What does your sofa bed need to do?
- Turn into my bed every night
- Fit a small room, or two guests
- Open without a wrestling match
- Be comfy under the sheet
- Get through the door and built
How often someone sleeps on it decides the sofa bed
For the odd visitor, I can live with firm cushions and a bit of furniture shuffling. For regular overnight guests, the sleeping surface needs as much thought as the seat. For nightly use, both the bed and the conversion have to suit you, because a mechanism you put up with once at Christmas is a different animal twice a day.
If sleeping is the main job, look at a folding bed instead. It splits the seating from the sleeping, so you choose around the mattress rather than the sofa's looks. Where there's room for a permanent bed, my default is still slatted wood, with an ottoman if you need the storage underneath.
And a firm occasional sofa bed is not a child's main bed. Kids get a proper new mattress, not whatever unfolds out of the sitting room.
Open it out on paper first: the sizes that matter
"Three seater" tells you how many can sit on it. It says nothing about how two adults will sleep. The Cassia and the Livia are both sold as three seaters. Both open to a bed 180cm wide but only about 110cm from front to back. Read both bed dimensions and which way the sleeping surface runs, rather than assuming the sofa's width is your bed.
| Model | Closed H x W x D | Open H x W x L | Opening |
|---|
| Alexa Single Sofa Bed | 83 x 78 x 89cm | 29 x 78 x 191cm | Fold-out |
| Alexa Small Double Sofa Bed | 83 x 122 x 89cm | 29 x 122 x 191cm | Fold-out |
| Alexa Double Sofa Bed | 83 x 137 x 89cm | 29 x 137 x 191cm | Fold-out |
| Cassia Grey Upholstered Sofa Bed | 81 x 180 x 85cm | 41 x 180 x 110cm | Click-clack |
The Alexa sizes show the opposite trade. A compact sofa turns into a long bed that reaches well into the room. Mark the opened outline on the floor with masking tape, leave somewhere to stand while you unfold it, and decide now where the coffee table goes on the night. In a room that's narrow from front to back, a click-clack wins, because it only reaches about 110cm out. Where the wall is short, the Alexa's narrower widths fit and the length runs into the room instead.
The Alexa Single Sofa Bed is a chair that sleeps one visitor. All three Alexa sizes sit just 29cm off the floor when open, which is worth knowing if getting up from low seating is already a faff.
Click-clack, fold-out or roll-out?
Click-clack: the back drops down to make the bed. The Cassia, Livia and Eleanor all work this way. The Eleanor's listing has you unzip the support legs before laying it flat. The same cushions do both jobs, so loving the seat doesn't mean you'll love the bed.
Fold-out: the Alexa unfolds forwards once its support legs are unzipped. The velvet and the walnut-effect legs make it look like furniture first, but the full sleeping length still needs floor space.
Roll-out with a mattress inside: the Ashby rolls out without you taking off the seat or back cushions, with a foam or a pocket-sprung mattress inside, your choice. It's a nice arrangement. I still think it's too much money for a bed that only comes out when someone visits. I'd put a decent topper on a cheaper sofa bed instead.
Two chairs and a bed: the Duet 2-in-1 Sofa Bed splits into two reclining chairs as well as making a sofa or a small double. Clever, but its listing calls it a pillow top sofa bed. Pillow tops are the one thing I won't recommend however neat the trick.
A couple of Alexa owners found the fold-out stiff or stuck, while others describe it as quick and easy to convert. One Duet owner says the fold-down legs are so stiff the screws were almost pulled out of their fixings. Open and close the whole thing yourself in the shop, rather than watching the salesperson do it with one practised flick.
The comfort is in what's under the sheet
On a sofa bed with a separate mattress inside, I'd look for something around 12 to 15cm deep, and at much under 10cm most adults will feel the bars through it. That's my rule of thumb. Depth tells you roughly how much room there is for fillings. It tells you nothing about whether you'll feel a bar under your hip.
Given the choice, pocket springs every time, and never open coil for a bed anyone sleeps on often. The Ashby offers a pocket-sprung mattress as well as foam, and pocket-sprung seat cushions too. Foam isn't automatically memory foam, so don't read one word as the other.
Across the Alexa range, the grumble owners keep coming back to is firmness. Several owners call it hard to sleep on. One Alexa Double owner says you can feel all the metal frame, and another found toppers made no difference. Plenty of others say a topper fixed it. The listing's "zero compromise on comfort" is the maker's line. I'd budget for a topper anyway.
A metal mechanism can squeak, so listen for it while you convert it and turn over on it. If you test one in store, lie on your usual side, or your back if that's you, and give it long enough to get bored. You're mainly ruling things out, like a bar under your hip or a join down the middle.
A topper is the cheapest upgrade a firm sofa bed can get. It won't rescue one that sags, though, because softening a dip just gives you a softer dip. Keep somewhere to store it, since it won't fold away inside most mechanisms.
What owners complain about, and what I'd do about it
Read the three-star reviews before the rest. My rule: five stars reads like a honeymoon, and one star is often a row about the van. The middle is where people explain the compromise: lovely furniture, an easy build, and then a harder bed or flatter cushions than they expected.
A couple of Cassia owners say it tipped or flipped when someone slept on one side of it. One Livia owner describes it toppling over when a guest rolled in their sleep. That makes me cautious about both, even though plenty of owners call them well made and good to sit on. Firmness you can fix with a topper. A bed that tips is a different problem, so sit on the very edge in the shop and see what it does.
The Eleanor Sofa Bed gets the warmest owner reports of the click-clacks. Owners call it sturdy, good value and quick to switch between sofa and bed. The cushions are the weak spot for a couple of owners, who say theirs lost shape or never plumped up, while one lost the plastic feet and scratched the floor. I'd buy it as a guest bed and extra seating, and look elsewhere for nightly sleeping.
Before it's delivered
The Ashby comes fully assembled, which saves the build but makes the route into the house matter more. The Duet needs its legs fitting. One Livia owner didn't realise theirs was self-assembly until it arrived, so find out who's building it before delivery day.
- The fully opened bed is marked out on the floor.
- Doors, stairs and turns on the way in are measured.
- The open height suits whoever will sleep on it.
- You know who's assembling it.
- The shop has confirmed the weight limit.
- There's a home for the coffee table, the bedding and any topper.
Every sofa bed on this page is sold by Bensons for Beds. One buying tip: Bensons' 40 Night Comfort Guarantee doesn't cover sofa beds, so read the ordinary returns policy before you order rather than counting on a swap.
