Need a new bed? The 16 best mattresses to buy according to our experts

Our team of sleep experts have spent years researching, testing and deconstructing over 300 mattresses. Most of our testing is done in our 6,000 square foot mattress warehouse in Reno, Nevada. In addition to the office space where our team tirelessly collects mattress data, there are also two mock bedrooms that we use for testing and filming reviews. A back room also serves as an overflow for the hundreds of mattresses the team tested.

Mattress testing is a very hands-on process that involves analyzing the structure, feeling and rolling on the beds from different perspectives. Our team has a variety of genders, body types and sleeping positions, which allows us to give each bed a well-rounded look that we can put together into recommendations for the average person.

Firmness and feel: Firmness and feel are some of the most subjective factors in mattress testing. How firm a mattress will feel will depend on how much pressure you put on the bed – ie. your body weight – and this varies from person to person. We often find that our opinion of a bed’s firmness doesn’t always match the brand’s claim. Our sleep team recently developed a method to measure the true firmness of a mattress: a machine called the Mattress Smasher 9000. This patented device and associated software were developed in-house by our lab technicians. It presses into the middle of the mattress and measures its firmness to rate each bed on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the firmest and 1 being the softest. While we also test each bed personally for perceived firmness and feel, we use data from the MS9K to supplement our conclusions.

Here’s the data we learned from testing the best mattresses with our Mattress Smasher 9000. Sorted from the softest beds to the firmest, here’s how the mattresses scored on our firmness scale.

Durability and construction: We can’t sleep on every mattress we test for years to test durability (although we have it did for some). Although we note the construction of the bed, we use it to inform how durable and supportive the bed will be over time. The Saatva, for example, received 10 support points during testing due to its massive construction and dual-coil system.

Motion isolation: When I say motion isolation, I mean how well a bed can reduce surface motion. We test this by having a few teammates move and measuring how much movement they can sense. Memory foam tends to perform best in this area. For example, the Nectar Premier mattress scored higher in motion isolation because the memory foam layers are better at dampening motion than innerspring mattresses.

Edge support: This may not seem like a big deal, but edge support is important if you sleep on the edge of the bed. Think of it as how strong the perimeter of the bed is. If it folds when we sit or lie on it, it doesn’t have good edge support and gets a score consistent with where it falls in the data.

temperature: Many brands claim that their mattresses are cooling, but very few are. While the addition of cooling technology or gel-infused foam can help regulate temperature, that doesn’t mean they’re physically cool to the touch. We carefully evaluate each of the cooling characteristics, but distinguish between temperature neutral and cooling. For example, the Purple is a naturally breathable bed due to its mesh construction, but we don’t consider it an active cooling bed.

Read more at how we test mattresses.