Is an expensive mattress worth the money?

A good mattress is definitely worth the money. They aren't cheap, I would expect to pay $1,000 for a queen size. Ten years ago we bought one from a department store during a sale, saved $ by buying a display model and saved another 10% by signing up for the store's credit card. It came to $1,000 delivered. How well you sleep affects your quality of life. Ideally you'll spend a third of your life on it.

I don't know your age, health, etc, but there are lots of reasons we hurt other than age. Ergonomics, repetitive stress injuries, regular old injuries. It doesn't take much to compound these issues into something that interferes with your life.

I spent the last twenty years sleeping on a mattress that wasn't right for my sleep style. It didn't feel great sleeping on my side and it has a slight divot. I didn't wake up in pain, but it definitely impacted the quality of my sleep.

I recently moved and bought a new tempurpedic. I went in, went through a calibration test of sorts and tried the top recommended matches. Ended up buying the top match, which was way expensive, but I now consistently get the quality of sleep I used to get at best once a week.

Two things: the mattress was $3k, and I still have chronic shoulder pain I manage with home physical therapy.

I guess my point is, the best mattress won't fix a problem not caused by a bad mattress. You might need PT, stretching, or some other physical routine to help manage your particular pain, just like I have special exercises for my shoulder that if I stop, it will start hurting again and prevent me from sleeping on my side, no matter the mattress.

So before you throw down money on a mattress, make sure you rule other reasonable things out, and make sure you understand the return policy. E.g., of you remove the tags you can't return, of there is any discoloration, no return, etc. Just make sure you have the details down pat.

I bought a $600 foam one at Costco, and it's the best mattress I've ever slept on. Unfortunately, this makes every other bed extremely uncomfortable, so YMMV.

I went to a mattress boutique and ordered my mattress there. I would never do it differently again, I love it every night. The saleswoman took great care of trying the different mattresses to see which one had the backs of my girlfriend and I in the best positions and whenever I'm back from a trip I feel again the greatness of my mattress

Yes, but with caveats. If you go to a big mattress store and buy from the big brands (Sealy, Simmons, Serta, etc.) you are getting a mattress that is cheaply built at a high price due to shitty private equity firms buying up the brands and squeezing every bit of value from them.

I ended up spending a fair bit ($2600 but the "equivalent" at the major chain store was $3400) on a locally manufactured mattress with more expensive materials like latex foam and wool but only after I tried a bunch and found one that kept me nice and aligned. Immediately I stopped waking up with the type of pain that would stay with me all day (I would be slightly stiff for 15 minutes instead), and now that my body is used to it I only very rarely wake up in pain.

The big thing is to find somewhere without shitty sales tactics, and to try a bunch of mattresses out and find out what works for you. I didn't like the memory foam mattresses, but some people love them. There is a reason why they make firm, medium, and soft mattresses. There are mattresses where the springs are the same all over, or vary based on where people keep their body weight.

I don't know of anyone that has a foam mattress that has liked it long term. We have mattress factory here in town, and there you can buy mattresses that are better than the stuff you buy in furniture stores for twice the price. Best bed I have owned. My king size was cheaper than the queen I bought at Macy's furniture previously, which was a top of the line there.

It's not so much being expensive, just not a cheap one and one that has the firmness you need. I've had good results with $200-400 mattresses from Amazon .

Yes, yes and yes. Please take care of yourself by buying a high-quality mattress and office chair (gaming chairs are a scam). Your health shouldn't have a price tag.

Price aside, just don't do what I did: use an old mattress way past its usable life (e.g. like 10 years... it was creaking).

I started having back pain. And once I got a new one, I immediately felt better.

I'm very happy with my purchase and it wasn't even that expensive. It's one of those internet "mattress in a box" ones. I paid ~$300 back in 2019, though it looks like it goes for $420 now. Brand is Lucid on Amazon. It's a hybrid style: it has both pocketed / encased coils like a traditional mattress, and layers of memory foam and latex on top.

A good mattress is worth it, but don't just go into a store like Mattress Firm (despite how good the company name is) and buy whatever they've got on display. Do some research first. Costco have some good mattresses but you can't really try them out first.

Don't get one that's extremely soft because you'll probably like firmer mattresses as you get older. You can add a topper to make it softer if needed.

Is it worth the money? You're going to spend something like 1/3 of your time on it. Make it a good one.

I recently spent £400 on a super firm mattress from IKEA that has a 10 year guarantee and a 10cm memory foam topper for £90. I thought my back pain was due to posture but it literally disappeared overnight after sleeping on this.

In my mid twenties, I started having problems with my back, hands, elbows, etc. I stopped doing a lot of things (e.g. playing musical instruments), which helped, but the back pain persisted until I started sleeping on the floor. I was desperate, and I had heard about this solution from old anecdotes.

