What’s the Difference Between the Most Expensive Tempur-Pedic Mattress and the Cheapest One?
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Even if you know next to nothing aboutmattresses, you’ve probably heard of Tempur-Pedic. The brand is largely credited with introducing the public tomemory foamback in the 1990s and has since become near-synonymous with the material, a specific type ofpolyurethane foamknown for the way it slowly compresses and contours around the body but returns to its original shape once pressure is removed.
I’ve praised Tempur-Pedic’smattress toppersandpillowsextensively here at the Strategist because of the very high-quality memory foam they’re made with. But until recently, I hadn’t tested the brand’s mattresses by actually sleeping on one for a meaningful period of time (with every mattress we test, we pledge to sleep on it at home for at least a week, though it’s often much longer than that).
Tempur-Pedic’s mattress offerings cover a pretty vast price range — there’s a $3,700 difference between its most- and least-expensive models. So when deciding which Tempur-Pedic mattress to try, I wondered: If you want the Tempur-Pedic sleep experience, do youneedto spring for the most expensive option? Or will the “cheap” version suffice? To find out, I tested theTempur-LuxeBreeze($5,699) and theTempur-Cloud($1,999), sleeping on each one for about two months.
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Better memory foam costs more
The Tempur-LuxeBreeze comes in three variations: a “soft” all-foam mattress, a “firm” all-foam mattress, and a “medium” hybrid mattress. I went with the soft version, and as soon as I lay down on it for the first time, I could tell it was different from just about any mattress I had ever tried.
I was surprised by how firm the LuxeBreeze felt initially. Then, after about 15 seconds, I started to feel a slow, melty sink — eventually settling into place, like a slow-motion version of when a cartoon character ends up knee-deep in quicksand. The melting sensation was so subtle, I didn’t really register at first that it was happening. I think the slower sinking in meant that the foam conformed more deeply and more specifically to my exact body shape. And while the mattress doesn’t exactly feelsoftin the traditional sense, it is cushioning and supportive; lying on it feels like being suspended in a sea of foam. After two months, I came to think of it as the ultimate version of what memory-foam mattresses are meant to offer — the whole point is that the material conforms to you so that you don’t feel any soreness or stiffness when you wake up.
The Tempur-Cloud has the same overall design as the Tempur-LuxeBreeze, in that it has two layers of memory foam over a sturdier polyfoam base. There is an all-foam model and a hybrid model (which has a coil base), both designated as “medium” in terms of firmness. I tested the all-foam version.
When I first lay down on the Tempur-Cloud, I immediately noticed some big differences. While it also felt quite firm at the start, it didn’t have the slow-sinking, melty characteristic of the Tempur-LuxeBreeze. Rather, I could instantly feel my body depress into the foam. But even as I sank in a bit, the Tempur-Cloud didn’t contour around me as deeply as the Tempur-LuxeBreeze, even after I lay on it for several minutes,. And the “response time” of the foam seemed quicker: When I got up, I didn’t see my distinct body impression lingering in the foam, as I had on the Tempur-LuxeBreeze. I still found the Tempur-Cloud comfortable and supportive, but I didn’t get the same unique sense of being suspended as I did on the Luxe-Breeze.
So do effective cooling features
The Tempur-LuxeBreeze is constructed with two layers of cooling memory foam and a cooling cover, all of which are relatively effective. I tested the mattress during the North Carolina spring, so the temperature was very back and forth between hot and cool. And while it wasn’t full-on summer heat, I rarely overheated. When it’s cold out, the mattress actually feels quite chilly — and might be even a little too much for some people.
No matter the temperature outside, the mattress always felt coolest right when I first got into bed, and it was noticeable even through mysheetsandmattress protector. That effect would fade gradually the longer I lay in bed. So, while not knock-your-socks-off amazing — almost no cooling mattress is — I’d say this one is above average, especially since memory foam is notorious for trapping heat.
Meanwhile, the Tempur-Cloud has neither cooling foams nor a cooling cover, so it’s not shocking that I didn’t notice any particular cooling benefits while sleeping on it.
Plusyou’re paying for delivery
Because it doesn’t ship compressed in a box, the price of the Tempur-LuxeBreeze includes a complimentary white-glove delivery service (and the team who sets it up in your home will haul away your old mattress too). The Tempur-Cloud is Tempur-Pedic’s only bed-in-a-box offering, so it comes shipped in a box.
But it really comes down to foam density
Here’s a weird visual: If each of these mattresses was adiagram of the space-time continuum, I felt like a tiny planet with less mass while lying on the Tempur-Cloud, and a giant high-mass planet while lying on the Tempur-LuxeBreeze. Sam, my partner, had a similar experience, noting that on the Tempur-Cloud, he felt the lower half of his body sink in more, while his upper body remained more “on top” of the bed. This created a slight bend in his back that was less comfortable, whereas on the Tempur-LuxeBreeze, he felt like he had sunk in “proportionally” so that his back remained in alignment with his head and neck.
Some of these differences in sinkage can be attributed to the fact that the Tempur-Cloud is intended to have a medium firmness, where the Tempur-LuxeBreeze model that I tested is rated as soft. But it didn’tonlyfeel like a difference in firmness to me — the foam of the Tempur-LuxeBreeze just feltsodifferent from that of the Tempur-Cloud. For that reason, I suspect that the Tempur-Cloud uses a much lower-density foam than the Tempur-LuxeBreeze.
I’m operating with some educated guesswork here, as Tempur-Pedic is quite tight-lipped about itsfoam formulationsand didn’t provide additional details when I reached out. But Sam and I both agreed that the foam of the Tempur-Cloud feels lighter and airier in comparison to the “thickness” we experienced on the higher-end Tempur-LuxeBreeze, as if there wasmorefoam to sink into on the more expensive mattress. The Tempur-Cloud also literally weighs less — just 57 pounds for the queen size compared to over 108 pounds for the Tempur-LuxeBreeze — which suggests there is more material packed into the Tempur-LuxeBreeze. (The LuxeBreeze is also three inches taller, but I don’t think height alone can account for the vast weight difference.)
Density surely isn’t the only difference in the formulation of the foams, but I think it helps explain why the Tempur-LuxeBreeze felt so deeply, perfectly contouring to Sam and me, while the Tempur-Cloud just felt like … foam. And because higher-density foam is made with more material and is also more durable, that could easily account, at least in part, for the higher price of the Tempur-LuxeBreeze.
If I had to choose to keep one of these two mattresses long term, it would be the Tempur-LuxeBreeze: I liked it a lot more than the Tempur-Cloud and it provided more of what I expected the Tempur-Pedic experience to be, a luxury foam mattress. But I also think the Tempur-Cloud is a good buy that would likely satisfy many people’s desire for a quality foam mattress.
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