Which one should I pull the trigger on?

Hundreds of Bed in a box brands, all seemed to be filled with overwhelming positive reviews via their website, all offer the same free trial period, incentives, same website layouts, all of them telling me a story why there bed is better than other competitors.
Makes it kind of hard for the shopper, to make any clear cut decision, all of these competitors look identical.

I am roughly 150-160 lb, 5’8"tall, side/stomach sleeper.

My main goal is the purchase a bed with the best value, If I can get something with comparable comfort for several hundreds cheaper, Ill do it, but Im also not afraid to purchase an $1000 bed, if its really worth it.

After cycling through several review blogs, some of the big names that always seem to come first, is Leesa, Purple, Novosbed, Ghost Bed.

Pricey options include: Leesa, Purple, Novosbed, Ghost Bed, Alexander, Loom&Leaf, Zotto, Saatva, Casper, BB, etc.
Budget options include, Tuff and Needle, eluxurysupply, Brentwood Homes, Ghost Bed, Yogasbed
Cheap amazon $200 options include: Lucid, Zinus, Signature Sleep

As you can tell, Its hard to choose from, Help me pull the trigger on my first purchase!

Hi Digitair,

[quote]I am roughly 150-160 lb, 5’8"tall, side/stomach sleeper.

My main goal is the purchase a bed with the best value, If I can get something with comparable comfort for several hundreds cheaper, Ill do it, but Im also not afraid to purchase an $1000 bed, if its really worth it.[/quote]

While I can certainly help with “how” to choose … It’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or combinations of materials or components because the first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your own Personal preferences) or how a mattress will “feel” to you or compare to another mattress based on specs (either yours or a mattress), sleeping positions, health conditions, or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or your own personal sleeping experience (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

I’m not sure what you’ve read since you found the site but just in case you haven’t read it yet … the first place to start your research is the mattress shopping tutorial here which includes all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that can help you make the best possible choice … and perhaps more importantly know how and why to avoid the worst ones.

Two of the most important links in the tutorial that I would especially make sure you’ve read are post #2 here which has more about the different ways to choose a suitable mattress (either locally or online) that is the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort” and PPP that can help you assess and minimize the risks of making a choice that doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for and post #13 here which has more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a mattress compared to your other finalists based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

Again nobody can speak to how any specific mattress will “feel” for someone else or whether it will be a good “match” in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP because this is too subjective and relative to different body types, sleeping positions, and individual preferences, sensitivities, and circumstances and you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress … outside of PPP (which is the most important part of “value”), the next most important part of the value of a mattress purchase is durability which is all about how long you will sleep well on a mattress. This is the part of your research that you can’t see or “feel” and assessing the durability and useful life of a mattress depends on knowing the specifics of its construction and the type and quality of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label (or how a mattress feels in a showroom or when it is relatively new) so again I would always make sure that you find out information listed here so you can compare the materials and components to the quality/durability guidelines here to make sure there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress that would be a cause for concern relative to the durability and useful life of a mattress before making any purchase. I would certainly avoid any mattress that doesn’t meet the quality/durability guidelines relative to your weight range.

Assuming that the materials in a mattress you are considering are durable enough for your body type and meet the durability guidelines I linked relative to your weight range … the choice between different types and combinations of materials and components or different types of mattresses are more of a preference and a budget choice than a “better/worse” choice (see this article). Since your list is very long and needs to be narrowed down considerably … it would make sense to do some local testing to give you some sense of the type of materials and mattresses that you tend to prefer so you can start excluding some of them based on your preferences.

While other people’s comments about the knowledge and service of a particular business can certainly be very helpful … I would always keep in mind that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and I would be cautious about about using anyone else’s suggestions, experiences or reviews on a specific mattress (either positive or negative) or review sites in general as a reliable source of information or guidance about how you will feel on the same mattress or how suitable or how durable a mattress may be for you. In many if not most cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that would be a perfect choice for one person or even a larger group of people in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (even if they are in a similar weight range). In other words … reviews or other people’s experiences in general won’t tell you much if anything about the suitability, quality, durability, or “value” of a mattress for any particular person (see post #13 here).

Your own careful testing or personal experience is the most reliable way to know whether any mattress is a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP … but when you can’t test a mattress in person then the most reliable source of guidance is always a more detailed phone conversation with a knowledgeable and experienced retailer or manufacturer that has your best interests at heart and who can help “talk you through” the specifics of their mattresses and the properties and “feel” of the materials they are using (fast or slow response, resilience, firmness etc) and the options they have available that may be the best “match” for you based on the information you provide them, any local testing you have done or mattresses you have slept on and liked or other mattresses you are considering that they are familiar with, and the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you. They will know more about “matching” their specific mattress designs and firmness levels to different body types, sleeping positions, and preferences (or to other mattresses that they are familiar with) than anyone else.

