Mattress firmness report: do labels match what owners feel?

Owners call a mattress too firm more often than too soft at every firmness label with enough reviews to judge, and the gap is widest on extra firm mattresses. This report counts the owners who say a mattress felt firmer or softer than they expected, across 247,880 retailer reviews. It uses the same reviews as the mattress reliability report and splits the answer by the firmness label on the product, by construction, by brand and by individual mattress.

Treat a firmness label as a steer from the manufacturer. It's their judgement of where a mattress sits in their own range, and inside one brand it's a fair guide to which model is firmer. It doesn't carry over to another brand, because every maker draws its own scale, so the useful question is how each label lands with the people who sleep on it.

Key findings

Every rate is a share of the reviews in that group.

1. “Too firm” outnumbers “too soft” at all five firmness labels with enough reviews to compare. On extra firm mattresses, 1.44% of reviews say too firm and 0.25% say too soft. Even on soft-medium mattresses it’s 1.31% against 0.59%.
2. Against what they expected, more owners found the mattress firmer: 987 reviews say firmer or harder than expected and 737 say softer. Firm is the one label where softer than expected comes out ahead, 139 against 106.
3. Firmer comments outnumber softer ones for all five constructions. The widest gap is on latex mattresses: 54 firmer against 14 softer.
4. Of the 29 brands with enough firmness comments to compare, 25 draw more “firmer” comments than “softer” ones.
5. Among the 78 mattresses on sale with 500 or more reviews, the highest share of reviews with a firmness comment is 5.41%, on Eve’s premium hybrid. 31 of its 34 firmness comments say firmer.

By firmness label

The two tables count different things. “Firmer or harder than expected” and “softer than expected” compare the feel with what the owner thought they were buying, which is the nearest the reviews get to judging the label itself. “Too firm” and “too soft” say the mattress didn't suit that person, and a firm mattress that's too firm for someone can still be exactly as described.

Read every rate beside the sleeper. A firmness complaint says as much about the person as the mattress: body weight and sleeping position change how firm a bed feels, so a heavier side sleeper and a lighter back sleeper can lie on the same mattress and give opposite verdicts. Across thousands of reviews the comparison between groups is still useful, but no rate here tells you how a mattress will feel to you.

142,411 of the 247,880 reviews sit on mattresses with a firmness label recorded on WantMattress. The rest are left out of these two tables, and a label needs 2,000 reviews to appear.

Firmer or softer than expected

Label	Reviews	Firmer or harder than expected	Softer than expected
Soft-medium43 mattresses	2,905	0.45%13 mentions	under 10 mentions
Medium242 mattresses	45,593	0.47%215 mentions	0.26%118 mentions
Medium-firm129 mattresses	31,264	0.51%160 mentions	0.43%133 mentions
Firm199 mattresses	40,745	0.26%106 mentions	0.34%139 mentions
Extra firm56 mattresses	20,135	0.39%78 mentions	0.3%60 mentions

Too firm or too soft

Label	Reviews	Too firm or too hard	Too soft
Soft-medium43 mattresses	2,905	1.31%38 mentions	0.59%17 mentions
Medium242 mattresses	45,593	0.84%382 mentions	0.61%279 mentions
Medium-firm129 mattresses	31,264	1.1%343 mentions	0.71%223 mentions
Firm199 mattresses	40,745	0.84%341 mentions	0.26%104 mentions
Extra firm56 mattresses	20,135	1.44%289 mentions	0.25%51 mentions

By construction

Both kinds of phrase are combined here: “felt firmer” covers firmer or harder than expected and too firm, “felt softer” covers softer than expected and too soft. A construction needs 2,000 reviews to appear and a figure needs 10 mentions behind it, or the cell says so.

