How to Choose a Mattress: Expert Tips for Finding the Perfect Fit for Your Sleep Needs

Purchasing a new mattress can be daunting given the number of styles, sizes and features available today. And studies consistently underscore the importance of sleep as a foundation of human health, so it is critical to find the mattress that will give you the best night’s sleep.

Bottom Line Personal turned to Derek Hales, founder and editor-in-chief of the mattress-testing company Naplab.com, for a guide on how to choose a mattress. He provided answers to the pressing questions—what’s the best mattress for side sleepers?…What’s a good mattress for back pain?…Memory foam vs. innerspring?—and offered a comprehensive set of mattress-buying tips.

But before you start shopping, ask yourself if you really need a new mattress. “Some people really get hung up on how old their mattress is,” Hales says. But don’t assume you have to replace your mattress just because you’ve owned it for X number of years. The only reason to spring for a new mattress is that you consistently awaken feeling sore or exhausted.

Understanding Your Sleep Needs

Your mattress hunt should begin with an assessment of your sleep profile…

• Do you sleep primarily on your back, stomach or side?
• Do you sleep hot or cold?
• Do you have body pain or medical conditions that would point you toward certain features?
• Do you and your partner often disrupt each other’s sleep?

By first considering these questions, you can set priorities for your mattress shopping.

Mattress Types Explained

The three main categories of mattresses available today are foam, coil and hybrid.

Foam

A pure foam mattress consists of foam only, usually with comfort layers and support layers. The foam may be polyfoam (made with polyurethane), memory foam or latex foam.

Coil

Coil mattresses are built with either pocketed springs or innersprings. Innerspring is the older technology, where the springs are wired together throughout the mattress. Pocketed springs sit in individual sleeves and operate independently. These days, nearly every coil mattress has some foam in it.

Hybrid

Hybrid mattresses consist of a substantial layer of foam on top of coils. The foam can be any of the types described above, and the coils may be innerspring or pocketed, although pocketed is today’s standard high-performance choice for hybrids. One of the key hybrid mattress benefits is the comfort resulting from combining coils with foam.

Mattress Firmness and Support

“With all mattresses and all sleeping positions,” Hales says, “we’re trying to achieve a neutral spinal alignment.”

Common wisdom regarding how to choose mattress firmness: Your ideal firmness depends on your preferred sleeping position. Conventional advice…

• Side sleepers will want the hips to sink in deeper, so look for a softer mattress.
• Belly sleepers need less sinkage and thus should seek something firmer.
• Back sleepers need a mattress with moderate sinkage depth, so something in the medium to medium-firm range.

While that’s not bad advice, says Hales, you don’t need an elaborate mattress-firmness guide. “Based on my experience of talking with thousands of sleepers over the years, the vast, vast majority of people need a medium to medium-firm feel.”

There are soft, medium, medium-firm and other firmness options across foam, coil and hybrid mattresses. Ultimately, mattress performance depends far more on the brand, model, material types and material quality, all of which have a far greater impact on performance than merely the mattress type.

Two exceptions to consider…

Body weight: Most mattresses are designed for people who weigh between 120 and 280 pounds. So a queen or king mattress would be for two people, each 120 to 280 pounds. You don’t want to exceed 600 pounds for the total weight of both sleepers on the mattress. If you’re 300 pounds or more, you may need something firmer…if you weigh less than 120 pounds, you might need something softer than normal.

Pain: “If your doctor says, ‘Hey, you have this back condition that’s best remedied by a firm bed,’ you need to get a firm bed because that’s what the doctor ordered,” Hales advises.

Choosing the Right Mattress Size

In terms of mattress size, the basic US options are twin and twin XL (for solo sleepers) and full, queen and king that can fit two people. The king category has three subtypes—standard, California and split. A California king is four inches longer and four inches narrower than a standard king. A split king consists of two twin XL mattresses pushed together. A split king and a king mattress have the exact same footprint—76 by 80 inches.

“When it comes to size,” says Hales, “go as big as your room will accommodate” especially if you share a bed with a partner.

