The 5 Best Innerspring Mattresses of 2025
Top pick
Who it’s for: The WinkBed in Luxury Firm should work for back- and stomach-sleepers as well as side-sleepers who rotate positions frequently or those who simply prefer a firmer mattress. The WinkBed also comes in a Softer version (designed especially for side-sleepers), a Firmer model (for stomach- and back-sleepers), and a Plus version (for those over 300 pounds).
How it feels: The Luxury Firm is medium-firm, with the top layer feeling more cushioned than fluffy. Some side-sleepers wished it were softer. If that sounds like you, we suggest the Softer, which offers more pressure relief and a more cuddly feel.
Why it’s great: We’ve group-tested the WinkBed in both the Luxury Firm (WinkBed’s medium-firm option) and Softer (its plushest offering), and each dominated the competition in popularity. Offering notable cushioning with only a muted springiness, the WinkBed feels more similar to a hybrid than a traditional innerspring, and our testers appreciated that. A crowd-pleaser when we compared it against 11 other innerspring mattresses, the Luxury Firm won votes for its billowy yet substantial feel. The Softer model also garnered similar praise when tested against other soft mattresses. “Cushy” on top but “supportive” at the bottom was a common refrain.
The Luxury Firm is topped with a 1-inch layer of quilted polyfoam, which is 1½ pounds per cubic foot, and covered with sweat-wicking Tencel. The Luxury Firm has a 2-inch non-memory-foam polyfoam layer, which is just under the quilting; the foam is a dense 2½ pounds per cubic foot, and it sits atop a support layer of 1,054 pocketed coils. The coils are a thick, supportive 14½-gauge, with a heavier 13 gauge along the rim, to provide adequate edge support.
During our sleep tests, the top layer of the Luxury Firm, while cushiony, felt stiff initially. But the mattress broke in after a week and a half, and it settled into a squarely medium-firm feel, with more give for the heavier parts of the body, such as the hips and shoulders, while still supporting the lower back.
The Softer version of the WinkBed features an additional inch of foam in its quilted pillow top and a softer foam in the 2-inch polyfoam layer below it. It offered a deeper cushioning, in contrast to the more-shallow cuddle of the Luxury Firm. If you’re a side-sleeper, this model is likely the better choice; the additional cushioning allows you to nestle right in, and more deeply, too. And with the same coil strength as the Luxury Firm, the Softer should still be supportive for stomach-sleepers.
When we tested the Softer against 11 other soft mattresses in early 2022, six of 10 testers liked it best in its price category (which included the Casper Nova Hybrid and Saatva Classic in Plush Soft). Overall, the WinkBed Softer felt more densely cushiony, while the similarly priced Saatva Plush Soft felt more pillowy and springy. (The more expensive Casper Nova Hybrid—which came in a distant second in its price category of the soft mattresses we tested—had a looser-feeling softness, with less edge support.)
The WinkBed’s top layer is made from less-dense foam (1½ pounds per cubic foot) and therefore may be prone to body impressions over time (like most pillow-top mattresses). This may be more pronounced with the Softer because of its extra inch of pillow top and softer foam in the support layer. For this reason, we don’t recommend it for people who weigh more than 200 pounds. (If you’re closer to 300 pounds or above, you might consider the WinkBed Plus, which we haven’t tried yet.)
The company says the WinkBed’s pillow top consists of a special “SupportCell” polyfoam, designed to feel springy and cool. However, we didn’t find the foam to be more resilient than that of other pillow tops we’ve tested, and I didn’t sleep particularly cool or hot. WinkBed also touts zoned support, but we think the effect is subtle, depending on your size and how you choose to sprawl out on the mattress.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: Given that the perimeter of the mattress is reinforced by coils instead of a foam encasement (as is the case with the Saatva), we expected good edge support, and indeed the mattress held our tester up when they slept on the edge. Surprisingly, though, sitting on the edge of both the Luxury Firm and the Softer caused a bit of sloping. The motion transfer is much subtler than that of the springier Saatva Classic, but it was still detectable for two people sleeping in a full-size bed.
WinkBed doesn’t have a showroom, and its mattresses are not available at national retailers, so you can’t easily try the mattress before buying (you can find a handful of online-mattress tryout locations that feature the WinkBed). This is especially vexing since it comes in multiple firmness levels, and the exchange process isn’t totally free (see details below).
Like all mattresses with thick pillow tops, the WinkBed will be prone to body indentations over time (and, generally speaking, the softer the surface, the more vulnerable it is). (Under the warranty, WinkBeds will replace the mattress if it develops indentations, but only if they’re more than 1½ inches deep; by contrast, Saatva requires only 1-inch-deep indentations for an exchange.) The company advises rotating the mattress every two weeks for the first three months, then every two months thereafter. This is a lot of rotating for a heavy mattress without handles.
Trial, shipping, and returns: WinkBeds offers a 120-night trial period, during which you can return or exchange the mattress for a different firmness level (you have to pay a $50 fee, though, and the new mattress comes with a 60-day trial). If you decide you want a different firmness level after those 120 nights have elapsed (or even years later, if your preferences change), WinkBeds will let you exchange the mattress for half the cost (with shipping and haul-away charges, and you can only exchange the mattress once).
The WinkBed is shipped rolled up in a box, and the package is heavy (as staffers, who’ve ordered this mattress for personal use, have mentioned). Basic delivery is free but doesn’t include any setup, or the removal of your old mattress.
Key specs
Materials: polyfoam, pocketed coils; Tencel cover
Thickness: 13½ inches
Firmness options: Softer, Luxury Firm, Firmer, Plus (for those over 300 pounds)
Return or exchange within: 120 nights
Warranty: lifetime
