When it came time to replace a mattress that was older than me, I did a maddening amount of research before making a purchase, since they’re pretty darn expensive. Here’s a few takeaways:

• Mattresses at physical stores have a significant markup compared to online mattresses (there’s also a comedic level of public rivalry between physical mattress store owners and online store owners on mattress subreddits, they absolutely hate each other’s guts. Be wary of those subreddits by the way, it’s difficult to get truly objective information there due to how astroturfed they are).
• Cheap memory foam mattresses wear out pretty quickly, and are very hot to sleep on.
• Full foam mattresses, especially full Latex ones, are incredibly heavy, and very difficult to change the sheets on, all for very little, if any, real advantages.

Of the better things to look for in a mattress, I would recommend:

• Hybrid Coil with Latex Foam mattresses. These combine the best of both worlds, and are what I personally chose in the end. Latex foam lasts an incredibly long time, is much cooler than memory foam, and never really develops low spots like memory foam does. It should last the entire usable life of the mattress, which could be as much as 10 to 15 years.
• Try to opt for a pocketed-coil spring if the budget allows for it (yours certainly would). Pocketed coils contour to your body better, and transfer much less bouncy energy across the bed to a partner compared to traditional interwoven coil mattresses.
• While it usually costs a slight premium, if the budget allows, try to opt for a mattress that uses non-plastic based materials to reduce the chance of microplastics ending up in the environment when the mattress becomes end of life (there are recycling facilities for mattresses, but I’m not sure if they re-use/melt down the polyester outer shell).

Personally, I purchased my hybrid mattress online at Arizona Mattress, since they had the lowest price for the materials and design that I wanted. I’ve been sleeping on it for nearly 2 years now, and have been very pleased with it.

If you search around for a coupon code, you can bring down the price another 5 or 10% or so. I got a coupon code from this mattress manufacturer coalition forum, which is such an odd thing to exist, lol. That forum has some affiliate coupon codes for almost all of the major online mattress companies.

If possible, try out a mattress first at a local store, then purchase it online to avoid the markup.

I like reading reviews and comparisons from https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/. Lots of good info on that site. Used it to help me buy my last 2 mattresses. Very happy with my choices.

I just went through this. I ended up getting lucky and my brother gifted me a sleep number and I got a latex topper for it. It’s worked out great.

If I had to do it again though, I would get a good quality spring mattress. That way I can flip and rotate it to avoid any sagging. I’d probably shoot for a little firmer than what I would normally go for and then sleep on it for a couple weeks. Then I would get a latex topper and choose softness level depending on how much softer I feel like the bed needs to be.

Hybrids are nice, but you can’t flip them and you read all kinds of complaints about sagging with them. By doing it this way you can extend the life of the mattress greatly by flipping and rotating it. A good topper can really transform a bed. I got sleep on latex as they seemed to be well regarded on the mattress subreddit. No regrets at all.

And if in doubt when buying the spring coil, go a little more firm. It is easier to soften a bed with a topper than to try to make one more firm.

That’s going to be my approach next round anyway. Good luck on your path, mattress shopping can be confusing and most YouTube reviews seemed to be nothing more than sponsored commercials for each brand.

Check out Avocado. Do yourself a favor and get one of their pillows while you’re at it too. Bought one of their mattresses a while back and the first three months afterwards I didn’t want to get out of bed. I just wanted to lay in the heavenly paradise and recover the terrible sleep I was having for the 3 years prior before waking up one day with the worst neck & back pain of my life.

We just bought a mattress a few months ago! After looking around quite a bit, we landed on a Wink bed and like it a lot. Even the dogs sleep soundly through the night on it lol, whereas on our old bed (just a basic mattress firm generic brand) they were pretty restless and would wake us up moving a lot. I was planning on getting a topper for whatever bed we got regardless, but after sleeping on it for a while, I don’t feel it really needs one. That may change just because I like a nice pillow-y cloud feel when I sleep, though I do think the mattress on its own meets that criteria already.

We got the pillowtop medium-firm option for ourselves, but from the research I did, that might depend more on your weight as to what you find comfortable? Like, lighter people would find softer mattresses more comfortable, whereas heavier people may prefer firmer mattresses, just because those body types require different amounts of support. We picked the medium firm option because we’re both in the 150-200 lbs range and find it suits us nicely. But definitely research what is recommended for your own weight range.