Key Features and Special Considerations

Cooling and breathability: Most people “sleep hot,” with three out of four sleepers saying that cooling mattress options are a top priority. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of hype regarding cooling, and it’s something you can’t really test in a mattress store. When a manufacturer uses language like “thermo-reactive fibers,” “cooling fibers” and “phase-change materials” or “PCMs,” try to learn the quantity of such materials in the mattress. The more the better. Best: Use price as a rough proxy here, Hales says. If a queen is priced below $1,500, any claims about cooling are suspect. We don’t usually see exceptional cooling until the price reaches around $2,000.

Motion isolation for couples: On the right mattress, you won’t feel your partner’s tossing and turning. The bigger the mattress, the less transfer. Foam transfers less than coils…and careful design with high-quality materials improves motion isolation. “At Naplab,” Hales says, “we use accelerometers to measure motion transfer and turn those numbers into a single score.” On its site, Naplab ranks the motion transfer of mattresses for consumers.

Hypoallergenic and organic options: Some companies cater to people with allergies or those who simply prefer more natural solutions. This remains something of a niche, but there are a good number of options available. “We sometimes see organic cotton, cashmere and wool,” Hales says.  These materials are typically used for the exterior cover but often are used within a quilted layer immediately below the top cover. In some cases, these materials may be used as a more robust, thicker comfort and/or support layer deeper within the mattress. But the mainstay in this category is latex, which provides a good mix of durability and overall performance. It is sometimes combined with those other materials or with coils.

Edge support and durability: You’ve certainly felt the difference between a mattress that practically sends you sinking to the floor when you sit on its edge and one that holds up robustly. More edge support is always better. A mattress with good edge support is better constructed than one with a sloppy edge and thus likely to last longer.

To help your mattress last: Always buy a high-quality mattress protector. “A typical adult loses between a half-liter and a liter of liquid per night,” Hales says. “A good portion of that liquid seeps down into the mattress, breaking it down so    you end up with much more sinkage, sagging and body impressions.” Also: Your warranty can be voided if you don’t keep your mattress covered. For the highest performance cooling protector, Hales recommends those sold by Bedgear and Sheex. For a more budget-friendly option, consider protectors sold by Malouf within their Sleep Tite brand.

Setting a Budget and Evaluating Value

The best three mattress brands by tested performance (according to the NapLab battery of objective and data-driven tests) are Winkbeds, Saatva and Leesa, according to Hales. That said, customer preferences may make one of these three brands or a different brand all together better for any specific sleeper.

Figure on spending between $1,500 and $2,000 for a queen-size mattress. In that range, we usually see performance gains increasing with each dollar spent. After $2,000, we begin to see diminishing returns. By the time you’re spending $3,000 or more for a queen, you’re mostly paying for the brand. Exceptions:
Fully adjustable-firmness mattresses…smart beds that track sleep metrics and adjust firmness and temperature…and super-organic all-natural mattresses.

Price also is driven by mattress type. Foam is least expensive, averaging about $1,100 for a queen, with coil being a close second. Hybrids are priced a bit higher, at $1,500, on average, and organics the most expensive, approaching $3,000.

What to prioritize when buying a mattress can be highly personalized. But, says Hales, “The two big features that usually are worth paying extra for are things that improve cooling and things that reduce motion transfer.”

Tips for Testing and Buying a Mattress

One of the quickest and best ways to get a rough idea of a mattress’s quality is to find out its weight. Heavier is almost always better. A queen should weigh around 120 pounds…a twin around 70 pounds…a king around 140 pounds. Think twice about one that weighs less than 100 pounds.

In-store vs. online shopping

Both have advantages. When you buy in the store, you can lie down on and feel the mattress, and most stores will deliver right to your bedroom. Buying online almost always saves you considerable money and bypasses pushy mattress salespeople. When you buy online, the mattress normally is delivered to your door, but you might need to hire someone to get it to your bedroom.

Warranties, trials and return policies

There’s little real risk in buying a mattress and having it turn out to not suit your needs. That’s especially true when you’re buying online because those retailers understand your misgivings about not being able to try a mattress in a store first. They generally have more generous policies around warranties, trials and returns. But whether you are buying online or in-store, check the return policies.