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There are bucket loads of bed and mattress retailers online now. They ranging from top quality retailers which sell a couple of brands, through to the online megastores which have a huge range and low prices.
Here’s our selection of 10 of the best mattress retailers in the UK:
1. Amazon – hard to beat for cheap and mid-priced mattresses
There’s not a lot you can’t buy on Amazon now, which shifted a few years ago from just offering its own products to allowing third party sellers (the ‘marketplace’)
The result is that there are literally thousands of mattresses and beds on Amazon. When I searched, there were 1000 pocket spring mattresses, 4000 memory foam mattresses and nearly 1000 latex mattresses.
Lots of the mattresses are at the cheaper end of the market (under £200 for a king size), which I personally would avoid if you can. However, there are also good prices on plenty of mid-range mattress brands you have heard of such as Silentnight, Rest Assured and Sealy. It’s certainly a good choice if you are after cheap beds.
Our mattresses beginners’ guide includes the top 10 reviewed mattresses on Amazon.
A couple stand out for value in the budget range:
- Starlight Beds Memory Foam Mattress – £120 – 4.3/5
- HomyLink Mattress Pocket Sprung/Memory Foam Mattress – £175 – 4.6/5
If you’re after a mid-price mattress, highly rated options on Amazon include:
- Happy Beds Ortho 2000 Mattress – £265 – 4.3/5
- Inofia Memory Foam Sprung Mattress – £209 – 4.6/5
If you are looking for luxury quality, high scoring mattresses on Amazon include:
- Emma Original Mattress – £529 – 4.5/5
- Simba Hybrid Mattress – £799 – 4.2/5
(We just included those with at least 10 reviews, sold directly by Amazon. We searched in early 2021. Prices are for double mattresses without a base. There are many more expensive mattresses on Amazon, but most of these didn’t have many reviews).
**Search latest mattress deals at Amazon**
2. Mattress Online – award winning online retailer
Mattress Online is a big mattress retailer which has been selling online for more than a decade. They don’t have lots of stores but they do have a showroom in Rotherham if you are in the area and would rather try out a bed.
There’s a choice of about 250 beds and about a dozen brands. Prices range from the very cheap (£250 for a king size Sealy mattress) up to £1600 for their best king size mattresses (Mammoth, Slumberland and Dunlopillo).
They also stock the Sealy Nostromo 1400 (also known as the Sealy Teramo 1400) which is an award winner.
Prices are generally very good. Comparison between retailers is difficult because big retailers often have ‘exclusive’ mattresses and prices go up and down. However, Mattress Online fares well when it is possible to compare like for like.
We’ve also included them because they won an award for best online retailer at the National Bed Federation Awards in 2019, 2016 and 2015 and came second in 2014.
**Search latest deals at Mattress Online**
3. John Lewis & Partners – clear descriptions and customer service awards
John Lewis & Partners frequently wins customer service awards, and they stock a decent range of mattresses. Some have their own name on and some are made by the more expensive mattress manufacturers, such as Hypnos (the Royal Family’s bedmakers…), Tempur (inventors of memory foam) and Vispring (inventors of the pocket spring).
John Lewis & Partners mostly sells pocket spring beds. They also sell a few memory foam mattresses and (surprisingly in my opinion) a few open coil mattresses (the cheap end of the sprung bed market). If money is no object, you might consider their most expensive mattress which costs £18,000 and includes 32,000 pocket springs. Lend me a tenner if you can afford that.
If you are living in the real world, but still want a really high quality mattress then you’ll find Vispring beds ranging from about £1000 – £4000. Other brands include Silentnight (cheaper mattresses generally), Sealy (mid-priced) and Hypnos (luxury mattresses)
Most of their best beds come with a 7 year warranty.
**Search latest mattress deals at John Lewis & Partners**
4. Mattress Next Day
Picture the scene…
Aunt Ethel and Uncle Bernie are coming to stay at the weekend. You’ve realised that your spare bed is older than a Barry Cryer joke and rush down to your local bed superstore to get something sorted.
After lying on 19 different beds you finally reach a consensus. The salesperson gleefully declares that they will be able to deliver in six weeks’ time.
Mattress Next Day has a decent range of mattresses in stock and ready to be hauled onto the delivery van (although it’s worth noting that not all mattresses are available next day). They offer about 10 mattress brands, including most of the brands made by Silentnight (Silentnight, Rest Assured) as well as some other mid priced alternatives and latex specialist Dunlopillo.
**Search latest deals at Mattress Next Day**
5. Dreams – good for trying beds before you buy
Dreams is a big name in the UK bed and mattress market with 170 stores at the time of writing. Of course, that has the definite advantage of being able to try out beds and mattresses instore. They also won National Retailer of the Year 2019 at the National Bed Federation Awards.
