6 Best Mattresses With A Free Trial 2024

Mattress shopping used to rely on you lying down in a showroom for 30 seconds and then standing up and saying ‘yes, that one feels about right’. 

Nowadays there are loads of mattresses which offer a free trial of 100 nights or even a whole year, so you can really work out if it’s comfortable. Some have terms and conditions attached, so always check the small print.

This may be pointing out the obvious, but comfort is vital if you want to get good quality sleep. A study was carried out in 2002 by Park and Lee called The Relationship between Sleep Quality and Mattress Types’ which took a scientific approach to this and tested out ‘whether sleep quality was different when subjects slept on a mattress suitable for the body shape or not’. They used a technique called polysomnography, which means they recorded sleep and monitored brain waves, eye and chin movements and heart activity. 

The conclusion – perhaps unsurprisingly – was that ‘when subjects slept in comfortable beds…sleep efficiency and the percentage of deep sleep were higher’. Also, ‘the percentage of wake after sleep onset was lower when subjects slept in a comfortable bed’. (They also found that a comfortable bed also lead to higher ‘mean skin temperature’ although I’m still figuring out the significance of that).

Based on the impact on waking up and the amount of deep sleep, I would say that ‘making do’ with an uncomfortable bed isn’t ideal and that a home trial period may be a good solution. 

We’ve picked out five award winning mattresses which offer a free trial. Prices are for double mattresses and are correct at the time of writing. 


1. Nectar Sleep Memory Foam Mattress (medium/firm) – £480 – 365 night trial

Nectar Sleep offers the joint longest home trial of any mattress in the UK market (along with the more expensive DreamCloud mattress featured below). 

You get a whole year to try it out and then it comes with a ‘forever’ warranty rather than the usual 5 or 10 years that come with most mattresses. That’s right, a whole chuffing year!

But is it any good, I hear you ask in a polite tone?

Well, as I write this the Nectar Sleep brand is scoring 4.2/5 from from more than 12,000 customers on TrustPilot, which is good. It’s also won several awards from experts including Ideal Home and Good Housekeeping. 

The mattress is entirely foam, so it’s another one of those which are called a ‘bed in a box’. It arrives squashed up and then expands once you’ve carried it upstairs. It uses memory foam but has a ‘cooling cover’ on top, which is an effort to get away from the issue that some people have of finding memory foam too hot.

Of course, if that turns out to be a problem you can return it.

Is it good for the planet?

The elephant in the room with buying a mattress is the environmental impact, as it’s one of the bulkiest things that we all buy every few years. According to a study published in 2013, ‘A Life Cycle Assessment shows that the polyurethane foam mattress has a higher environmental impact than the pocket sprung mattress’. 

The study goes on to claim that ‘for both products the main cause of environmental impact is the manufacturing process’ (The academic paper was called ‘Improving the environmental performance of bedding products by using life cycle assessment at the design stage’ by Lanoë, Simões et al)

In the case of the Nectar Sleep mattress, the company says that they ‘calculate the carbon footprint from our manufacturing process, find strategies to reduce this, and offset the remainder’. They work with an organisation called Climate Partner and are ‘certifiably climate neutral’. 

That’s certainly not the case with every foam mattress on the market in the UK.

Nectar memory foam mattress logo
We reckon Nectar’s mattress has the joint longest trial period on the market
Layers of nectar sleep memory foam mattress
Nectar Sleep’s mattress is made at their UK factory

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Does Nectar Sleep have other mattresses with a long trial period?

Now that, my friend, is an excellent question.

When this website started, Nectar Sleep just had one mattress. Queen Victoria was on the throne and I didn’t have any wrinkles on my forehead.

As things stand, Nectar Sleep has five mattresses – and they all come with the same generous 365 night trial and forever warranty. Three of them are ‘upgrades’ to the Nectar Sleep Memory Foam mattress, in that they cost more money.

However, one of them is actually cheaper than the Nectar Sleep Memory Foam mattress – so it’s a good one for anyone looking for a mattress which offers both a) a trial period and b) a low price.

It’s called the Nectar Essential Hybrid Mattress and it has a thinner layer of memory foam, combined with a layer of large springs. The spring count is not particularly high but the layers of foam will offer good support for the price.

