Soft vs. Medium Mattress

Choosing a mattress firmness level can be a little tricky. You have to take your personal preferences into account, of course, but there are so many other factors you’ll need to consider when thinking about the right mattress firmness for you.

Two of the most popular choices on the market are soft and medium mattresses. Many people who don’t have much experience buying new mattresses might think they need a softer mattress. In reality, soft beds are made for specific people, and they’re not for everybody. Medium mattresses are more versatile but still not for every type of sleeper.

The good news is we’ve taken a lot of the guesswork out of the process. Below, we’ll talk about the differences between soft and medium mattresses to help you decide on your ideal firmness level.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattress for Couples

Soft Mattresses

Soft mattresses can feel a little like sleeping on a cloud. They’re the lowest number on the firmness scale that you’re likely to find (3 of 10). This gives you the most pressure relief for your joints and pressure points, but it offers you the least amount of spinal support. This means softer feels may not be the best for people who need lots of lift.

Feel

Soft mattresses feel, well, soft. Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that. But the first thing you’ll notice when you feel a soft mattress is its intense plushness. Soft mattresses have much more cradling than support. This can be helpful for some, but others may find they experience too much sinkage.

Temperature Regulation

Softer mattresses can have some issues in this department. Soft mattresses tend to hug your body. While many people love this cradling effect, it does put a damper on airflow. Since more of your body contacts the bed as it contours to your shape, less of it is exposed to cooling air circulation. Cold sleepers might love this; hot sleepers probably not so much.

SEE ALSO: Best Hybrid Mattress for Side Sleepers

Pressure Relief

Plush beds serve as excellent mattresses for pressure points. They typically have multiple layers of cushioning foam to help protect your body from the firm support layer below. All mattresses have a support layer and a comfort layer. Soft mattresses will simply have a thicker pressure-relieving layer than any other mattress firmness, but they should still have a support layer.

Lift and Support

Softer mattresses have plenty of support that comes from a firm coil or foam support core. That means they can offer spinal alignment despite their plush feel.

But soft beds tend to have problems with lift. People who shouldn’t be sleeping on a soft mattress often complain about feeling sunken or stuck. If this describes you, you might need to go up a firmness level. Alternatively,  you can look for a hybrid mattress that feels buoyant yet plush.

SEE ALSO: Best Purple Mattress Alternatives

Ideal Sleepers

Of course, your personal preferences come into play. If you really love the feel of a plush mattress and can’t get comfortable on anything else, then a soft mattress is for you. However, chances are, unless you’re a petite sleeper or a side sleeper, you’ll need something firmer.

Petite Sleepers

Petite sleepers are those under 130 pounds. People who weigh less than this will likely experience too much pressure from a firmer mattress, especially if they sleep on their sides. Petite sleepers need lots of extra padding to get enough compression and contouring out of their mattress to achieve ideal spine positioning and pressure relief.

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers typically need soft mattresses because their hip and shoulder joints come into contact with the bed all night. As the night wears on, the body’s weight pushes these joints into the sleeping surface. A firmer bed will push back, exerting pressure and causing pain in these sensitive areas. That’s why side sleepers need softer beds.

SEE ALSO: Softest Mattress in a Box

One of the best soft mattresses on the market right now is the AS5. This mattress counters the main problems with soft mattresses and memory foam mattresses alike: heat retention and slow response time.

The Bio-Pur® foam is the best feature of this mattress. It swaps out some petroleum products for plant oils. This makes the comfort layer much more breathable and bouncy than traditional memory foam.

Underneath the cool and responsive comfort layers, you’ll find the HIVE® transition layer. This layer offers five different zones of pressure relief. These zones target the different areas of your body to relieve aches and pains and provide ideal support to every body region.

The high-density support core of the AS5 makes this a highly supportive soft mattress. That means not only will you get lots of spine-aligning lift out of this soft bed. You can also expect it to last for a cool 20 years.

All Amerisleep mattresses ship free and come with a 100-night sleep trial.

SEE ALSO: Best Cloud Mattress

Medium Mattresses

Medium mattresses are among the most versatile (and the most popular) on the market. They offer a complete balance between cushion and support, making them a 5 of 10 on the firmness scale. While firmer mattresses offer more support and softer mattresses offer more cushion, a medium mattress will provide both in equal measure.

