The best mattress for heavy people: Our expert picks for ample support and comfort
When you're big or tall, you need a mattress to match. We tested and reviewed the best mattresses for heavy people
The best mattresses for heavy people are those that offer plenty of support, ensuring a comfortable night’s sleep that won’t leave you with aches and pains in the morning. Going beyond just comfort, finding the right mattress for your body size is also vital for good mental and physical health.
Whether you’re after a mattress to curb back pain or just looking to upgrade, we should make one thing clear: you need enough support to let your spine lie straight while you sleep, whether you’re seeking the best mattress for back pain, or just want to upgrade your bed. In other words, your back shouldn’t be sinking into the mattress – the heavier you are, the more supportive your mattress needs to be.
Over many years of testing, we’ve reviewed around 60 mattresses, so we know a thing or two about recommending the right bed for you. After carefully measuring their firmness, edge support and ability to keep you cool at night, we chose our top picks for heavier people. Read on for our recommendations, plus useful information on mattress warranties, trial periods and how much you’ll need to spend.
Not sure what type of mattress to buy?
Read our guide to choosing the best mattress type for you
Best mattress for heavy people: At a glance
| Best hybrid mattress overall | Simba Hybrid Pro (From £799) | Check price at Simba |
| Best for a choice of firmness | Eve Wunderflip Premium Hybrid (From £999) | Check price at Eve |
| Best foam mattress with a high weight capacity | Dormeo Memory Plus (From £389) | Check price at Dormeo |
| Best firm hybrid mattress | Otty Original Hybrid (From £530) | Check price at Otty |
Want to learn more?How we test mattresses
It may sound obvious, but it’s essential: we test our mattresses by sleeping on them. That’s part of it, anyway. We also put each mattress through tests designed to compare them fairly and precisely, using weights, spirit levels and thermocouple thermometers. Our main focus here is on firmness and temperature control, although we do also measure edge support and motion isolation.
The base your mattress lies on will play its part in how a mattress feels, with a slatted base adding a little more bounce than a solid divan base. We can’t always test multiple bed bases when reviewing a mattress, but we always take this into account when judging.
A mattress is a big investment, so value for money is an important factor. We also take into account delivery experience, warranty details and free trials, which are notably generous in the bed-in-a-box market. After all, you only really know a mattress is perfect for you after you’ve slept on it for weeks or even months.
Read on for our roundup of the best mattresses for heavy people. All of the below entries have a maximum weight capacity of 114kg (18 stone), unless otherwise stated.
READ NEXT: Best orthopaedic mattress
The best mattresses for heavy people in 2024
1. Simba Hybrid Pro: Best hybrid mattress overall
Price when reviewed: From £799 (single) | Check price at Simba
- Great for… an amazing balance of support and comfort in different sleeping positions
- Not so great for… a budget choice, unless you grab a Simba discount
The Hybrid Pro is one of our favourite Simba mattresses – one that we happily gave a Best Buy award and five-star review for its temperature control and excellent balance of comfort and support. It’s constructed from foam alongside two layers of micro pocket springs, plus a wool layer that helped keep us cool and made us feel cradled and cushioned without any sense of sinking or sagging.
Simba gains extra points from us for specifying weight limits on its website. The brand’s 10-year warranty covers a maximum weight 114kg per sleeper for all of its adult hybrid mattresses.
Although it’s not cheap at £1,249 for a king size, the Hybrid Pro occupies a middle ground in the brand’s wider hybrid range, between the regular Hybrid and the Hybrid Luxe. And given the frequency of Simba’s promotional sales, there’s a good chance you won’t have to pay full price for it either.
Read our full Simba Hybrid Pro review
| Key features | |
| Type | Foam, wool and micro pocket spring hybrid |
| Max weight capacity (per sleeper) | 114kg |
| Needs turning? | Rotate once/month for the first six months, once every 3/6 months thereafter |
| Sizes | Single to super king |
| Warranty | 200-night trial, 10-year warranty |
2. Eve Wunderflip Premium Hybrid: Best mattress for a choice of firmness
Price when reviewed: From £999 (double) | Check price at Eve
- Great for… those who like to turn their mattress to increase its lifespan
- Not so great for… anyone after a single mattress
While the construction of many hybrids is such that only one side is suitable for sleeping on, the mattresses in Eve’s Wunderflip range – as the name suggests – can be flipped: presenting a choice between a “firmer” and “softer” side.
Our reviewer found that there wasn’t a huge amount of variation between the two sides: “the firmer side is not exceedingly firm, and the softer side is not exceedingly soft”. That said, heavier sleepers may still choose to sleep on the firm side for the additional support and pressure relief it offers.
What’s more, the ability to flip the mattress and sleep on either side might also help to ensure that no one side is getting worn down unevenly, thus increasing the shelf life of the mattress and the support it can offer.
A downside is that Eve no longer offers a 365-night trial period, briefly rivalling Nectar’s own year-long trial. But you still get up to 200 nights to try the mattress out, which we’d argue is still very generous.
Read our full Eve Wunderflip Premium Hybrid mattress review
| Key features | |
| Type | Spring and foam hybrid, flippable to offer a “softer” and “firmer” side |
| Max weight capacity (per sleeper) | 130kg |
| Needs turning? | Optional |
| Sizes | Double to super king |
| Warranty | 200-night trial, 10-year warranty |
3. Dormeo Memory Plus: Best foam mattress with a high weight capacity
Price when reviewed: From £389 | Check price at Dormeo
- Great for… heavier people who don’t want a mattress that’s too firm
- Not so great for… anyone who struggles to sleep on hot nights
The Dormeo Memory Plus is a great-value foam mattress, largely because you can regularly find it discounted by as much as 60% in Dormeo’s online sales (bringing a king size down to just £400). At 170mm deep, it’s thinner than a lot of its rivals, and it falls on the softer side, too. However, despite its relatively svelte design, we found it to be comfortable and supportive.
