Serta iComfort Blue Max 3000 Elite Plush

Hi all, So my wife and I went mattress shopping for the first time in about 15 years and we landed on the new Serta iComfort Blue Max 3000 Elite Plush as our favorite. It figures since it was $2499… I was just wondering if anyone knew of a comparable mattress from one of the online companies that we could try and would cost 1/3rd of the price…

This was a soft mattress but still felt like there was a good amount of support. I was leaning towards the Brooklyn Bedding BME soft version, but after reading it sounds like that might be too soft.

Any opinions or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

Hi jk1234,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum! :slight_smile:

Unfortunately, Serta, like many of the larger “S” brands, doesn’t tend to provide any meaningful information about their products in order for you to begin to make an educated guess about the componentry on the inside if you were attempting to find something that was in a “similar” range of comfort. Additionally, the density of the materials used by many of the larger brands doesn’t tend to approach that of many of the smaller manufacturers who tend to use denser and better materials, so even if you knew the exact specifications of the Serta mattress it wouldn’t be something worth emulating.

The Serta mattress you were looking at uses a 6" polyfoam core with a racetrack edge, on top of which appears to be 1.5" of some sort of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) for airflow and firmness. Above this is 2" of polyfoam, then 2" of memory foam, another 1.5" of memory foam and the topped by a final 1" of memory foam. This is a total of 4.5" of memory foam, and Serta rates this as a “soft mattress”.

There is more information in post #9 here about the different ways that one mattress can “match” or “approximate” another one. Every layer and component in a mattress (including the cover and any quilting materials) will affect the feel and performance of every other layer and component and the mattress “as a whole”, so unless you are able to find another mattress that uses exactly the same type of materials, components, cover and quilting, layer thicknesses, layer firmnesses, and overall design (which would be fairly unlikely), then there really isn’t a reliable way to match one mattress to another one in terms of “comfort”, firmness, and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences) based on the specifications of the mattresses (even assuming that you can find out all the specifications you would need for both mattresses you are comparing in the first place). I would instead focus on finding products (it seems that you like memory foam) in a plush category like the mattress you tested, but ones that use higher quality materials.

In general, mattress manufacturers try to differentiate their mattress from the mattresses made by other manufacturers and don’t normally try to “match” another mattress that is made by a different manufacturer so unless a manufacturer specifically says in their description of a mattress that one of their mattresses in the same general category is specifically designed to “match” or “approximate” another one in terms of firmness or “feel” and PPP and/or they are very familiar with both mattresses and can provide reliable guidance about how they compare based on the “averages” of a larger group of people that have compared them (different people may have very different opinions about how two mattresses compare) … the only reliable way to know for certain how two mattresses would compare for you in terms of how they “feel” or in terms of firmness or PPP (regardless of anyone else’s opinions of how they compare which may be different from your own) would be based on your own careful testing or actual sleeping experience on both of them.

In other words … the short version of all of this and the “bottom line” is that spending time testing major brand mattresses or any mattress where you can’t find out the specifics of the materials and components inside it and where another manufacturer doesn’t make a better quality/value mattress that they specifically describe as being similar is mostly wasted because it would be too risky to purchase and it can’t be used as a reference point to purchase another mattress that is “similar”.

If you can’t find a local retailer that offers memory foam mattresses that use higher quality materials, then you may wish to look online. A good place to start looking would be the members listed in post #21 here who are all very experienced and knowledgeable and specialize in providing the type of help and guidance on the phone that can help you make good choices. There are a wide range of memory foam options included in the choices there and I believe that all of them compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency. They will be the most knowledgeable about their products and would also be able to advise you as to which products they offer that might best approximate a plush feel like the Serta mattress you tested in person. You may also wish to look at some of the “simplified choice” mattresses listed in posts #1 and #2 in this topic, many of which will have a memory foam feel but fall closer to the budget range you were requesting.

The Brooklyn Bedding Best Mattress Ever (BME) will use a total of 4" of latex in the upper layers, as this would have a more resilient and different feel from the traditional “memory foam feel” in the Serta that you tested. And while most review and opinions are certainly well meaning, there is no replacement for your own personal testing, as no one can tell what might be “soft” to you as compared to what they might feel is “soft”, as there are no standardized comfort designations due to the infinite number of personal preferences/sleeping styles/sensitivities that people have.

You might be better served looking at items that are closer in componentry to what you tested in person, which could be similar to memory foam offerings form site members such as Novosbed, Rocky Mountain Mattress, Dreamfoam, Memory Foam Comfort, TMASC, and Nest Bedding, to name a few. There are also other memory foam offerings in the Simplified Choice thread I linked to earlier, as well as other manufacturers of quality memory foam mattresses (unfortunately I don’t keep a record of the individual mattresses or their specs and manufacturers in the hundreds of brands throughout the country, as it would be a bigger job than anyone could keep up with in a constantly changing market).

If you come up with more specific questions or try other models, I’ll be happy to do my best to answer any other questions you may have.

Phoenix