Leesa VS Purple: Which Bed-in-a-Box Gives The Sweetest Dreams

If you are considering buying a mattress, you like have wondered which online product is the best. Leesa vs. Purple is a common comparison. Both mattress-in-a-box products are popular and have similar features and benefits. Today, consumers benefit from a seemingly endless amount of mattress-buying choices. The traditional furniture and department store options continue to hold strong.

One-stop mattress shops also are thriving in every strip mall in America. If you’ve been paying attention to targeted ads in your social media feeds, you will notice an increasing number of online mattress options, too. Welcome to the golden age of mattresses. Now, buyers have many more options than the king, queen, and twin, or even firm or soft.

bed with white pillows and blankets

Although most people still buy their mattresses from brick and mortar stores, a change is loudly brewing in e-commerce. Online mattress-in-a-box retailers are leading the charge in this sleep solution revolution. Currently, there are almost 180 different online mattress brands. It is a twenty nine dollar billion industry. The business model is surprising, as conventional wisdom would seem to make mattresses one of the least online-friendly products. Mattresses are large. How are you supposed to dispose of your old one? Most importantly, what if you don’t have a good night’s sleep once the bed-in-a-box hits your doorstep? For the most part, the online mattress shopping process addresses these concerns while making shopping as convenient as possible.

The Online Mattress Shopping Experience

When comparing Leesa vs. Purple mattresses, it’s helpful to have an understanding of the online mattress buying process. It is much different than traditional furniture or mattress-store shopping. Before the launch of online mattresses, consumers would visit a local store, pick out a model that fits their budget, and hop on it right on the showroom floor. There, in the presence of other shoppers and salespeople, they would have to embarrass themselves by clumsily climbing on a bare mattress. It might not be the most dignified thing you can do on a shopping trip, but otherwise, how are people supposed to know if a mattress is right for them? Maybe the key to finding the perfect sleep requires more than an in-store, five-minute nap.

For the most part, online mattress purchasing doesn’t allow the in-store couple of minutes of bouncing on a bed. Instead, buyers take a small leap of faith. Once delivered to your home, however, there is a 100-day risk-free trial period offered by most brands.

While most mattress and furniture stores offer delivery of your new purchase and removal of your old mattress as a complimentary service, online mattress retailers typically only offer this as an add-on. This “white glove” delivery is usually an added cost and can range from one hundred to two hundred dollars depending on the brand and your location.

How We Reviewed

Since Leesa and Purple are both popular brands with similar products, we decided to put them up against each other to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. We researched industry publications, expert reviews and user comments to come up with a definitive overview of Leesa and Purple. Which one is the best? Take a look at our findings.

The Leesa Brand

Leesa is one of the leading online mattress companies. Its products are highly rated, with the company touting over 12,000 five-star reviews since it began selling. The company started with its namesake model but has branched out with a higher end Sapira line. Though the two models have different benefits, they construct each with a similar focus on quality.

The Leesa company also concentrates a sizeable portion of its activity on what it calls “social impact.” For every 10 mattresses it sells, Leesa donates one. Leesa is one of a growing number of large companies with social responsibility at the core of operations. Other companies such as Toms Shoes, Method cleaning products and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream focus on giving back to communities or using responsible ingredients. Between this community focus and comfort, with a Leesa mattress, you can truly sleep well at night.

The Leesa Mattress

Leesa product specifications

For purposes of a Leesa vs. Purple comparison, we decided to limit the review to the original Leesa model as it is more in-line with Purple’s pricing. Leesa is a multilayer foam mattress. Like most mattress-in-a-box solutions, Leesa is crafted with a less-is-more philosophy. The mattress has precisely what you need for a great night’s sleep, nothing more and nothing less.

For Leesa, this simplicity means that the mattress has three functional layers. The first is a two-inch comfort layer comprised of responsive foam. Next, Leesa adds its recovery layer. This two-inch slab of memory foam relieves pressure and molds to your body for ultimate comfort. The third layer adds support with a six-inch dense core foam. All body types and sleep positions are supported with Leesa’s overall design.

The mattress’s material is CertiPUR-US Certified, meaning that the no ozone-depleting chemicals went into making the foam. The mattress also doesn’t contain mercury, lead or other heavy metals. The foam is also formaldehyde-free.

Leesa comes in twin, twin XL, full, queen, king and California king sizes. The queen model, which is the most popular and what we will use as a benchmark for comparison, weighs 71 pounds.

Where you can get a Leesa mattress

Availability is an essential consideration in the Leesa vs. Purple match up. You can order a Leesa mattress right from Leesa.com. Ordering online is simple, with easy-to-understand pricing, and free shipping and returns. If you want to try the bed in stores, you can check your local West Elm or Pottery Barn. Also, there are two Leesa Dream Galleries, one in New York City and one in Virginia Beach.

Risk-free trial and warranty

Leesa lets you try its mattress for 100 nights, risk-free. The trial period is part of getting accustomed to the product. Leesa encourages buyers to give the mattress at least 30 nights, which is enough time to get your body accustomed. If within the 100 night period, you do not love your Leesa, return it for a full refund and no charge for the return delivery, except in Alaska and Hawaii.

