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Let me guess – you’re shopping for a mattress and you stumbled upon terminology such as “bed-in-a-box” and “sleep trial”, and now you’re at a loss. Was there a bed revolution overnight while you were literally sleeping and nobody updated you? Well, in a way, yes. Discussing bed-in-a-box vs. traditional mattresses comes down to discussing the difference in shopping options, terms, prices, and trends – and sometimes the line gets blurry. Let’s see what I exactly mean by that.
Difference between a bed-in-a-box vs. traditional mattress
A bed-in-a-box is any of the “online brands” that sell mattresses only on their website. Then the mattress ships straight to your door.
Traditional mattresses are mattresses you can typically find in stores, and those are brands you’ve probably been familiar with for decades. They are usually kept in warehouses, just like any other inventory that’s being sold at that particular location.
Now you might ask, “Yes, but what’s stopping all those online mattress companies from also selling at physical stores and vice versa?” Sure enough, there’s no law against it. It really depends on what they decide to do and what they figure would pay off.
This is why you can find some online brands even in physical stores. Some popular department stores sell and showcase those mattresses (Costco, Macy’s, etc.), but you can also find brands like Purple, Casper, or Nectar in places such as Mattress Firm or Rooms To Go. Some manufacturers went so far as to open their own showrooms. Think Casper, Avocado, and Brooklyn Bedding as some examples.
And, of course, since this is the 21st century, all those brands you’ve known from mattress stores have their own websites – Tempur-Pedic, Sealy, Serta, etc.
But that’s not all.
Since bed-in-a-box mattresses are bought without being tried, online mattress companies started offering sleep trials for customers to try out the bed for a few months before deciding whether it’s the right mattress for them. Now, albeit rare, even some traditional mattresses come with trials.
So, they are practically all online and a lot of them are present in physical stores. Still, regardless of how blurry the line is, one thing that differentiates the two is that one group of mattresses is stuffed into a box whereas the other isn’t.
Let’s discuss the main differences:
- Delivery and set up
- Quality and construction
- Price
- Trial periods and warranties.
Delivery and set up
A mattress-in-a-box is just going to arrive at your front door. If you haven’t paid extra for white glove delivery, you’ll find it together with your other packages outside of your home. Waiting time depends – it could be a couple of weeks before it arrives. From then, it’s not hard to move the small-filing-cabinet size box to the room of your choice. It’s still heavy, but the size makes it feasible.
When you shop at a brick-and-mortar mattress or furniture store, you have to schedule a delivery. Mattresses are usually kept in warehouses and you have to order one from there. You should be home at the time of delivery, especially if you have white glove delivery. If not, you’ll need someone’s help getting the mattress to the bed and placing it there.
Quality and construction
Think about it – can a bed that gets squished to a one-to-two-inch thickness be of the same quality as a sturdy, durable mattress?
Just that right there should tell you that these two are not and cannot be the same.
And although there is an average lifespan of different mattress types, we can’t ignore the fact that not every memory foam mattress is the same and that not every hybrid mattress is the same. However, each type can come as a bed-in-a-box and as a traditional mattress.
However, the top line mattresses tend to be sold flat; uncompressed and unrolled. These tend to have a firmer structure, denser foam, and higher-quality materials.
Bed-in-a-box mattresses need to be made of compressible materials; otherwise, it would be impossible to fit them in a compact box. This is why it’s no wonder that the first mattresses-in-a-box were only made of memory foam. Now there are also hybrid mattresses-in-a-box, but they only have pocketed coils that are compressible, unlike the innerspring systems.
And this brings me to the last difference with regard to construction, and that is that the traditional innerspring mattress cannot be compressed, so you can only get those in the local mattress store. Maybe those innerspring mattresses will have a modern twist and be something more of a hybrid, with thicker memory foam or latex foam on top, maybe even gel memory foam, but the mattresses are unlikely to sag within the first several months, like some of the mattress-in-a-box options.
Price
Bed-in-a-box mattresses save on overhead costs by being delivered straight from the factory to consumers. Their earnings are still high because most companies sell low-density memory foam mattresses which are incredibly cheap to produce.
In-store mattresses have a less convenient delivery and a less convenient price – according to Consumer Reports, markups can go as high as 900%! But you should ask yourself whether you’re better off with a quality mattress that you picked out yourself after trying it out or a hit-and-miss with a lower-cost mattress.
Trial periods and warranties
Many mattress-in-a-box companies offer generous trial periods of several months. This is especially appealing when they advertise them as “risk-free trials”. The idea is that you get to try a mattress for as long as you need until you get used to it or decide you want a return for a full refund. Sounds great so far, right?
