Need a New Bed? The 16 Best Mattresses to Buy, According to Our Experts

Our team of sleep experts has spent years researching, testing, and deconstructing over 300 mattresses. The majority of our testing takes place in our 6,000-square-foot mattress warehouse in Reno, Nevada. In addition to the office space where our team tirelessly collects mattress data, there are also two simulated bedrooms that we use for testing and movie reviews. A back room also serves as an overflow for the hundreds of mattresses the team has tested.

Mattress testing is a very hands-on process that involves analyzing the construction, feel, and roll on the bed from multiple angles. Our team consists of different genders, body types, and sleeping positions, allowing us to give each bed a well-rounded picture that we can summarize into recommendations for the average person.

Firmness and feel: Firmness and feel are some of the most subjective factors when testing mattresses. How firm a mattress feels depends on how much pressure you put on the bed—aka your body weight—and this varies from person to person. We often find that our perception of a bed’s firmness doesn’t always match a brand’s claims. Our sleep team recently developed a way to measure the true firmness of a mattress: a machine called the Mattress Smasher 9000. This patented device and accompanying software were developed in-house by our lab technicians. It presses into the center of the mattress and measures the firmness to score each bed on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being firmest and 1 being softest. While we also personally test each bed for perceived firmness and feel, we use data from the MS9K to supplement our conclusions.

Here’s the data we got from testing the best mattresses with our Mattress Smasher 9000. Sorted from the softest beds to the firmest, here’s how the mattresses scored on our firmness scale.

Durability and construction: We can’t sleep on every mattress we test for years to test its durability (although we have with some). While we do note a bed’s construction, we use that to determine how durable and supportive a bed will be over time. For example, Saatva earned a 10 support score during testing for its sturdy construction and dual-coil system.

Motion isolation: When I say motion isolation, I mean how well a bed can dampen movement across its surface. We test this by having multiple teammates move around and measure how much movement they can feel. Memory foam generally performs best in this area. For example, the Nectar Premier mattress scored higher for motion isolation because the memory foam layers are better at dampening motion compared to innerspring mattresses.

Edge support: This may not seem like a big deal, but edge support is important if you sleep on the edge of the bed. Think about how strong the perimeter of the bed is. If it sinks in when we sit or lie on it, it doesn’t have good edge support and will get a score that corresponds to where it falls in the data.

Temperature: Many brands claim that their mattresses are cooling, but few are. While adding cooling technology or gel-infused foams can help regulate temperature, it doesn’t mean they physically feel cool. We carefully evaluate each of the cooling features, but distinguish between temperature neutral and cooling. For example, Purple is a naturally breathable bed due to its grid construction, but we don’t consider it an actively cooling bed.

Read more about how we test mattresses.