Construction	Reviews	Felt firmer	Felt softer
Hybrid244 mattresses	157,758	1.34%2,117 mentions	0.88%1,383 mentions
Pocket spring285 mattresses	33,674	1.36%458 mentions	0.83%279 mentions
Open coil87 mattresses	31,860	1.24%395 mentions	0.64%205 mentions
Memory foam77 mattresses	9,828	1.38%136 mentions	0.49%48 mentions
Latex47 mattresses	3,552	1.52%54 mentions	0.39%14 mentions

By brand

Brands are ordered by how much of their firmness comment points firmer. Near the top, owners mostly say the mattress felt firmer; near the bottom, mostly softer. The columns combine both kinds of phrase, because the “than expected” phrases alone are too few to rate most brands. A brand needs 150 reviews to appear and a figure needs 10 mentions behind it.

Brand	Reviews	Felt firmer	Felt softer
Panda13 firmer, 0 softer	494	2.63%13 mentions	under 10 mentions
Hyde & Sleep12 firmer, 1 softer	713	1.68%12 mentions	under 10 mentions
Flaxby31 firmer, 4 softer	1,535	2.02%31 mentions	under 10 mentions
TheraPur36 firmer, 10 softer	3,697	0.97%36 mentions	0.27%10 mentions
Silentnight454 firmer, 128 softer	26,775	1.7%454 mentions	0.48%128 mentions
iGel43 firmer, 14 softer	3,414	1.26%43 mentions	0.41%14 mentions
Bensons for Beds30 firmer, 10 softer	2,276	1.32%30 mentions	0.44%10 mentions
Slumberland121 firmer, 44 softer	8,780	1.38%121 mentions	0.5%44 mentions
Staples & Co19 firmer, 7 softer	1,711	1.11%19 mentions	under 10 mentions
Otty88 firmer, 36 softer	4,072	2.16%88 mentions	0.88%36 mentions
Eve75 firmer, 31 softer	2,714	2.76%75 mentions	1.14%31 mentions
Rest Assured31 firmer, 13 softer	1,637	1.89%31 mentions	0.79%13 mentions
Luna18 firmer, 8 softer	1,366	1.32%18 mentions	under 10 mentions
Origin150 firmer, 69 softer	6,216	2.41%150 mentions	1.11%69 mentions
TEMPUR36 firmer, 17 softer	3,244	1.11%36 mentions	0.52%17 mentions
Romantica28 firmer, 17 softer	2,533	1.11%28 mentions	0.67%17 mentions
Sealy118 firmer, 73 softer	9,952	1.19%118 mentions	0.73%73 mentions
Horizon15 firmer, 10 softer	606	2.48%15 mentions	1.65%10 mentions
Nectar195 firmer, 131 softer	10,101	1.93%195 mentions	1.3%131 mentions
The Dream Team170 firmer, 118 softer	16,354	1.04%170 mentions	0.72%118 mentions
SleepSoul48 firmer, 34 softer	3,060	1.57%48 mentions	1.11%34 mentions
Simba1,264 firmer, 905 softer	100,124	1.26%1,264 mentions	0.9%905 mentions
Sleepeezee64 firmer, 46 softer	5,817	1.1%64 mentions	0.79%46 mentions
Hypnos15 firmer, 11 softer	686	2.19%15 mentions	1.6%11 mentions
DreamCloud46 firmer, 36 softer	1,841	2.5%46 mentions	1.96%36 mentions
Mattress Online74 firmer, 79 softer	7,476	0.99%74 mentions	1.06%79 mentions
The Dreams Workshop43 firmer, 48 softer	9,251	0.46%43 mentions	0.52%48 mentions
Millbrook Beds31 firmer, 48 softer	3,126	0.99%31 mentions	1.54%48 mentions
Emma12 firmer, 20 softer	1,008	1.19%12 mentions	1.98%20 mentions

Individual mattresses with the most firmness surprises

The ten mattresses on sale now with 500 or more reviews where the largest share of reviews comments on the firmness, either way. 78 mattresses were eligible. The label shown is the firmness recorded on the mattress's page here. A review that says both firmer and softer (often two sleepers disagreeing) counts once in the share.