We liked that Wink had a good 120 night trial period and responsive customer service, so we could return it if we didn’t like it. So I’d definitely recommend that whoever you buy from meets those criteria above anything else.

Hope that helps! Researching mattresses can be a nightmare because of the absolute corrupt nature of the whole industry (companies not allowing people to review their mattresses if they ever give negative reviews on other mattresses, for example), so I wish you luck.

EDIT: As far as BIFL goes, we’re obviously not sure about that yet, but plan to do as much mattress maintenance as we can to keep it in good shape. Stuff like rotating the mattress every 6 mo-1 yr can help prolong the life of whatever mattress you buy. Also keeping it on a box spring or slat bed frame to make sure it gets proper air flow so mold doesn’t grow inside. Things of that nature

If you’re open to trying a latex mattress, sleeponlatex.com is the best mattress you can find. Latex mattresses can last a very long time (10 to 20 years), and theirs is great quality.

My partner and I had tried so many different kinds of mattresses when we were hunting, and theirs was the first that was comfortable, soft, supportive and breathable. We got a medium firm mattress with a soft 3" topper.

They have a 100 day return policy for their mattresses so there was no risk for us trying it!

Check out Naturepedic mattresses. 100% natural materials except the steel springs. They have a modular design that you can open up occasionally to flip the springs or topper if you like. You can also replace the individual components as desired, not that we’ve needed to. Very comfortable too, although during the trial period we ended up switching out the foam topper for one that was less firm than we liked on the show floor (they allow this for free within a certain time frame after buying).

I got a Purple Mattress: you get the stability of spring coil but the softness of memory foam. I really like it.

Here’s a relatively short video of a real-world review. This guy also later reviewed a Nectar mattress, which is memory foam, but he didn’t like it and returned it.

I hear you on the memory foam but hear me out. I want something firm but still very comfortable that won’t hurt from hardness in the morning. I like some support but not a ton and I hate sinking into a mattress like foam.

My old mattress crapped out about 5 years ago. I bought and returned several mattresses until I settled on the following. I have a fairly cheap firm mattress from a local store. Firm are normally cheaper by the way. I think it was 650 for a king. Then I bought a really nice 3" closed cell foam topper for $200. I expected it to only last a few years, but it’s still great. At least another couple years left. But the mattress is still like new because there’s zero cushion on it.

Every mattress will wear. But it’s primarily the cushion and weak springs that wear. So BFL is not reasonable but you can extend the life in certain circumstances. Since firm mattresses have hard springs and no cushion, they’ll last a lot longer. The topper is essentially the only real wear item. Since they come in different materials and thicknesses, you can dial in your preference easily.

I know you said spring coil, but I’m still going to suggest Tuft and Needle (or similar).

There was a mattress tester who did an AMA on reddit a few years back. If you don’t mind giving them the traffic, it’s definitely worth a read. It’s chock full of great info and recommendations.

Sounds like you’re not keen on futons. But worth noting that some futons can be custom made with the materials you want, and you can have a summer side and winter side. The summer side might have coconut choir or something highly breathable. It’s not BifL, but at least you can get something with biodegradable materials.

The anti-BifL swindle → no B&M shops sell replacement covers for any mattress.

Some come with removable covers so you can theoretically put the covers in a washing machine, but there is no replacement. Eventually when you need to replace the cover no one will sell the cover you need. A salesperson confessed to me that a lot of the value is in the cover and if they made those replaceable it would damage their bottom line.

Some sales people argued: you can buy a separate cover. But of course a cover needs to breath or your skin would suffocate. And because it breathes, the mattress exterior is still exposed to sweat and spills. Otherwise sheets would be the answer. You can have a cover for a cover for a cover, and in the end the mattress exterior will still get stained or rank.

So this killed it for me. I refuse to buy a mattress if the shop does not sell a replacement exterior cover. We need Fairphone to get into the mattress business.

If you happen to live in a city that has one, check out this online showroom: https://sandmansleep.net/

I tried all of the mattresses, and was surprised with what I found. The Latex ones weren’t as comfortable for me as hybrid foam/coils. On a lot of beds, I could feel the lower firmer layers on my hips laying on my side. Latex felt so springy it was almost trying to roll me off the bed.

I guess my advice is to try in person however you can. I spent some time looking at naplab, but the scores range from 9.5 to 9.8 so they mattresses aren’t even differentiated. In person, there were big differences that weren’t captured in the scores, which try to be subjective but miss a lot.