And for some people, it was an easy-breezy experience. They got to keep any freebies and return the mattress for a full refund.
Others got disappointed that they were being forced into using the pain-causing new mattress for up to a month before being able to initiate a return. And if they weren’t reading the fine print, only then did they learn that a lot of manufacturers don’t issue a full refund, but rather keep the shipping/restocking fee. Sometimes you need to ship it back yourself and guess what? There’s no way of returning the bed into a box because you don’t own the heavy machinery to do so. Sometimes they ask you to find a charity and donate the mattress yourself.
Traditional mattress shopping usually goes without a promise of a free trial, although some stores might offer it in a bid to beat the competition. After all, industry statistics show that as many as 70% of young people are digging the idea of online mattress shopping. But since most don’t have this option, you have to wonder whether those few minutes can really help you opt for the right mattress. If you spent a few hours on it, then probably yes.
The industry standard for mattress warranty is 10 years, with the rare ones whose warranty might stretch up to 20 years. The 10-year warranty is pretty consistent across most of the mattress brands and types, regardless of where you buy your mattress.
What is a bed-in-a-box?
A mattress-in-a-box, or a bed-in-a-box, is mainly a name for how modern mattresses are transported, but also what they’re made of. Shoppers choose a mattress online, they buy it without ever seeing it in person, and the mattress arrives in front of their door.
The “in-a-box” part comes from these mattresses being packaged in a relatively small box. People at the factory use machines to press it down, vacuum-seal it, sometimes fold this “pancake” in half to save space even more, and then roll it up. This “roll” is packed in a box which still makes the package on the heavy side, but it’s compressed so much that one person can move it around relatively easily, especially when you compare it to the expanded mattress size.
Since the typical shopper never gets to see the mattress-in-a-box prior to buying it, mattress companies started offering trial periods that last anywhere from 90 days to about a year. Every manufacturer has their own trial period during which you can decide whether you like the mattress or not, and return it for a refund (sometimes you have to pay for it to be shipped back).
Pros
- Costs less
- Easier to set up
- Long sleep trials
- Easy to shop for
Cons
- No trying before buying
- Likely to degrade faster than traditional mattresses
What is a traditional mattress?
Traditional mattresses (in the sense of “opposite to mattresses-in-a-box”) are basically mattresses sold at mattress stores. You go in, test out a few, pick the one that feels the best after lying on it for 20 minutes, and go home. Arrange the delivery and wait for it to arrive.
I explained above how and why you can find some online mattresses in a brick-and-mortar store.
Pros
- You get to try them (along with many other models side-by-side) before making a purchase
- Sales assistance is available, you can ask everything you want to know
- Tends to last longer
- Easy to measure and make sure it fits your current bed frame
Cons
- More difficult to set up
- More expensive
FAQs
On average, no. You can expect a bed-in-a-box mattress to last equally as long or shorter than traditional mattresses. They are typically made of lower-density foam which makes them softer, but not necessarily longer-lasting. Now, of course, you can get a bad apple from each type, but broadly speaking, the old-fashioned traditional innerspring and dense foam mattresses used to have a longer life than modern mattresses do, especially mattresses-in-a-box.
First things first, it’s best that you open it up as soon as you receive it, or at least within the first week. Second, every manufacturer has a different time period which ranges from one week to three months (we have a whole guide explaining how long you can leave a mattress inside a box). The longer you leave it packaged, the higher likelihood of it not expanding properly.
Most brands say you should wait for 24 hours, some recommend 48 hours to allow the mattress to fully inflate. Although rare, some companies allow you to sleep on their mattresses as soon as you open them up. Purple is one of them.
Conclusion
Traditional mattresses have some pros, such as being available for trying out in stores, and typically being made of better materials than their modern counterpart in a box. You can talk to the sales assistant, but you have to pay for that service with a more expensive mattress.
On the other hand, a bed-in-a-box is more affordable and easier to buy and set up. They also allow for trials which often end up with the mattress being donated to a charity or refurbished, but their mattresses may not last as long. There are happy shoppers and disappointed shoppers on both sides, so make sure you weigh your options well before making any big decision.
Next step: Read our guide to mattresses similar to Casper. If you decide to go down the bed-in-a-box route, then you already know that Casper is one of the top brands. We ranked all of their competitors so you can decide for yourself which brand is right for you.
With over 5 years experience writing about sleep and mattresses, she's considered one of the go-to experts on the topic.
She likes cycling, nature, art, and languages. She pays special attention to providing you with accurate and useful information when it comes to your sleep quality.
After solving her personal sleep and tiredness problems, she is on to help others by sharing this invaluable information.
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