What’s more, on its warranty page, Dormeo states that the mattresses in its Memory range have a weight limit of 22 stone (around 140kg) on each side, which is great if you’re concerned about being too heavy for your mattress.
Read our full Dormeo Memory Plus mattress review
| Key features | |
| Type | Memory foam (foam core with 3cm upper memory foam) |
| Max weight capacity (per sleeper) | 139.7kg |
| Needs turning? | No |
| Sizes | Single to super king |
| Warranty | 60-night trial, 15-year warranty |
4. Otty Original Hybrid: Best firm hybrid
Price when reviewed: From £530 | Check price at Otty
- Great for… restless sleepers who need firm support right to the edge
- Not so great for… fans of bouncy sprung mattresses
In terms of Otty’s line up, we’d argue that the Pure Hybrid is our favourite, winning a Best Buy award when we reviewed it. But where firmness is preferred, consider the Original Hybrid. Otty doesn’t specify maximum weight capacities for its mattresses, but we found the Original Hybrid to be very supportive from edge to edge, with a durable feel and excellent pressure relief that helps every part of you feel supported.
Otty rates the mattress as a seven out of ten on the firmness scale, and we’re inclined to agree. Its layer of full-size 16cm pocket springs (2,000 in a king size) contribute to its ample levels of support, but when we tested it the mattress didn’t feel obviously sprung.
At £800 in a king size (when it’s not discounted), it’s still more affordable than a number of entries on our roundup, plus you’ll get a 100-night trial to test it out.
Read our full Otty Original Hybrid mattress review
| Key features | |
| Type | Foam/spring hybrid (50mm high-density foam; 2,000 140mm pocket springs; 30mm reflex foam; 30mm memory foam) |
| Max weight capacity (per sleeper) | Unspecified |
| Needs turning? | Rotate once/mth (for first six months) |
| Sizes | Single to super king (plus EU sizes) |
| Warranty | 100-night trial, 10-year warranty |
5. HiGrid Premium Hybrid mattress: Best mattress for a larger couple
Price when reviewed: From £899 | Check price at HiGrid
- Great for… heavier sleepers whose old mattresses gave them back pain
- Not so great for… side sleepers who need a degree of softness
This heavy, durable mattress from bed-in-a-box newcomer HiGrid is among the most supportive mattresses we’ve ever slept on. When we tested it in king size, we were bowled over by the pressure-relieving push-back that’s consistently strong from edge to edge. The push-back is largely down to an elastic “SmartGrid” layer that works together with the layers of foam and springs to create an orthopaedic feel that seemed to adapt to our sleeping positions. It will be ideal for pain sufferers and anyone who’d given up hope of finding a truly supportive mattress.
Side sleepers and smaller people may find the mattress a little too firm for comfort, especially at first. The upper layers become more supple as they adapt to you and your sleeping position, but they never quite feel soft. Also beware that this mattress is very heavy (too heavy) for even a moderately strong man to lift on his own.
Read our full HiGrid Premium Hybrid mattress review
| Key features | |
| Type | Hybrid with seven layers including “SmartGrid” polymer, high-resilience foam and individually-wrapped springs |
| Max weight capacity (per sleeper) | Unspecified |
| Needs turning? | No |
| Sizes | Four sizes from single to super king |
| Warranty | 200-night trial, 10-year guarantee |
How to choose the best mattress for you
Do bigger and heavier people need firmer mattresses?
Generally speaking, yes. When researching the best mattresses for bigger and heavier people, we spoke to Carlos E Cobiella, consultant sports surgeon working at The Shoulder Practice in London. “Firmer mattresses offer better support for heavier bodies,” Dr Cobiella told us. “These mattresses tend to distribute weight more evenly and prevent the body from sinking too deeply into the mattress.”
Sinking into your mattress may sound cosy, but it’s not good for your spine, and may cause back pain further down the line. Ideally, your spine should align (be comfortably straight) while you sleep. For smaller people, this requires enough softness to accommodate hips and shoulders. For bigger people, it requires enough firmness to support your body.
Firmer mattresses also tend to last longer, points out Dr Cobiella. “Heavier people may put more pressure on mattresses, causing them to wear out more quickly. Firmer mattresses tend to be more durable and better able to withstand extra weight over time.”
Why is “pressure relief” important in a mattress?
Firm and orthopaedic mattresses excel at pressure relief, which essentially means they help to distribute your body weight more evenly across the sleeping surface.
“Many people experience pain in areas like the shoulders, hips and lower back due to pressure points formed by older mattresses,” says Dr Cobiella. “Mattresses designed for pressure relief aim to reduce the concentration of pressure on these points.” As a result, you’ll sleep better – and you’ll feel less pain when you wake up
How do I know if a mattress will be supportive enough?
If you’re concerned about whether a mattress will take your weight, there are a number of things you can look out for. First, check the manufacturer’s weight limits. Most brands should specify this in the mattress specification information or in its FAQs. For instance, all Simba Hybrid mattresses are designed to accommodate up to 114kg per sleeper.
If you’re on the heavier side, it’s also a good idea to look for a mattress that will be firm enough to support you. Generally speaking, the heavier you are, the firmer you’ll want your mattress to be (your mattress will also feel firmer when used on a solid base, rather than sprung slatted).
