The traditional mattress industry is a racket. Vox wrote a long story last August teasing out all the ways mattress retailers rip you off, and showing how new, online, high-quality bed-in-a-box brands can help you skip the scam. But let's say you've decided to buy online — which company should you go with? It turns out the answer has a lot to do with how you sleep. As a person with a bad back, I spent a lot of time researching which one to buy before settling. The online mattress industry still lacks clear, easy-to access comparison information, and most companies only make one model. I tried out my two final choices in person. Here's what I learned. For back and stomach sleepers: Casper Unquestionably the most famous of the bed-in-a-box brands, Casper blankets the internet and the New York City subway system with its ads. So when I decided to buy a new mattress online they were my first choice. A visit to their Manhattan showroom revealed a comfortable mattress.
But I found it a bit too firm for my tastes. The reviews site Sleep Like the Dead has this to say about the differences between different sleep styles: BACK sleepers tend to prefer medium to firm firmness. Back sleepers often do not require a soft mattress because pressure on the body is more evenly distributed than is the case for stomach and especially side sleepers. Back sleepers with large buttocks in proportion to the rest of their body may prefer medium (or even soft) firmness as opposed to firm to minimize pressure. SIDE sleepers (especially those of average to below average size) tend to prefer medium to soft firmness. This is due to the fact that pressure tends to be focused on the hips and shoulders, a fairly small surface area. If a side sleeper has shoulder pain, it likely means they have too firm a mattress and or too low a pillow. STOMACH sleepers (also known as front sleepers) tend to prefer medium firmness. Too much firmness for these sleepers can result in pressure on the knees and front of hips, while too much softness can cause the sleeper to sink too far into the mattress perhaps undermining neck / head alignment and or ease of breathing.
The medium-firm Casper mattress, perfect for back and stomach sleepers, was a bit too tough to conform to my body on its side. A Full-sized Casper costs $750. For side sleepers: Leesa Softer than the Casper, Leesa offers a bed-in-a-box perfect for side sleepers. Unfortunately, they don't have a showroom in my area. But both Leesa and Casper have excellent return policies so I decided to place an order and see how I liked it. After about a month, I can report that the Leesa is perfect for my side-sleeping, back-aching, medium build. Back sleepers with large buttocks and more heavyset stomach sleepers might also appreciate the brand's softer cushion. Full-sized Leesa mattresses retail for $715 after a $75 discount code is applied. A cheaper alternative: Tuft and Needle For those who want to spend less than Casper / Leesa prices on a mattress, but still want to circumvent the sketchy mattress store's cheapest offerings, Tuft and Needle may be a good alternative.
I haven't tried one out personally. However, Sleep Like the Dead reports that T&N's mattress is well made but very firm. It may be a good option for back sleepers who don't mind a harder bed. A Full-sized Tuft and Needle costs $500.Buying a new mattress is not fun. You have to head to a mattress store, lay around on mattresses for longer than you’d like, haggle with a salesperson about an aggressively overpriced mattress, then wait for a delivery guy to show up weeks later. I ordered my last mattress online. It seems crazy, but it worked out well... mostly. Most of us are willing to order just about anything from the internet, but mattresses seem a little weird. For one, they’re huge and hard to ship, not to mention expensive. But more importantly, they’re one of those rare things that you really want to try before you buy. All mattresses are a little different, and your sleep is important. Picking the right mattress can make a significant difference in how well you snooze.
Yet, there’s a sameness in mattresses that’s hard to describe. Sit on a $5,000 mattress and a $1,000 mattress, and many of us can’t tell the difference. Even comparison shopping can be a pain since manufacturers sell exclusive lines to different retailers, meaning you have to hit up a number of different stores just to pick a mattress. Then, when you finally pick something you want, you’re expected to haggle over the price. Last year, The New York Times spend nearly 3000 words describing the Kafkaesque experience of shopping for a mattress.In short, buying a mattress is a huge pain in the ass. A couple of months ago, I needed a new mattress. I’m a heavy sleeper in that I can sleep on a rock, so the idea of testing dozens of different mattresses for some supposedly quantifiable level of coziness seemed absurd. So, I looked into purchasing one online.It turns out, there are a few options in this arena. All of them offer generous return policies. Most of them are considerably cheaper than retail options, and all of them come with two added benefits that appealed to me instantly: no haggling and no salesperson BS.
Buying online saves you the hassle of going to a bunch of retailers, dealing with a pushy salesperson, haggling down the price, and attempting to tell the difference between dozens of mattresses that all feel the same. It’s fast, delivers in a few days in a small box that’s easy to move around, has a 100 day trial to see if you really like it, and you can return it if it doesn’t work out. Your options are limited here, but that’s actually part of the appeal for me. I don’t want to make choose between dozens of options, I want just a few.I was surprised to find that there are quite a few companies selling mattresses over the internet. Here, I’m going to stick with a few startups that exist solely online as direct-to-consumer options. Direct-to-consumer means there’s no obnoxious salesperson and they’re set up to deal with shipping and returns easily. It also means they’re a bit cheaper than comparable mattresses from mainstay companies like Sealy Serta. Most of these companies only make one type of mattress.