Nectar Essential Hybrid Mattress
Nectar also sell a cheaper mattress with a trial period called the Nectar Essential Hybrid Mattress

2. Simba Hybrid Original Mattress (medium/firm) – £819 – 200 night trial

The Simba Sleep Hybrid Original mattress uses springs as well as foam (hence the hybrid name). Recent awards include approval from Good Housekeeping and a 10/10 score from the Daily Mail.

If you aren’t swayed by the Daily Mail’s approval, have a look at the customer reviews. Simba Sleep as a brand averages 4.4/5 on TrustPilot whilst Amazon customers give it 3.9/5 at the time of writing.

The springs in the Simba Hybrid Original are mini ones which are sandwiched between layers of foam. It uses memory foam, but not on the top layer so it doesn’t have the sinking and hugging feeling that you probably associate with a memory foam mattress.

There’s some (fascinating) debate about how firm the Simba Hybrid Original mattress is, with some saying it is medium firmness whilst others saying it is more like medium-firm. We could settle this with an arm wrestle, but the official website say that the Simba Hybrid is medium-firm so let’s stick with that. Of course, if it’s not the right firmness for you, they’ll pick it up and give you a refund. 

It also comes with a 10-year guarantee. 

Read our full guide to Simba mattresses .

Simba mattress corner
The Simba Hybrid offers more than six months to try it out at home

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Simba’s other mattresses with a free trial

You will be fascinated to know (or perhaps you won’t) that there are about a dozen Simba mattresses with a free trial.

When we first started this utterly engrossing website, Simba was just starting out and it only had one mattress. For some people, this was part of the appeal. The mattress market was confusing and even once you’d picked a brand, you still had to choose from 37 different white rectangles with baffling jargon at every turn.

Simba, Emma and other similar brands turned up and disrupted the market by saying that they just offered one mattress. Each claimed theirs was the perfect mattress for most people – and if you didn’t like it, you could send it back for a refund.

However, over the last few years, most of those mattress brands have decided to expand their range. This has been the case with Simba, which now has a big choice depending on your budget and priorities.

If you want a hybrid mattress, Simba has five mattresses (at the time of writing). You will probably have guessed that the Simba Hybrid Original is the one that started it all and was previously known as the Simba Hybrid or just the Simba Sleep mattress. It sits as one of the mid-priced models, with cheaper models available that are thinner and more expensive models which add in extra layers of foam and more mini springs.

The really good thing about Simba is that it has maintained its policy of offering trial periods, regardless of whether you go for the cheaper Simbatex Foam mattresses (£500 or less) or more expensive models such as the Simba Hybrid Ultra Mattress (£2000+). Some other brands aren’t so generous and only give trials on the expensive models (which makes you question whether they have confidence in the longevity of the budget models).

You also get trial periods with Simba’s Earth Mattresses, which use large pocket springs and natural materials such as wool and cashmere. These are quite pricey at around £1000-£2000. However, this is exciting to a mattress nerd like me, as mattress companies tend to be less generous with trial periods when it comes to sprung mattresses with natural materials.

The Simba Earth Apex Mattress
Simba also offers trial periods with its Earth mattresses
The Simba Earth Apex Mattress
They aren’t cheap, but materials like wool and hemp are good for keeping you cool

3. Inofia Memory Foam and Pocket Spring Mattress (medium) – £200 – 100-night trial

If you can cope with some dodgy grammar and spelling on the website (e.g. ‘Adapts to the each part of body for perfect level’) you might consider Inofia as a budget memory foam and pocket spring mattress with a 100-night trial. Reviews are a very impressive 4.6/5 from 3000+ reviews, putting it on a par with mattresses costing two or three times that.

Unlike some others on this list, the layer of memory foam is on the top with ‘adapt foam’ and springs lower down. Unfortunately, it doesn’t specify how many springs it has. The diagram says that they are individual pocket springs though, which is the superior option to an open coil mattress.

It’s also remarkably deep for the price at 27cm. There’s some disagreement over the firmness, but the official guidance puts it halfway between firm and ‘plush’ which I assume is a synonym for ‘soft’.​ Of course, the advantage of a mattress with a free trial is that you can give it a go yourself and get your money back if you don’t like it.

