The Best Summer Mattress Sales to Shop Right Now

With summer afoot, my mind is focused on cooling mattresses. The Tuft & Needle Mint is our best cooling mattress overall and on sale for 20 percent off at the brand’s summer kickoff event. The Sealy Cocoon Chill is our best mattress for back sleepers but is famous for its breathability, which prevents overheating. It’s discounted year-round, but now is certainly time the buy if you’re a hot sleeper (and bedding is included with your purchase). Brooklyn Bedding makes our best (less expensive) hybrid cooling mattress, which is great for hot sleepers on a budget.

Amerisleep makes our favorite adjustable bed base, but its all-foam mattresses — which are made from Bio-Pur foam, a memory-foam alternative that’s meant to be more breathable and responsive — also look quite comfortable.

Aviya makes a hybrid mattress that left one of our testers “amazed at just how propped up and aligned my body felt while supine, yet how comfortably I slept thanks to the padding of the quilted foam top.”

Bear markets its mattresses specifically to athletes, thanks to a special fabric that promotes muscle recovery. Former Strategist senior writer Karen Iorio Adelson, a longtime runner, said that after a few nights of sleeping on the Bear Original mattress, her legs actually felt “fresher and less fatigued than they normally would.”

Former Strategist editor Maxine Builder — a stomach sleeper who prefers a plush mattress — has been sleeping on her Birch Natural mattress since she tested it in 2021. She describes it as a “plush yet supportive mattress that’s suitable for most types of sleepers” and notes that the wool cushioning hugs every curve of her body (and suits her husband, who prefers a superfirm mattress).

Hot sleepers on a budget should look to Brooklyn Bedding, as we named the Aurora Luxe mattress our best (less expensive) hybrid cooling mattress. New York deputy editor Alexis Swerdloff tested this mattress in her home and advises that while the mattress feels luxurious and very substantial, the medium firmness level “errs on the softer side” and is “squishier” than expected — so she suggests “going in a firmer direction than you might normally.”

For an affordable pick for sleepers with back pain, our senior editor Simone Kitchens found that her “usual roll-out-of-bed lower-back creakiness was gone” after only one night on the Cocoon Chill mattress.

DreamCloud’s signature hybrid model is made with four layers of gel memory foam and has innerspring coils.

When former Strategist senior editor (and light sleeper) Chelsea Peng tested the Hybrid Comfort, she says she didn’t wake up at all when an “unspecified companion” got up in the middle of the night. When her dad — who used to work for Sealy — visited for Thanksgiving and tried the mattress himself, he had no complaints and was pleased to report that “it supports body weight in a well-distributed curve.”

Helix’s Dawn mattress is our favorite (affordable) hybrid mattress, with former Strategist associate editor Louis Cheslaw writing that he “drifted off as quickly as I ever have, regularly slept through the night, and never woke up feeling hot, sweaty, or achy in the morning.”

Layla’s Hybrid mattress is the best flippable hybrid mattress, according to Strategist writer Tembe Denton-Hurst. She and her partner have “slept on both sides, firm and soft, and each proved supportive,” she says. While there are cheaper hybrid mattresses, the ability to simply flip this one should you want a softer or firmer feel makes it worth the investment, she says, “especially if you’re sharing a mattress with someone who prefers a different feel.”

The Leesa Original is our best all-foam mattress. Builder also tested this mattress and reported that her husband “raved about the pressure relief and comfort he felt from the foam filling in the small of his back while he slept.”

Nectar makes our favorite overall memory-foam mattress, which our former senior editor Casey Lewis (and current writer of the newsletter After School) says is firm enough to share with her fidgety pitbull-boxer. Despite this mattress’s overall dense structure and feel, the softer top layers of foam supply it with “just the right amount of give.” (We’ve also found that it’s great for hot sleepers.)

Latex mattresses are often free of synthetic materials, making them great for those with allergies or chemical sensitivities — and PlushBeds’ all-natural bed is our favorite plush latex mattress. Although the mattress is quite heavy, our senior writer Hilary Reid says it has an “old-fashioned feel” and a “coddling effect” that’s great for side and stomach sleepers.

Saatva makes our best overall mattress because it’s “good for just about anyone.” Their classic mattress has innersprings, coils, and a pillowtop that Simone Kitchens, Strategist senior editor and a back-to-side sleeper who frequently deals with back pain, says felt sturdy and supportive and made her spine feel more aligned.

Tuft & Needle’s Original mattress is one of our favorites, but if you need a cooler all-foam bed, upgrade to the Mint. It has additional cooling layers and a medium-firmness that caters to multiple sleep styles. Our writer (and combination sleeper) Arielle Avila says she woke up sweat-free after forgetting to turn her fan on. “My boyfriend, who runs hot like I do, remarked he didn’t get as hot sleeping on this mattress,” she adds.

For a mattress that helps alleviate back pain, New York features editor Katy Schneider likes the WinkBed. Although it’s touted as a firmer mattress, she found it “still felt soft without enveloping my body.” She also noted that the “springs seem to absorb our movement. My boyfriend often comes to bed much later than I do, and I found that I noticed him flopping down a whole lot less on the WinkBed than I did on my old bed.”

Our best (less expensive) mattress is from Zinus. Amelia Jerden, our sleep writer who’s tested over 50 mattresses, says this hybrid mattress is a safe bet for all kinds of sleepers. It could use a bit more pressure relief, she says, but the affordable price and middle-ground firmness make it a worthwhile crowd-pleaser.