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Gone are the days where you had to walk into a store and work your way through a room filled with mattresses from front to back, laying on beds one by one. You also don’t have to haul a mattress on the back of your truck to transport it home from the store or pay the store you bought it from to deliver it for you.
Bed-in-a-box mattresses are becoming more and more popular as people realize their convenience doesn’t take away from their comfort, support and durability. These mattresses are just as comfortable and quality as some of the industry’s most popular traditional beds, and they’re shipped directly to your home inside of a box. The internet houses some of the best places to buy a mattress, and some models can’t be found anywhere else.
Best overall place to buy a mattress
Brooklyn Bedding fits the bill for almost any sleeper; from side or stomach, to petite or plus-size. The brand makes its own mattresses in Arizona and offers price-friendly beds that are quality made. You almost can’t go wrong with a Brooklyn Bedding mattress.
Brooklyn Bedding - Best place to buy a mattress overall
Made from its own factories in Arizona, Brooklyn Bedding mattresses offer some of the best mattresses at the most affordable price points. I had the option to take home a number of mattresses from our testing facility, and I chose a Brooklyn Bedding, which speaks to how comfortable they can be.
Sleepers can find a range of mattresses from Brooklyn Bedding that address certain needs, from its flagship Signature mattress and cooling bed Aurora Luxe, to a bed great for athletes and runners called the Spartan mattress.
Purple is a huge name in the bed-in-a-box industry, as the brand makes mattresses that the industry had never seen before Purple came along. Its secret sauce is the Purple GelFlex Grid, which is a slab of a gel-like material that’s soft, squishy and supportive at the same time -- kind of like a Dr. Scholl’s insole.
The brand has a wide catalog of Purple mattresses to pick from, including a list of hybrid beds. The Purple Restore mattresses come in different firmness levels and offer a similar feel to the original Purple, just with stronger constructions. The Rejuvenate line from Purple includes thick, premium pillow-top mattresses with the brand’s signature feel.
Firm mattresses may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but they offer great benefits if you’re a back or stomach sleeper, and if you live with back pain. Saatva offers one of the best firm mattresses, including the Saatva Classic.
It has multiple zoned layers for targeted support and pressure relief, two coil layers for an ultra supportive feel and is offered in three firmness levels. You can even pick between two heights: 11.5 inches or 14.5 inches. In nutshell, the Saatva Classic is a luxurious, fancy-hotel-worthy mattress with a very reasonable price tag. For those of you who want an ulta firm, extra supportive mattress, you can opt for the Saatva HD model.
Organic mattresses have an appeal because they are made with sustainably sourced, natural materials, which makes them hypoallergenic, antimicrobial and much less likely to off-gas. One of the best of the best is the Avocado Green mattress, backed by a host of different certifications verifying its “green” stamp.
The flagship Avocado Green mattress is a hybrid latex foam mattress with a firm profile, best for back and stomach sleepers. However, I’d recommend getting the pillow top. The brand also just added a plush option, making it available for a wider range of sleeping positions, including side sleepers.
When you think of memory foam, Tempur-Pedic is often a popular mattress that comes to mind. The Nectar mattress has a similarly dense, slow-responding feel that memory foam lovers look for, but it’s much more affordable.
Nectar offers multiple mattresses to address different needs. Their flagship bed is made with all foam, but you can also get the hybrid mattress, which is more supportive, durable and long-lasting (though, it’s also more expensive). With that said, Nectar beds are pretty price-friendly. They offer some of the most affordable beds on this list and tend to give free bundles with your purchase.
If you didn’t know, Walmart has its own brand of mattresses, and they are on brand with its price-friendly guarantee. The original Allswell mattress is one of the cheapest hybrid beds on the market, but it’s actually pretty nice.
I recommend it to anyone looking to spend less than $500 on a new bed. You can also get the Allswell Luxe mattress or Allswell Cool, both of which are good mattresses at incredibly low prices. The average mattress-in-a-box costs around $800 to $1,000, and that’s just for a foam bed. The Allswell mattresses have hybrid (foam and coils) constructions that accommodate all body types.
The Helix catalog of mattresses is extensive, and sometimes too many options can be a little overwhelming. Helix knows that and created a simple sleep quiz to match you with the perfect Helix mattress based on your answers.
I think the Helix Luxe mattresses will cater really well to couples because they come in a wide range of firmness levels, giving you and your partner a chance to find a good compromise between what you both need. The beds also have strong hybrid constructions with added lumbar and edge support and fluffy pillow tops that makes them feel real cozy.
The name Big Fig stands for “bigger figures,” and the brand designs mattresses to address the needs of heavier sleepers; extra support and long-lasting comfort. The Big Fig mattress is 13 inches thick, durable and has a firm, supportive profile. For sleepers around the 230-pound range, it should feel around a medium-firm, and a medium for those around 300 pounds or more. One of the reasons why it's so durable is its amount of extra supportive coils, as the Big Fig boasts 1,600 of them. It’s also stacked with multiple foam layers for increased comfort.
What to look for when buying a mattress
Not all mattresses are one size fits all. You may have to do some digging to find the mattress that fits your sleeping position, body type and any other needs you might have.
Firmness
Beds fall at different places on the firmness scale; soft, firm or somewhere in between. The right firmness level for you primarily depends on your sleeping position. Medium mattresses are good for most sleeping positions, however, because they offer a nice balance between soft and firm.
Feel
Mattress materials contribute to the feel of a mattress. Memory foam makes a bed feel dense and slow to respond to pressure. Latex and coils make a bed bouncy, and poly foam makes a mattress feel soft and neutral. It all depends on the feel you’re looking to get from your mattress.
Body type
Beds either have a foam or hybrid construction. Foam beds are fine for most people around 200 pounds or less, but people over the 230-pound range or so should consider a hybrid mattress. Beds should last around seven to 10 years or more, but an all-foam mattress won’t be nearly as long-lasting or durable for plus-size sleepers.
Sleeping position
Side sleepers should opt for a soft to medium firmness level, back and stomach sleepers should consider a medium to firm profile, and combo sleepers should look for a mattress that’s in between.
Temperature
If you’re a hot sleeper, live with hot flashes or are dealing with menopause, a cooling mattress may be the way to go. Most beds have some kind of technology to help them regulate temperature, but only a handful of beds help you sleep on the cool side.
See more: Best cooling mattress for hot sleepers
How we test mattresses
CNET editors pick the products and services we write about based on editorial merit. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission.
1. Firmness: We determine where a mattress falls on our scale between one to 10, with 10 being the firmest.
2. Feel: We get hands-on with our mattresses. We like to get a “feel” for how the materials inside the bed contribute to how we experience the bed. Some beds have a prominent memory foam feel or a bouncy latex foam feel.
3. Durability: The construction of a mattress and a brand’s warranty policy will help us determine how durable and long-lasting we anticipate a mattress will be.
4. Best body type: We try to figure out the kinds of people each mattress fits best. Hybrid beds suit heavier individuals more than all-foam mattresses do because they’re more supportive and durable.
5. Best sleeping position: A bed’s firmness level will help determine if it’s right for your sleeping position. Side sleepers usually sleep better on a soft mattress while back and stomach sleepers will sleep better on a firm bed.
6. Motion isolation: If you sleep with a partner you’ll want to consider this feature. We test motion isolation by placing a cup of water at the end of a bed and bouncing around to test how well it absorbs motion.
7. Edge support: We look at the materials inside of a mattress and physically lay on each edge of the mattress to get a feel for how well it'll keep us supported.