Whilst you’ll find buying beds online is often less expensive, the sellers have to deal with the issue that there is no industry standard for firmness of beds. One company’s idea of soft, medium or firm will be different to another’s. It’s similar in my mind to different clothes shops selling slightly different ‘medium’ size t-shirts.
The range at Dreams is big, but not baffling with about 10 mattress brands on offer. They include The Dreams Workshop and Silentnight (the budget end of the range) Sealy (mid range quality mattresses) and Hypnos and Tempur (higher quality mattresses).
Getting the best deal at Dreams
My advice with Dreams is to not get too excited by the ‘original’ price of a mattress which is often very high. If you are comparing two similarly priced mattresses in your budget, you are much better to look at the various factors which determine the quality of a mattress. These include:
- the type of springs – pocket springs are better than open coil, continuous springs or ‘traditional’. The exception is if you are looking for a latex or memory foam mattress. There’s more on which to choose in our best mattresses beginners’ guide.
- the number of springs (anything between 1000 and 2000 is fine, heavier people benefit from 2000)
- the material that the outside is made from. Something natural like cotton or cashmere is usually better than a synthetic material like polyester.
- whether it is hand tufted. That means it looks like it has buttons on top holding it together, rather than being completely flat which is called quilting.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to tick all those boxes above, and there is some debate on some of these points. However, I’ve spent far too long reading guides about buying mattresses and those appear to be the overall points of consensus.
**Search latest deals at Dreams**
6. Bensons for Beds – the UK’s biggest bed retailer
Bensons for Beds is amongst the biggest bed and mattress retailers in the UK. They’ve got 270 stores, which is obviously good if you want to try out a bed beforehand. In many ways, they are similar to Dreams in that they offer about 10 brands and have a range which is not so vast as to be incomprehensible.
If you’re after the best quality memory foam or latex mattresses on the market, there are plenty of options with brands like Tempur and Dunlopillo on offer.
However, if you’re after a pocket sprung mattress, then Benson for Beds aims more at the mid market. Their top priced king size mattress comes in at around £1500. Obviously that’s not a cheap mattress, but they don’t sell top pocket spring brands like Hypnos or Somnus which sell mattresses in excess of £2000.
The cheapest pocket sprung bed with at least 1000 springs was £320 when I looked (king size). The cheapest memory foam in king size was £300.
Delivery is free over £100.
In terms of industry awards, Bensons for Beds came second in 2014 and 2015 and won in 2013 in the category for bigger retailers at the National Bed Federation Awards.
**Search latest deals at Bensons for Beds**
7. MattressMan – big range of brands
MattressMan had 10 stores when I checked and sells more than 20 mattress brands. They range from the cheap (e.g. Breasley) through to some of the best mattresses money can buy (e.g. Hypnos), with several mid-range brands in between (Silentnight, Rest Assured, Airsprung). Prices for Hypnos mattresses range from £800 – £2000.
The cheapest king size pocket spring mattress with at least 1000 springs at Mattress Man was £255 when I searched. The cheapest memory foam mattress was £155, which was a Breasley one.
Delivery is free. Their stores are mostly in the East of England with a few more towards the East Midlands and London.
**Search latest deals at MattressMan**
8. eBay – vast range of new and used mattresses
You can obviously buy cheap second hand mattresses on eBay. If that’s about as appealing as a used plaster then I would stick to the vast range of new mattresses.
At first, it’s a bit daunting with 300,000 mattresses on offer but eBay has very good filters so you can narrow down your options very quickly.
For example, I narrowed down to brand new double beds made by Sealy which are available to ‘buy now’ (rather than an auction) and came up with 66 results. I found several sellers offering the award winning Sealy Nostromo 1400 (featured in our Sealy guide).
Sellers have reviews which are worth checking first. You can also get Nectar points by shopping through eBay. Alternatively, you can search by price or by location on eBay.
**Search latest mattress deals at eBay**
9. Bedstar – large range of mattress brands
Bedstar has a choice of about 30 mattress brands, mostly towards the cheaper and mid-priced end of the market. The choice can feel a little overwhelming. It’s perhaps one to look at once you’ve narrowed down your choice amongst the mattresses online thanks to our beginners’ guide.
The cheapest pocket spring mattress with at least 1000 springs was £245 in a king size when I checked, with the top priced mattress costing around £1700 (a Silentnight mattress). If you’re after a memory foam mattress, prices start at £160 for the cheapest king size (made by Visco).