Since then, I've noticed that firm mattresses and very slim pillows (or soft enough pillows) are okay. Soft mattresses and big pillows bring back all the discomfort and pain in a matter of hours. I still sleep on the floor, but a mattress for me might be waiting somewhere.

Probably. Quality typically correlates with cost and the quality of your sleep is one of the most important things in life

I don't know if it was expensive or not but I would pay a lot of money for whatever mattress my ex had. That bed was the best sleep I ever got. Unfortunately that relationship ended really bad so I can't contact her to ask about it.

Anything between you and the ground is always worth buying quality. Shoes, tires, mattresses, etc.

A good mattress is absolutely worth it but it may not necessarily be good just because it's expensive. I know someone that bought an expensive mattress with lots of memory foam and one year later it went from soft to very uncomfortable after the top layer got squished a lot.

I would say yes. For a good 30 years i slept on the cheapest matresses possible, because i didn't mind, always slept like a rock and never had any problems. Then for the forst time i bought a really "good" matress and it was a bit meh at first, because it was pretty hard. Then i bought a topper and that was the game changer for me. I don't even know how important the matress is anymore, but a good memory foam topper is a godsend.

Is it expensive because it is higher quality, or is it expensive because of marketing BS?

I could absolutely see very expensive ones being the price they are simply because of marketing, but mid-tier brands can be very good. I personally swear by the one that advertises individually wrapped coils (I think Sealy). Have one now and had one before and they are incredibly comfy. I do not think the foam ones are particularly good.

It's more important you get the right type of mattress for you than the price. If you do go shopping for one, try to remember how that one at the hotel was. Softer? Firmer? Springy? What feels comfy for 20 minutes can feel very painful for 6 hours.

I bought a cheap mattress but a pretty expensive pillow (tempur), the pillow made all the difference to me. It's so crucial to my sleep quality that I have to bring it on trips, it works for any mattress.

Try a matress pad. It's cheaper and less hassle.

It depends on the mattress. I’ve slept on cheap mattresses until 3 years ago when I purchased a Personal Comfort mattress. They’re an adjustable mattress like Sleep Number but a little cheaper and I liked the assembly a bit better since it lets you replace individual layers should they wear out, and the mattress can be “upgraded” to something more plush over time.

It was pricy and hard to justify at first but I’ve slept so much better.

Being able to adjust the firmness has been less gimmick and actually kind of nice but probably isn’t useful to everyone. It’s handy if you’re sharing the bed with someone though.

If you order a mattress, find a place that’ll let you trial it for a month or two. You should be able to tell if it’s helping or not in that timeframe.

The Saatva I bought about ten years ago is still holding up well, after the previous Sealy only lasted about 3-4. Generally I think people need a more firm mattress than they think they want when they're at the store and plunk down into a big soft pillowtop thing.

Avocado Mattress on a Thuma bed frame. Heaven. And really fucking expensive too.

I would suggest a low VOC (volatile organic compound) mattress whatever you do.

Sometimes? We got an expensive one and I didn't really think it was that special at the time, but when we "upgraded" from a queen to a king of a much lower costing brand it was immediately noticeable how much nicer the previous was. First was a regular mattress from Serta or something and the next was a highly rated bed in a box we ordered. I sleep like shit every night now and really miss that queen sized mattress.

Just bought one recently. We walked in and the guy immediately started showing us ones for as low as $200. I asked what the difference was between those and the display models and he started showing us some of the floor models. We really didn’t feel much difference between any of them. The ones leaning up were absolutely not worth it and uncomfortable but we went with a $1k hybrid because it felt the same as a $5k premium Stearns and Foster. We got a Sleepy with a medium stiffness. It’s a combination of memory foam and springs. It helped my back pain and I got the best night sleep in years the day we got it.

Probably if you have the money I know the mattress I have is wrecking my sleep but I can't commit to replacing it at this time. I know the frustration of remembering what a good night's sleep is like the rare time I go to a hotel very well...

I bought a 1400 dollar Queen. Upgrade from my shit 200 dollar twin. It's such a huge difference. My back still hurts, but that my shitty back. But no more knee pain from the crappy mattress buckling in the middle

I personally prefer a hammock, gets the added benefit of being rocked to sleep.

I bit the bullet in 2017 and got a Stearns and Foster mattress set. I think it was less than $2k for the set, queen size, at City Mattress, and they had a “zero percent interest for a year” thing going on. It’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

You’ll find them for much higher prices online, it was going to the store that got me the deal. Find a mattress store near you that carries that brand and you may find a deal, too. It’ll save your back and you’ll sleep so much better.