#	Mattress	Firmness comments	Reviews analysed
1	Eve the premium hybrid mattressEve · labelled medium-firm	5.41% 31 firmer, 3 softer	629
2	Eve the original hybrid mattressEve · labelled medium	4.42% 19 firmer, 6 softer	566
3	DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid MattressDreamCloud · labelled medium	4.35% 46 firmer, 36 softer	1,840
4	Simba Hybrid® Luxe MattressSimba · labelled medium-firm	4.11% 23 firmer, 46 softer	1,679
5	The Origin Hybrid MattressORIGIN · labelled medium-firm	3.94% 81 firmer, 35 softer	2,819
6	Nectar Premier Hybrid MattressNectar · labelled medium	3.85% 23 firmer, 27 softer	1,300
7	SleepSoul Heaven 1000 Pocket Gel MattressSleepSoul · labelled medium	3.82% 9 firmer, 11 softer	524
8	Origin Hybrid Pro MattressORIGIN · labelled medium-firm	3.69% 40 firmer, 22 softer	1,655
9	Silentnight Vilana Miracoil MattressSilentnight · labelled extra firm	3.45% 110 firmer, 9 softer	3,419
10	Silentnight Bonnell MattressSilentnight · labelled extra firm	3.29% 19 firmer, 1 softer	607

Buying by label

Pick your starting grade inside one brand, then let the sleep trial settle it.

• Torn between two grades: find the brand in the brand table above. Where its firmer comments are at least double its softer ones (15 of the brands listed), take the softer of the two. Anywhere else the split is too close to go on, so pick on how you sleep.
• Switching brands: don't carry your old label across. Match the feel you liked, using the new brand's own description of its range.
• During the trial: give a new mattress a few weeks before you judge it, because the top layers soften with use, and check the return terms before the trial ends.

How these numbers are made

Every figure comes from bulk reviews published on retailer product listings, the same base and scope as the reliability report. Reviews submitted here on WantMattress.com are excluded, so nothing posted on our own site feeds these figures. Only whole adult mattresses count: refurbished listings, protectors, toppers and children's, cot and bunk mattresses are left out, and a review repeated across several listings counts once.

The two sides use mirror-image phrase sets. Firmer: “firmer than” or “harder than” followed by “expected”, “I expected”, “I thought” or “I was expecting”, plus “not as soft”, “too firm” and “too hard”. Softer: “softer than” with the same four endings, plus “not as firm” and “too soft”. A review counts once per direction however many phrases it hits. A review that says both counts in both columns, and once in the per-mattress share.

Before matching, these forms are blanked out so they don't count: “not too ...”, “neither too ...”, “nor too ...”, “or too ...”, “either too ...”, “be too ...”, “being too ...”, “n't too ...”, “never too ...”, “without feeling too ...”, “too hard to ...”, “old mattress was too ...”, “previous mattress was too ...”, “old one was too ...”. Without that step, “not too firm, not too soft”, which is praise, would count as two complaints. The firmness complaint figures on the reliability report leave out the same forms.

Keyword matching has limits no exclusion list fully fixes. “Too soft” is sometimes about a pillow or a topper, and “not as firm” or “not as soft” sometimes compares the new mattress with an old one rather than with its description. The same rules run against every brand, so comparisons stay fair even where a single count is rough. Labels are the firmness recorded on each mattress's page here, on a six-step scale from soft to extra firm, and mattresses with no label recorded drop out of the label tables only. Constructions use the reliability report's grouping: hybrid, latex, memory foam, pocket spring and open coil, taken in that order where a mattress carries more than one. A label or construction needs 2,000 reviews, a brand 150, and a figure 10 mentions. The individual mattress table takes mattresses on sale now with 500 or more reviews. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it. More on how the wider site rates products: how we test.

Cite this report

Related on Want Mattress

The mattress reliability report ranks brands on sagging, heat, odour and value from the same reviews. If you're still choosing a grade, SnoozeScore narrows it down, and every brand covered here has a full profile under brand reviews.

References

1. Bed Advice UK (National Bed Federation): independent guidance on choosing a mattress and its comfort grade. https://bedadvice.co.uk/
2. The Sleep Charity: UK charity guidance on sleep environments and bedding. https://thesleepcharity.org.uk/