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How Much It Costs Consumer Reports to Test Mattresses
When Consumer Reports recommends that you spend at least 15 minutes in the store trying any mattress you’re considering buying, we’re not taking your time lightly. Typically, consumers keep a mattress for eight years or longer and they don’t come cheap. That’s why we pay plenty for the mattress testing we do before publishing the results of our tough mattress tests and recommending models that are worthy of your consideration. So, how much is that?
Since we buy everything we test, we paid the going rate for all 48 mattresses in our current mattress Ratings. In fact, we often spend more than you do because you can take the time to haggle and wait for sales while we work on a tight schedule. That adds up to about $1,450 per mattress, averaging in the eight tested models that cost $2,500 or more.
Then comes everything else. Factor in shipping and salaries (for shopping, testing, reporting, and shooting photos and video), and the total comes to $5,335 per mattress. That’s more than triple what we spend per mattress—though it’s still not as much as the most expensive mattress we tested, the $7,595 Duxiana Dux 515 innerspring.
Mattresses Have a High Turnover Rate
Manufacturers sometimes discontinue mattresses—or rename them to pass them off as another product—sooner than we anticipate based on our market research. Once a mattress can no longer be found in stores or online, we remove it from our mattress Ratings. That means we have to act quickly to replenish our supply for testing so that the number of mattresses in our Ratings bounces up, not down.
In the meantime, our subscribers have a growing number of innerspring, memory foam, and adjustable air mattresses to choose from, and we’ll be adding 15 new models in the coming weeks.
Top-performing, reasonably priced mattresses from our current Ratings include the $500 Denver Mattress Doctor’s Choice innerspring; the $800 Novaform 14-inch Serafina Pearl Gel, a memory-foam mattress sold at Costco; and the adjustable-air Sleep Number c2, $800. If you haven’t shopped for a mattress in a decade, check our updated mattress buying guide.
Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S.
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