They all have different sizes, but you don’t need to choose between a bunch of options for pillowtops or different firmness ratings. Most specialize in memory foam, but Saatva caries varying types of spring mattresses, so there’s something for everyone here. So, before we even get into it, it’s worth pointing out that memory foam (or whatever similar variation each company sells) mattresses aren’t for everyone as they tend to be a bit more firm and some people feel like they get a little hot. There are a few different direct-to-consumer manufacturers I looked at:Each company has different firmness and comfort levels. I went with Tuft & Needle because I prefer a firm mattress, and Casper is supposedly a bit more “pillowy,” while Leesa seems to fall somewhere in the middle. You can get a ton of info about different aspects of each of the above mattresses, including customer reported satisfaction levels about everything from how good they are for sex to how comfortable they are for heavyset people, over on Sleep Like the Dead.Okay, so here’s where things get weird.
At least in the case of both Tuft and Needle and Casper, the unboxing process is pretty bizarre. As you can see in the video above, you’ll essentially pull the mattress out of a box that’s far too small to fit a mattress, unroll it, then cut a slice in a vacuum sealed plastic wrapper to make the mattress expand. Then you’ll sit around and watch it expand for a couple hours. Since it’s foam that’s been sitting in a vacuum-sealed bag for a while, it smells a little weird at first, like a G.I. Joe sitting in boiling water. But the smell goes away after a couple of hours. The whole process is actually pretty fun to watch (at least compared to boredom of bringing home a normal mattress). It’s also pretty easy to get the mattress from your door to your bedroom because the box is so small. That means no finagling your way around crazy staircases or through tiny doorways. After the mattress expands and the smell goes away, you can get to sleep.Here’s the fun part: for about 100 days (in most cases), you get to just sleep on the mattress and decide how you feel about it.
Most traditional mattress stores have a 30 day return policy, but according to Sleep Like the Dead, most full refund policies come with fees ranging from $50-$500. Many also only offer store credit as opposed to a refund. Returns and refunds for all four of these direct-to-consumer companies are free and will refund you 100%, which is a pretty killer deal, all things considered. I’ve never actually had a new mattress as an adult. I’ve had barely used hand-me-downs from guest rooms, but never an actual, brand new, weird smelling mattress. So this whole trial period was an odd thing for me.As it turns out, a new mattress feels pretty much like my old mattress, except there’s no weird dip in the middle that sucks you in and attempts to suffocate you. The Tuft & Needle was, as reviews suggested, more on the firm side, which worked well for me. There’s no weird sinkage when you sit on it, even on the edge. Like most foam mattresses, there’s almost no motion transfer, so you barely notice if someone’s rolling around restlessly in their sleep next to you.
I slept well the first night and pretty much every night since (unless LAPD decided to hover over my place with a helicopter for a few hours searching out a suspect in a high speed chase, which it turns out no mattress can help with).Through the hundred day trial period, I tried to pay a lot of attention to how I felt about the mattress, but as time wore on, I cared less and less. This is a good thing. The mattress disappeared into my life and out of my brain, and when my calendar alarm went off reminding me that the 100 day trial was over, I shrugged it off and went back to what I was doing. This mattress, the one I’d spent almost zero brainpower to pick out, the one that I spent very little time shopping for, is fine. Which is what I want. I don’t want to think about it.As I discussed above, each of these companies packs in a pretty hefty warranty and an excellent return policy. It sounds great on the surface, but that doesn’t mean the whole process works for everyone. As for the return policy, it’s worth considering the amount of time you’ll have to dedicate to the whole process.
Once you get it set up in your house, you’ll get the trial period to try out the mattress, and if you don’t like it, they’ll come pick it up. I didn’t need to return mine, but judging by a number of reviews on Amazon (where each of these mattress companies sells directly if you don’t want to order from their web sites), even people who hated the mattresses had no problems returning them. Though, it’s important to note that the return policy through Amazon is only 30 days as opposed to 100 days from the manufacturer. You’ll have to shop for another mattress, sleep on the floor for a while, and go through the whole process of sitting around at your house and waiting for the UPS guy again. I work from home, so none of this mattered to me, but it’s something worth considering before you dive in. There’s a reasonable chance you will not like the mattress you chose, so make sure you’re okay with whatever hurdles you need to jump through to get it returned.There’s one big caveat with the warranties too.
A warranty is only as good as the company behind it, and since many of these manufacturers are new, they might not last. If the company goes under, so does your warranty. This is a pretty important thing to consider, so if you’re not comfortable losing that warranty, it’s probably not worth it.Finally, one of the appealing aspects of buying a mattress locally is that they’ll take your old mattress away for free. Obviously, this isn’t possible when it’s the UPS guy dropping of a giant box filled with a rolled up mattress at your house, so you’ll need to figure out a way to get rid of your old mattress. In some cities, you’ll just need to alert your waste management company ahead of time and they’ll grab it with your trash, but you may need to pay an additional fee. That said, for me, this was a great experience. I really didn’t want to exert much mental effort on picking out a mattress and this was a great way to do just that. I did get lucky in the fact that I ended up liking the mattress, but I’m also pretty sure that the decision wasn’t as important as I’d made it out to be.