The 10 Very Best Cooling Mattress Toppers

Cooling components: Temperature responsive foam | Thickness: 2 inches | Care instructions: Spot clean | Trial and warranty: 30-night trial, two-year warranty

Bill Fish, a certified sleep science coach and co-founder of sleep-product review site Tuck, says this cushy topper from Nest Bedding is one of his favorites because “it is constructed with a gel-infused memory-foam core that helps to pull that heat away from the body.” It’s the same memory foam that tops Nest’s mattresses, which our kitchen-and-dining writer Emma Wartzman says relieved her of the “back and neck pain that I was waking up with every morning.”

Cooling components: Graphite-infused memory foam | Thickness: 3 inches | Care instructions: Spot clean | Trial and warranty: 180-day trial period, 1-year limited warranty

Infused with graphite, this Saatva memory foam mattress topper is designed to draw heat away from your body so that you sleep cooler and more comfortably. The body-contouring foam is designed to provide muscle and joint pressure relief while also isolating movement, which comes in handy if you sleep next to a partner who tosses and turns. The machine-washable organic cotton cover further promotes airflow.

Cooling components: Copper gel-infused memory foam | Thickness: 2 inches | Care instructions: Spot clean | Trial and warranty: 120-day trial period, 5-year warranty

Both supportive and pillowy soft, this copper gel bead-infused memory foam topper by Layla is designed to pull heat away from your body while you sleep. The two inches of cushioned foam supports your pressure points while the copper infusion works to keep your body cool and to create an antimicrobial sleeping surface. This topper also has a 3.5-pound density level, which means the memory foam is squishy and molds to your body but will be on the firmer side.

[Editor’s note: This topper is currently sold out in queen and king sizes, but you can sign up for back-in-stock notifications on Layla’s website. The brand expects to restock in early September.]

Cooling components: Open cell latex | Thickness: 2 inches or 3 inches | Care instructions: Spot clean | Trial and warranty: Not returnable, five-year warranty

Although generally more expensive than foam or fiber, toppers made of latex are preferred by some sleepers because they’re all-natural, long-lasting, and allow for better air circulation. Latex is naturally hyperresponsive, offering a bouncier, less sinky feel. Fish likes that this one, from PlushBeds, comes in five different firmness levels to easily customize the feel of your bed, and, he says, “the aerated feature allows for consistent airflow to keep the sleeper cool throughout the night.” For an additional cost, you can also add an organic cotton cover. Unfortunately, these toppers are not returnable, so you should be ready to commit if you’re going to go for it.

Cooling components: Viscose and cotton blend and polyester fill | Thickness: Not listed | Care instructions: Spot clean | Trial and warranty: 60-night trial, 180-day warranty

While this Slumber Cloud product is not a thick mattress topper, but rather a thinner mattress pad, its cooling abilities earned it a spot on this list. Heather Turgeon, a psychotherapist and author of The Happy Sleeper, often recommends the brand to her patients who struggle with temperature regulation because it uses innovative cooling technologies. This polyester-filled pad is lined with a “NASA-inspired” fabric designed to let heat escape from the body. It’s also a favorite of Logan Block, director of content at Sleepopolis, who says it’s durable and sleeps cool.

I’ve slept on this mattress pad myself, and straight out of the packaging, the material had a noticeable coolness — it’s smooth and even comfortable enough to lay on without another sheet. The material is made of 40 percent “NASA-inspired” Outlast viscose, a phase-change material that stores body heat when you are too hot and releases it when you are too cool. While I found that using it under my sheets kind of muffled the cool-to-the-touch feel, the fabric behaved as intended and seemed to adjust with the ebbs and flows of my body temperature, helping to keep it regulated — I didn’t overheat or wake up clammy in my own sweat. That feeling of maintaining a “level” temperature was more prominent than a cooling chill.

As far as the pad’s softness or plushness goes, this product is sparingly filled and won’t make much difference in the actual feel of your mattress — though it doesn’t really add cushioning, it won’t take away from the existing comfort of my mattress either. It is primarily designed for people who want to tackle the issue of overheating while they sleep, and if you are looking to add plushness to your mattress, you could consider combining placing this pad over a more traditional plush mattress topper.