**Search latest mattress deals at Bedstar**
10. Archers Sleepcentre – nice clear website
I like Archers Sleepcentre, partly because the website is easy to make sense of, with lots of tick box options to narrow down your search.
There’s a choice of about 90 pocket sprung mattresses, with prices ranging from £200 to £1500 for a king size. Archers Sleepcentre mostly seems to offer mid-priced mattresses, rather than the very best and most expensive mattresses. If you’re working to a budget of around £500 for a king size or double, you’ll be able to get a decent quality mattress. For example, I found a Highgrove mattress with 1500 pocket springs for £465. It had a damask cover which is decent and it was hand tufted, which means it looks like it has buttons on the top holding it together.
If you’re after a memory foam mattress, there’s a choice of about 60 mattresses starting from £165 for a king size up to £900.
In 2013, Archers SleepCentre won an award for online mattress retailer of the year at a big awards, which is judged by editors from the industry’s trade journals. I was disappointed to discover that the trade publications have dull names like ‘Furniture News’ rather than puntastic names…
**Search latest mattress deals at Archers Sleepcentre**
Here are some more big names in the UK’s online mattress market which didn’t make our top 10, but are still worth a look:
11. Furniture Village – good for luxury mattresses
Furniture Village is a respected name in beds and mattresses and it tends to target itself at the higher end of the market. Top end mattresses cost £5000 for a double or king size but there are several available around the £1000-£2000 mark.
There’s a good choice of the best quality mattresses on the market with brands such as Hypnos, Vispring (the inventor of the pocket spring bed) and Tempur (the inventor of Memory Foam). They do have sales and discounts but it’s a bit lower key than the sales at other big retailers such as Dreams and Bensons for Beds. You’ll often find there’s 20-30% off a £2000 mattress.
If you’re after a mid-priced mattress there’s a smaller choice at Furniture Village with brands such as Sealy and Slumberland on offer.
They won awards in 2014 and 2015 from the National Bed Federation in a category for big retailers.
**Search latest mattress deals at Furniture Village**
12. Very
Very is a pretty huge department store now, and they have a decent selection of beds and mattresses. We found about 200 mattresses with cheap options starting from about £100 and a handful of top quality mattresses costing more than £1000. You’ll find memory foam, pocket sprung and open coil mattresses in equal quantities at Very.co.uk
Big brands including Silentnight and Airsprung feature heavily. Very is also one of the few places we managed to find the Dormeo Memory Plus rolled mattress, which is an award winner.
**Search latest mattress deals at Very**
13. Bed Factory Direct
Most of the mattresses at Bed Factory Direct are at the budget end of the market. However, they do have some from mid range brands like Dormeo, Staples and Relyon. They’ve got a few stores around Merseyside if you’d rather try out your mattress in person.
They sell a lot of their own brand mattresses (Bed Factory Direct Workshop) which work out as a good value if you don’t mind buying from a lesser known brand. When I searched they were offering a tufted double mattress with 1000 pocket springs for £279 or a similar mattress with 2000 springs for £349
**Search latest deals at Bed Factory Direct**
14. Carpetright
I’ve never quite understood why carpet shops often also sell mattresses. Do they have an abundance of space in their warehouses? Or do they think you are likely to decide to replace your bed seeing as you’ll be moving it to put the new carpet down?
Anyway, Carpetright has a selection of about 10 mattress brands.
They sell several of the brands made by the Silentnight group, including Sealy, Rest Assured and (unsurprisingly) Silentnight.
Prices are competitive, but hold on for a sale if you can as they often have reductions of 25% or sometimes 50% at Carpetright.
**Search latest mattress deals at Carpetright**
15. Dunelm
Dunelm has a fairly large range which will appeal more to those who already know which mattress they want and are at the stage of shopping around for the best price.
They have some welcome filtering features which can help narrow down your options if you have spent the last three hours scratching your head and just want someone to tell you what to buy.
There are more than 10 brands on offer including Silentnight and Rest Assured. They are mostly at the cheap to middle end of the mattress market and there are many names I’m not familiar with. The vast majority are in the £200 – £500 price bracket, which will suit most people’s budgets.
**Search latest mattress deals at Dunelm**
16. Land of Beds
I’ve included Land of Beds because they stock some of the luxury end names in the mattress market, such as Somnus, Tempur and Hypnos. If you’re after a name like this, you can easily pay £2000 for the mattress alone.
They also sell many of the cheaper brands in the UK mattress market. The cheapest pocket spring mattress in king size with at least 1000 springs came in at £239 when we checked (a Breasley one). The cheapest memory foam mattress on Land of Beds was £179.
Delivery is free on most mattresses and beds, and they’ve also got a showroom in Cheshire.