We acquired a 10-Year old, very lightly used and cared-for Tempur-Pedic mattress from some neighbors, and being that our old cheap spring spare-bedroom mattress is 5 years older, we decided to swap it out for the Tempur-Pedic.
Now we're wishing the King-Size very cheap mattress in our master bedroom was something similar.
What is like a Tempur-Pedic mattress but not nearly as expensive?
If you want the best, buy the best, pay the man. 
We have been extremely happy with our Novaform from Costco, to the point that it if it somehow fell apart tomorrow, I'd go out and buy a new one same day.
https://www.costco.com/novaform-14%22-serafina-pearl-gel-memory-foam-mattress.product.100661644.html
1988RedT2 said:If you want the best, buy the best, pay the man.
Not with mattresses. That industry is riddled with overpriced scams.
We've had good luck with a variety of cheap memory foam mattresses from Amazon and Costco, for us, for our kids, and for the trailer. We'll never buy another spring mattress again. If you're uncertain, get something from Costco because of their return policy.
We bought a Serta iComfort king about five years ago. Still very happy.
Went from the real thing when it wore out to an Amazon memory foam. No regrets, just wish that had been an option when I (over)paid for the original.
Margie
We bought our Tempur-pedic about 20 years ago. No regrets.
When ya'll say "Amazon" - what brands?
Casper seems well reviewed and a more "stable" brand that has been around for awhile, and they are significantly cheaper than Tempur-Pedic, but still a little more expensive than say...an Ikea mattress.
pheller said:When ya'll say "Amazon" - what brands?
I have a Zinus in my guest room.
I can end this thread right now.
Zinus. Period.
Years ago (maybe 4 or so) I was replacing the mattress in my master bedroom. I tried them all. I posted on FB if any of my friends had any foam mattresses I could try, and I tried the Costco, Casper, Purple, Tuft and Needle, Sealy iCloud, Sterns and Foster, Tempurpedic... dozens.
My one friend had a Zinus. It felt like every single other one. They all felt the same with minor differences in firmness. The big difference was that the Zinus mattress (at the time I bought) was $168 for the Full size. The next closest one was $700 (Costco) and they went up from there. I bought a Zinus figuring that even if they are made with crap foam and they degrade every 2 years, it's still cheaper to buy 5 Zinus mattresses on 2-3 year intervals, but in honesty it has held up wonderfully... far better than the $1300 iCloud I used to have with my ex wife. That thing lasted a year tops before it had hopelessly sagged.
Here's the deal. With a spring mattress, there are six million ways they can be constructed, all based on each company's experience. Quality and price really matter in that case. With foam mattresses, it's less of a big deal. All foams are manufactured to a pretty tight specification; type of foam, density, thickness, etc. So the possibility that Sealy or Costco is vastly different from a Zinus or a Purple is very unlikely.
IMHO, the difference between an expensive inner spring mattress and a cheap one is a big deal. The difference between an expensive foam mattress and a cheap one is the name that they slap on it.
Get the Zinus. I was so happy with mine that I bought a Zinus Queen for the RV and a 4" Zinus topper to use for tenting/van-ing.
BTW... This is the one I got. The Full is up to $335, but still a banging deal. The King is only $400
I wish I could sleep on a memory foam mattress. I am loathe to support the showroom/sales droid/ludicrous markup business model but traditional coil spring mattresses are large and costly to ship so they lack the incentives the easier to ship products offer
By the way, when you read the reviews you'll see a bunch of weird stuff about mildew and mold.
It's not mildew or mold. The vegetable based foams have a kind of moldy/chemically smell for a couple days, but it goes away. I think it's just people who couldn't believe a cheap mattress could possibly be good and they get the smell and suddenly jump to conclusions.
In reply to Trent :
Have you ever tried a natural-latex foam mattress? The feel falls somewhere between inner spring and memory foam. It's considerably more expensive than the generic bed-in-a-box memory foam offerings, but beats buying anything from one of the "S" brands.
In reply to Driven5 :
I have.
Not sure what it is about the block of foam mattress types but, within an hour I will be laying in a puddle of sweat with any of them.
Zinus here, too. Started with one in my guest room and bought another for the master after my guests kept coming out in the morning and cooing over the great mattress.
Margie
Latex is the way to go. Not hot underneath (memory foam takes heat to work), doesn't leave you a hole when you try to roll over, lasts longer and is Green if you are into that stuff. It also has a repeatable and standardized firmness standard which lets you buy the least expensive one. Mine is layered with a firm core and then 2 layers of gradually softer material to give me the support of a firm mattress, but the comfort of the softer ones.
For some of you the big draw might be that it's bed bug proof.
For giggles I used my tire temp probe to measure the heat under my body on a Memory foam, pillow top inner spring and the latex. The memory foam was 80 degrees hotter than the latex and the pillow top was 30 degrees hotter.
I've also tried the Purple and while it's comfortable it's just as hot as a pillow top.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:IMHO, the difference between an expensive inner spring mattress and a cheap one is a big deal. The difference between an expensive foam mattress and a cheap one is the name that they slap on it.
This. I work with this material and some of the companies that make it. Most (all?) of them are expanded polyurethane foam. There are some slight differences in density, ILD/IFD, and resilience. But they are all produced/expanded in pretty much the same way.
In most furniture level stuff, the cheaper stuff will have a lower density for the same IFD and not be nearly as durable.
ALL of these things are A) environmentally terrible and B) will degrade pretty badly over time compared to a spring mattress. Check the fatigue properties of foam vs. steel.
My last spring mattress was 25 years old when I upgraded from a Twin to King. I've had the King for maybe 8 years and its as good as new.
Costco - we bought a king foam mattress compressed in a box. We hated it. Called Costco after 21 days and they said to return it. Really? Yep - not going back into the box.
My sleep and my back are important to me so my primary mattress still is and always will be an adjustable sleep number. But in our guest rooms we have the Amazon (brand name isnt important, we bought 2 at different times with different names they are the same mattress) foam mattresses and as a cheap mattress they are better than many $$ name brands we've had in the past.
If you want the best this is the only way to fly
What's the difference between Tempur-Pedic and others that they don't come compressed?
WireCutter suggests the Costco NovaForm models.
Luckily we've got some friends who've got a Costco membership.
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