Cooling components: App-controlled temperature-regulating pad | Thickness: Approximately 1 inch | Care instructions: Spot clean| Trial and warranty: 30-night trial period, two-year limited warranty

For a more tech-y (albeit expensive) approach to keeping cool at night, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 allows you to precisely customize the temperature of your bed. I spent two weeks sleeping on the hydro-powered cooling “system,” and the temperature control felt almost magical. The system works by pumping water through low-profile tubing concealed within the cover, which connects to a small water tank that sits next to your bed. You use an app to set your desired temperature with a simple tap, and you can even add your bedtime so it’s ready when you get there.

Underestimating the actual power, I chose a -3 temperature rating to start and it actually turned out to be far too cold (the temperature dial ranges from -10 to +10, which is 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit). Ultimately, I found that the -1 setting the company suggests for most users — which corresponds to 79.75 degrees — was perfect. It is not unusual for me to wake up in the middle of the night feeling much hotter than when I fell asleep, but the Pod cover kept me comfortable all night. (Strategist writer Dominique Pariso had a similar experience when she tested an earlier version of the cover.) The app-controlled interface is full of trackable insights like heart rate, the number of times tossed and turned, and total hours slept; all of those data points helped to determine my sleep score, which I appreciated as an indicator of how well I was sleeping overall. There’s also a vibration alarm that I could set to gently wake me up each morning, and sleeping partners are able to choose different settings for their own sides of the bed — crucial, as my husband runs much warmer than me. We were initially worried that the cover would totally alter the feel of our mattress because of how tightly it encases the mattress, and while it does make it slightly firmer, I didn’t notice any change in the comfort level.

Cooling components: Remote-controlled temperature-regulating pad | Thickness: Not listed | Care instructions: Pad is machine washable | Trial and warranty: 30-night trial, two-year limited warranty

For her clients who “really struggle with temperature regulation at night,” Schlecht turns to this high-tech mattress topper (also recommended by Tal and Grandner) that can be set to an exact temperature anywhere from 55 to 115 degrees. Similar to the Pod Cover, it’s lined with water-filled silicone tubes and connects to a power unit that cools or heats the water to a steady temperature, so it’s a good choice for those who want to guarantee that their bed will stay cool. Available in half-queen and half-king sizes (as well as standard queen, king, and California king sizes), it’s also a good solution for bed partners who prefer different temperatures.

[Editor’s note: This brand is undergoing some changes, including a name change from ChiliSleep to Sleep.Me, so you may see either or both listed on product pages for the Cube Sleep System. We plan to test both the Cube Sleep and the brand’s deluxe cooling topper, the Dock Pro, for a future update to this guide.]

Cooling components: App-controlled Ai-R SleepTech airflow technology | Thickness: Approximately 1 inch | Care instructions: Machine washable cover | Trial and warranty: 30-risk free return, one-year limited warranty

Similar to the hydro-powered toppers, the Perfectly Snug Smart Topper is tech-enabled and customizable so that you can warm or cool your mattress to your desired temperature. However, instead of water, the Smart Topper uses temperature-controlled airflow pushed through the topper by mini-fans in the corners or at the foot of the topper, depending on which size you get. There is also a heating option, powered by the same fans in the way that a space heater would work, which is nice for preheating your bed before hopping in.

With the app, you can set the temperature range you’d like (ranging from 10 to negative 10), and the topper automatically adjusts throughout the night to help your body maintain your preset baseline temperature. The brand does not offer exact heating and cooling temps, so you’ll need to experiment with the settings to find the one that works for you. Beauty writer and editor Cheryl Kramer Kaye says that, while pricey, the Smart Topper has helped her actually stay asleep instead of waking up in her own personal swamp, particularly when dealing with sleep-disrupting menopausal hot flashes. “There are tons of great solutions out there for hot sleepers, but I wanted the one that would let me stay asleep rather than fall back to sleep. And I found it in this mattress topper,” Kramer Kaye says. For extra-hot nights, there is a burst button that turns on an extra five minutes of cooling air, and like the other smart toppers on this list, each side has its own temperature-control capabilities, which is handy if you share your sleeping space.