Inofia mattress front view
This Inofia mattress is one of the cheapest mattresses with a home trial period

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4. DreamCloud Hybrid Mattress (medium/firm) – £1649 – 365-night trial

The DreamCloud mattress is what’s known as a hybrid mattress as it uses pocket springs and memory foam. It’s owned by the same company as Nectar Sleep, and it comes with the same 365-night trial as well as a ‘forever’ warranty (you should check the Ts and Cs of these things, of course).

It’s made in the UK and is at the more luxurious end of the mattress market (that’s marketing speak for ‘expensive’). It is much deeper than most mattresses at 29cm and it gets very good customer reviews. On TrustPilot, DreamCloud scores 4.4/5 from customers. 

The idea of a hybrid mattress is that you get the familiar springy feeling which most of us are used to with pocket springs, along with the consistent support and comfort which is offered by foam. One of the foam layers is memory foam which has a hugging and sinking feeling to it. Some people find memory foam makes them feel warm, but mattresses like this one use ‘breathable memory foam’ to try to overcome this.

Dreamcloud sleep hybrid mattress with pocket springs
The DreamCloud hybrid mattress offers a whole year to try it out

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5.​ Emma Mattress Memory Foam Mattress (medium tension) – £474 – 200 night trial

There’s a fair amount of technical jargon associated with the Emma Mattress (‘progressive sinking technology’ and ‘point elastic’ are my favourites) but we’ve included it because it gets rave reviews from experts and appears on many guides you’ll find to the best mattresses. It’s also known as the Emma Original, just in case you’re getting confused.

Much like the Nectar Sleep mattress (see #1) the Emma Mattress is made from layers of foam in an attempt to give the right level of support. The memory foam layer (the one which has a bit of a sinking feeling) is sandwiched in between two other types of foam. The top layer is ‘breathable Airgocell foam’ to stop you getting too hot.

​There’s a 10-year guarantee and a 200-night free trial. 

Reviews for the Emma Mattress average 4.4/5 on Amazon whilst the Emma brand overall scores 4.0/5 on TrustPilot.

Closeup of Emma mattress label
The Emma Mattress calls itself the ‘UK’s No. 1 most awarded mattress’
Cover of Emma Mattress
The top cover is removable and machine-washable

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6. Herdy Sleep – (medium firmness) – £999 – 100 night trial

I struggled to find many pocket spring mattresses offering a free trial. 

​As a general rule they are something you see on offer from newer online only mattress makers who offer foam mattresses, rather than the more traditional companies.

​Some exceptions:​

  • Highly rated pocket spring mattress brand Sleepeezee offer a 60-night sleep trial so you can swap it for another mattress from their range (check the terms and conditions). The brand scores 4.3/5 on TrustPilot at the time of writing.
  • Soak & Sleep offer a 100-night trial on mattresses as long as you use a mattress protector.
  • Button and Sprung offer a 100-night trial and has a fairly big range of pocket sprung mattresses from about £500. 
  • Posh pocket spring mattress manufacturer Feather & Black also does a trial, but you need to try it out in store first. They have mattresses by Harrison Spinks, which won a big award from the National Bed Federation a few years ago. They also offer 40-night trial on all our Sleepeezee, Feather & Black, Relyon, Holywell, Harton, Hazelmere and TEMPUR mattresses’.

We picked out Herdy Sleep in the end as a pocket spring mattress with a 100-night trial. There are three layers of pocket springs, rather than the single layer which you might be used to. ​Pocket sprung mattresses offer a more familiar feel than foam mattresses and are what most of us are still sleeping on. 

Reviews are positive (on Feefo and their own Facebook page). It’s won awards from Good Housekeeping and the Evening Standard as well as a couple of eco-friendly type awards.

It’s made as a partnership with Harrison Spinks which is one of the few mattress companies with something called a Manufacturing Guild Mark from the Furniture Makers’ Company. That’s an award given out to some British companies which pass ‘a rigorous, independently reviewed audit.’

Herdy sleep mattress
There are a few pocket sprung mattresses with trial periods – but check the terms and conditions first

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