Best Budget Mattresses of 2024
You can get a great bed for under $600. Here’s proof.
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Good news, budget shoppers: According to Consumer Reports’ rigorous mattress testing, you don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars for a comfortable mattress that will last for years and support a great night’s sleep.
- Best Budget Mattresses: Innerspring Foam
- How CR Tests Picks the Best Mattresses
If you’re in the market for a new mattress and are looking for a deeper dive into what considerations you should make that go beyond price, check out our mattress buying guide. CR members can also access our full mattress ratings of more than 260 beds, where you can filter by mattress type, price, firmness preference, and other criteria that might be important to you.
Best Budget Innerspring Mattresses
Innerspring mattresses are composed of steel coils topped with layers of cushioning made with either fiber-filled padding or foam, and they’re great for a bit of bounce. These four innersprings offer strong performance at wallet-friendly prices.
Best Budget Foam Mattresses
Foam mattresses consist entirely of foam layers. These four deliver great support and comfort overall in CR’s tests.
How CR Tests Mattresses
Each mattress we test has an Overall Score that’s determined by its performance in our assessments, from stabilization to durability. To test stability, we drop a 38.5-pound weight onto the mattress and measure the vibrations at the point of impact and across the mattress. This tells us how easily sleepers should be able to shift their weight without disturbing a partner. We also test how well the mattress keeps its shape over time by operating a machine that moves a 300-plus-pound wood roller across the surface of each mattress 30,000 times.
The ratings for mattress comfort and owner satisfaction included in the Overall Score are based on data from survey results on almost 67,000 mattresses. We also recently started examining a mattress’s impact on the environment and health, taking into account a range of factors, including materials and construction, durability, owner satisfaction, and shipping footprint. Our Green Choice recommendations are designated with a green leaf icon in our comprehensive ratings.
How We Pick the Best Budget Mattresses
Consumer Reports evaluates lower-priced mattresses the same way we test any mattress: by putting them through our exhaustive lab tests, as well as asking thousands of CR members about how well their mattresses have served them. Put together, this information provides a good sense of what a mattress offers for a variety of body sizes and sleep positions. Whether a mattress costs $300 or $3,000, we hold it up to the same performance standards.
Certain qualities matter for some sleepers more than for others, and that’s especially important to keep in mind when buying a lower-priced mattress. For instance, mattresses costing $300 or $400 probably won’t tout the things you’d expect from a higher-end mattress, such as a thick, soft cover or multiple foam layers. If those attributes matter to you, consider reassessing your price range.
We’ve noted whether these mattresses include some of these extras in our comprehensive mattress ratings, but they don’t have an impact on a bed’s Overall Score. What we do factor into the Overall Score are the features that can affect the quality of your sleep, a bed’s support ratings, and the longevity of the mattress.
The best budget-friendly models score well in these crucial areas while still maintaining a lower price—around $600 or less for a queen-sized mattress. If your budget is flexible, consider our picks for the best mattresses.
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