If you keep the mattress, you can rest assured that it’ll give you many years of support, thanks to a 10-year warranty. The warranty offers a 10-year full replacement. If the mattress has a defect during the warranty period, Leesa will replace or repair. The warranty is non-transferrable

Getting your Leesa home

Leesa offers free shipping throughout the United States. The mattress arrives in an unexpectedly small box. Inside the box, the mattress is tightly rolled in several plastic sheets. The last layer is vacuum-sealed, which compresses the memory foam to a thin pad. Once you open the last plastic sheet, the mattress returns to full size and shape on your bed frame.

Leesa offers “White Glove” delivery service for an additional fee, which ranges from one hundred to one hundred fifty dollars. Leesa’s website notes that this service may not be available in all areas.

Customer reviews

Leesa is a well-regarded mattress brand. Several customers on Amazon raved about its comfort, and how it provides a cooler sleep than other memory foam brands. A few industry publications and consumer-oriented publications listed Leesa at the top of their best mattress reviews. Not all reviews were glowing, however. Some customers said the mattress ran hot and that the foam felt unresponsive. The negative reviews are likely because a one-model-fits-all product is impractical.

Price range

Prices for the Leesa mattress costs from five hundred twenty five to one thousand two hundred dollars depending on what size you want to buy.

Leesa Pros and Cons

Leesa is a well-made memory foam mattress with a few minor but notable issues. Here are its pros and cons:

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

  • Priced significantly cheaper than Purple and other competitors
  • Built out of three distinct layers for comprehensive support and comfort
  • Its materials are lightweight
  • thumbs-upWhite glove delivery is available
  • Limited availability for in-person testing
  • No separate cooling layer, so you may experience hot sleep
  • thumbs-downNo handling grips make the mattress difficult to move

A Purple Night’s Sleep

One of Leesa’s main competitors, Purple has made quite a splash with its irreverent online ads and videos with a snarky Goldilocks spokeswoman. At Purple, the motto is “life’s too short to be uncomfortable.” This irreverent mattress market disrupter began as a project of two scientist-entrepreneur brothers, Tony and Terry Pearce. The previously developed cushions for wheelchair users, which led to them inventing a new foam polymer that combined durability, support and cushioning. The Pearce brothers believed that the same technology could help people experience better sleep, so they launched Purple.

Both Purple and Leesa are marketed to the same group of consumers, but each has slightly different features. Let’s see how the features and benefits match up in Leesa vs. Purple.

 Purple Queen Mattress

Purple product specifications

Like Leesa, Purple comes in two models. For Purple, these models are simply named the Original and the All New. For purposes of this comparison, we opted to keep things simple. We will compare the Original Purple mattress with the Leesa, as each model is the respective brand flagship, featuring core technology.

Purple also features multi-layer foam construction, but its Smart Comfort Grid is a significant differentiating factor. This two-inch layer of Hyper-Elastic Polymer guarantees a refreshing night’s sleep which creating a zero-motion transfer environment. This honeycomb-like material adapts to your body’s pressure points for a custom comfort fit.

Below this initial layer sits a dual layer of polyurethane foam. The first provides soft and responsive comfort, while the second backs it all up with firm and durable support. The materials are all listed as non-toxic and hypoallergenic on the Purple website. The queen sized mattress weighs 110 pounds.

Purple comes in twin XL, full, queen, king and California king sizes.

Where you can get a Purple mattress

Purple mattresses are easiest to order on Purple.com. Unlike Leesa, Purple has a retail relationship with Mattress Firm, a leading nationwide mattress retailer. Many cities and towns have one of these stores nearby since there are 3,500 locations. This gives customers greater opportunity to check out a Purple mattress in person.

Risk-free trial and warranty

Like Leesa, Purple gives customers 100 nights to sleep on their mattress. If you don’t like your Purple sleep experience, return it for free. Another benefit of the Mattress Firm relationship is that, according to the Mattress Firm website, they extend the risk-free trial to 120 days. Purple also offers a free 10-year warranty on the mattress. If your Purple mattress shows any defects during the warranty period, the company will either replace or repair the product. This warranty is non-transferrable, just as is the case with Leesa.

Getting your Purple home

Purple offers free delivery. For its Original mattress, however, White Glove delivery is not available. If you splurge for the upgraded Purple 2.0, your old mattress will be removed and the new one set up for free. The setup experience for the Purple is just like Leesa; you unbox a vacuum-sealed mattress right on your bed frame.

Customer reviews

Just as with Leesa, Purple is a well-reviewed product. Most praise its comfort and cooling technology, while a few commenters complain about the mattress being too soft or not cool enough.

Price range

Prices for the mattress ranges from one thousand three hundred to three thousand five hundred. There are a lot of different varieties of each size mattress. These options impact the prices.

Purple Pros and Cons

Purple claims it pioneered the bed-in-a-box movement, so it has experience and customer loyalty backing up its brand. Here are the pros and cons:

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

  • Available at more locations than other bed-in-a-box mattresses
  • The top cooling layer is effective and also minimizes motion transfer
  • Many high-rated user reviews
  • No white glove delivery for the Original model
  • The mattress is heavy — over 25 percent heavier than Leesa
  • thumbs-downPoor edge support
  • thumbs-downExtra shipping cost for Alaska and Hawaii

woman working on top of a mattress

The Definitive Best Night Sleep: Leesa vs. Purple

While both Leesa and Purple sell quality mattresses, and comfort is a highly-individual and subjective consideration, we believe Leesa’s lightweight and lower price makes it the best online mattress available today. For those who dislike the memory foam sleeping experience, Purple may provide a bit more of a cooling experience.