better with a promise to donate one bed in a box to charity for every one sold. By moving into the bed-in-a-box space, Sealy and Mattress Firm are betting they can absorb more losses over the long run than the smaller companies can. Buying a mattress without trying it out, something we typically advise against, can be risky (though Casper and Tuft & Needle have showrooms), and we recommend that you make such a purchase only if returns are hassle-free. It remains to be seen whether these major brands can win the loyalty of millennials, many of whom want to order a mattress the way they order everything—online. They also might view their parents' brands with disdain. The Casper, Leesa, and Tuft & Needle foam mattresses we’ve tested are among our top mattress picks. We’ll let you know whether the bed-in-a-box offerings from Sealy and Mattress Firm make the grade as well. Need a New Mattress? Our current mattress Ratings include almost 60 innerspring, foam, and adjustable-air beds, and this summer we expect to update our survey-based Ratings of mattress brands and retailers.
Be sure to check our mattress buying guide if you haven't shopped for a mattress in a few years. Would you buy a mattress sight unseen? Tell is about it below.When Will Haley decided to buy a king-size mattress, he did what he does when he needs a new computer or baby diapers: he bought it online. Never mind that the mattress cost $950, and he wasn’t going to be able to try it out. “I just didn’t want to go to a showroom,” says the 36-year old software developer and father of three from Rocky Mount, N.C. “That is the last place in the world I want to take my kids.” The biggest pain about buying a new mattress is … well, just about everything. You spend an hour in the store, awkwardly flopping on and off beds trying to find the one that meets the Goldilocks standard of “just right.” Then you have to lug the winning mattress across the parking lot, onto your car roof, up stairs, and into your home. I recently transplanted from New York City to San Francisco, and the first major purchase I made — hesitantly — was a new mattress.
But I did things a little differently this time. Casper, called “the Warby Parker of mattresses,” sells mattresses on its website and delivers them to your door in a box not much bigger than a nightstand. The Manhattan-based sleep startup raised $13 million in Series A funding last August, and famously generated $1 million in its first 28 days after launch. My shopping experience began online, and was over and done with in fewer than 10 minutes. Casper sells just one type of mattress, dubbed “The Casper Mattress,” because the company prefers to “put all our energy into building the ideal bed … rather than confuse you with tens (or hundreds) of models that all start to feel the same after a while.” It combines latex foam for cooling and bounce, and memory foam for support. A hand-sewn, custom-designed cover seals the layers. I ordered a full-sized mattress for $750, comforted by the knowledge that I could return my Casper mattress for any reason within 100 days.
Plus, it was free to ship! Less than one week later, it arrived! My roommates wheeled the box on a cart into my room. We turned it upright and cut open the box. Inside, a cloth bag held instructions and … … the most adorable little letter opener. I held the box at a 45-degree angle as my boyfriend wiggled the mattress out. It weighed about 60 pounds. We cut the mattress free from its felt binding using the letter opener. Then came time for the “unfurling.” The 10-inch-thick mattress expanded and flattened as it filled with air. My boyfriend cut through the plastic and the mattress sprung to life. In seconds, it was ready for sleeping. Here it is, all done up. I’ve slept in the bed for a few nights now, and here are my takeaways. The Casper Mattress is surprisingly springy, even for an experienced Tempur-Pedic-sleeper like myself. Its latex-and-memory-foam combination absorbs and contours to my body like a sponge. That said, the sinkage is minimal.