My husband and I love the feel of the Stearns and Foster Catalina plush and the optimum inspiration. We live in the chicago area and know you would reccomend the Quality Sleep Shop but I don’t know which mattress would be similar to these so I could compare prices before traveling all the way there. It is about an hour away. We have a verlo here but haven’t visited them yet. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My husband put down $50 on the Optimum and I am looking for any other options for us. This whole mattress thing makes my head want to spin.
Hi busymom,
Price comparisons would only be meaningful if you were making “apples to apples” comparisons between mattresses with similar materials and components inside and because a mattress is only as good as the materials and components inside it … you won’t find Quality Sleep using the same lower quality materials that are in the Stearns and Foster so there really would be nothing to compare to from a quality/value point of view. Having said that … you would find mattresses there in a similar budget range that used much higher quality materials.
Based on the materials they use … Quality Sleep will have much better quality and value than any mattress you may consider that is made by a major brand and they are among the best value in the country. I would purchase any mattress they made vs any mattress made by a major manufacturer.
In terms of feel and performance … they have a wide range of mattresses and which one felt similar to you would depend on your own objective and subjective perceptions. Post #2 here talks about trying to “match” different mattresses and as you can see in this case the only way to do so would be with personal testing with a common set of “targets” (rather than the subjective “feel” of another mattress) because Quality Sleep wouldn’t make the kind of lower quality/value mattresses made by Stearns & Foster in this budget range.
The first step is to gather some initial information and know what to “rule out”. Post #1 here will help a lot and the guidelines here it links to would eliminate any Stearns & Foster as well as any of the Optimums because they aren’t in the same quality value range as many other much better choices you have.
If you have already spent more time testing these mattresses than it would have taken you to make the drive to Quality Sleep and back then a trip there would have already saved you a great deal of time, frustration, and confusion about what to buy 
I would talk with Tim or any of his staff on the phone if you need any re-assurance of their overall approach and level of knowledge and service and then take the trip there to test the mattresses they have on their floor. You will end up with something much higher quality and value and more suitable for your long term needs and preferences than anything you could choose with the major brands and outlets you have been visiting already.
Phoenix