Of course the guidance you would generally receive from a company that only offers a single mattress in a single firmness choice would generally be along the lines of “try it and see if you like it and if you don’t then you can return or donate it and receive a full refund” because there aren’t any other options that they offer as an alternative.

[quote]some of the big names that always seem to come first, is Leesa, Purple, Novosbed, Ghost Bed.

Pricey options include: Leesa, Purple, Novosbed, Ghost Bed, Alexander, Loom&Leaf, Zotto, Saatva, Casper, BB, etc.
Budget options include, Tuff and Needle, eluxurysupply, Brentwood Homes, Ghost Bed, Yogasbed
Cheap amazon $200 options include: Lucid, Zinus, Signature Sleep[/quote]

There is more information about many of these along with many of the other “simplified choice” online mattresses in post #2 here in the simplified choice mattress topic and the first post in the same topic would be well worth reading as well. For the simplified choice mattresses (which aren’t such a simplified choice any longer) that I haven’t added to the list yet a forum search will bring up more information about them.

At the very least I would avoid the last group of “cheap” mattresses completely since none of them meet the guidelines I would suggest and they would all make risky choices. I would also avoid any of the others that have a weak link in their design and don’t meet the durability guidelines as well

Phoenix

You sound much like myself about 2 months ago (and I’d wager like most of the forum users here at one point or another :stuck_out_tongue: ). We recently moved cross-country and decided before moving that we were going to toss our old Queen mattress and replace it with a King on this end. I did a ton of research on all the same brands you mentioned (well, not the cheap Amazon options…) and slowly narrowed down the field for various reasons.

I will say one thing that helped tremendously in making a decision was actually going to a local bed store just to feel a bunch of beds. I had never felt memory foam or latex before, and while it’s not at all one-feel-fits-all, I wanted to give it a test run in person, so off to Sleep Train we went. In our particular case, after bouncing around a dozen beds or so, we had it down to a “top 3” in the store. My wife thought the Cloud Luxe Breeze (my #1 pick) was too soft, I thought some black diamond something or other she liked was too firm, and we both thought the Cloud Supreme Breeze was a good middle ground. This info helped narrow the field even further.

With the results of the “field testing”, I ended up chatting with the Novosbed support folks (my narrowed-down #1 pick at the time) to see what they’d recommend. I had been planning on going with their Medium mattress with their Soft comfort+ add-on, but they talked me out of that and strongly recommended their Soft mattress based on everything I told them. Boy am I glad they did!

So ignoring that everything I said above is relevant only to me personally, my suggested takeaways would be:
1.,) Do your research, try to narrow down to a “top few” online brands to focus on, whether it’s due to price, features,or whatever other personal reasons. Just narrow the field as best you can and don’t look back.
2,) Visit a local bed store and get an idea of what feels good to you. Foam, latex, hybrid, how firm, how soft, etc. Get model numbers of beds you like, but don’t want to pay $3000+ for :stuck_out_tongue:
3.) Contact the customer support for your top 1-2 online choices and give them your info, sleeping habits, and the recon you did at the local bed store. There’s nobody better to guide you towards the right product than the folks who make them. This also gives you a chance to see how the company handles their customers, in case you get a weird vibe or whatever at this stage you can bail out before giving them a bunch of money.

After all that, you should feel much better about your final choice, and once you take the plunge you’ll have 60, 90 maybe 120 days to evaluate the mattress with no risk. It’s hard to beat that!

Hi Magialisk,

Thanks for taking the time to share some great suggestions.

The only thing I would add to this is that it may be helpful to do the local testing at stores that will be able to tell them the specifics of the materials and components that are inside their mattresses so that they can more clearly identify the type of materials and mattresses that they tended to prefer. Sometimes for example a store may call a mattress a “latex mattress” when there is only a thin layer of latex buried somewhere deep inside the mattress which has very little bearing on what the mattress feels like or they may call a material “memory foam” when it isn’t really memory foam at all just because they believe the words “memory foam” will increase the chance of a sale. The staff at many chain stores often have little knowledge about the specifics of the materials and components in their mattresses and it can be somewhat frustrating to identify the mattresses they prefer only to find out that the staff at the store don’t really know much about what’s inside it.

This is also a great suggestion. Once you have done enough testing and have enough experience to “rule out” certain materials or mattresses then second guessing the decision will only re-introduce more uncertainty and confusion.

Phoenix

Thank you for everyones insights !, I decided to pull the trigger on the ghostbed, hopefully I won’t regret it, Ill also give sleep train a visit to compare as well, :slight_smile:

Hi Digitair,

Congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback once you’ve received it and have had the chance to try it out.

Phoenix

Congrats on taking the plunge! Don’t forget to come back and let us all know how it turned out after a month or two. We’re about 3 weeks into our Novosbed so far and loving it. All things considered I don’t think I could have made a better decision. Hopefully you’ll be saying the same once you have a chance to adjust to the Ghostbed!