Feel

Most people are surprised at how soft a medium mattress still feels. Medium mattresses still have lots of cradling layers of foam. Many medium mattresses still have at least one transition layer under their comfort layers. This gives them a surprisingly plush and contouring feel.

Temperature Regulation

Medium mattresses are more dependent on their material for temperature neutrality than soft mattresses. Soft beds of any material tend to be warmer than firmer beds. Meanwhile, medium beds don’t hold in as much heat. So you’ll notice more distinction between different materials like memory foam and hybrid and latex mattresses.

Pressure Relief

Medium mattresses still provide solid pressure relief. Since they offer a balance between comfort layers and support layers, you’ll still feel plenty of compression and contouring—just not as much as with a soft mattress.

Lift and Support

Those who like a soft feel but need more support than what a soft mattress can provide might think about a medium mattress. While they maintain lots of cradling, they offer a lot more support and lift than a soft mattress.

Ideal Sleepers

Like we said above, medium mattresses are highly versatile. This means they can take a high number of different types of sleepers without skipping a beat.

Combination Sleepers

Combo sleepers don’t really have a preferred sleep position. They’ll adopt different positions from night to night or even multiple times in the same night. Medium mattresses can accommodate this tossing and turning because of their balance between support and cradling. They’re soft enough for you to sleep on your side for a while and still be comfortable turning over to your back.

Average-Weight Sleepers

Average sleepers weigh between 130 and 230 pounds. Depending on their sleep position, lots of average-weight sleepers (especially back sleepers who prefer a softer feel and combo sleepers) can do really well on a medium mattress.

Couples

Because medium mattresses can accommodate so many different sleep positions, they’re often the best choice for couples. They provide a good compromise for different body types and sleep styles to share a bed without having to do a split king setup.

Petite Back Sleepers

Ideally, back sleepers should be sleeping on a medium-firm mattress. However, lighter-weight back sleepers might find medium-firm mattresses don’t contour sufficiently to keep their spines aligned and protect them from pressure. These back sleepers should go for a medium mattress rather than a medium-firm.

Heavier Side Sleepers

Likewise, heavier side sleepers might find a soft or medium-soft mattress doesn’t offer enough lift to fight sinkage, and keep their spines aligned. If you weigh more than 230 pounds and sleep on your side, you might consider a medium-soft or even a medium mattress to get the support you need.

Those looking for amazing mattress comfort without breaking the bank should consider the Vaya Mattress. This mattress’s simple two-layer design packs a one-two punch of high quality and low price.

The Vaya’s comfort layer features breathable open-cell foam to keep you cool all night. This particular memory foam is also highly contouring, meaning side sleepers who want a firmer mattress should take a hard look at this medium offering.

The Vaya Mattress’s support core is made of durable high-density foam. That means despite its value price, this mattress will fight sagging and sinkage for a full decade—as evidenced by its 10-year warranty.

SEE ALSO: Vaya Mattress Review

The Firmness Scale

The firmness scale is a way for manufacturers to let buyers know how firm or soft a mattress is before they purchase. The scale runs from 1 to 10, with 10 being the firmest.

However, you’re unlikely to find a mattress softer than a 3 or firmer than an 8 because ultra-soft mattresses don’t offer enough support to fight sinkage and ultra-firm mattresses don’t have enough padding to relieve pressure.

Medium-Soft

Medium-soft is a 4 on the firmness scale. These mattresses offer a little bit more support than truly soft mattresses but not much. They still have more cushioning than lift.

Medium-soft mattresses can be good options for heavier side sleepers who need a little extra lift. They can also make great beds for petite combo sleepers who might need more cushioning than a medium mattress offers.

Medium-Firm

Medium-firm mattresses (6 of 10) are the first beds that tip the scales in favor of support. These mattresses don’t eliminate all cushioning. They still have a fair amount of pressure relief for your joints. But the lift definitely outweighs it.

Medium-firm mattresses make the best beds for back sleepers because they offer spinal support and contouring. They’re also the best choice for those with back pain because they’re better at aligning the spine than most other firmness levels.

Firm

Firm mattresses aren’t as firm as you’d think. At 7 on the firmness scale, they definitely offer tons of support. However, this support doesn’t come at the cost of all cushioning. Firm mattresses still have a little bit of pressure relief to prevent pain and stiffness.

Even so, firm mattresses aren’t for everyone. They’re best for stomach sleepers and heavier back sleepers. Stomach sleepers need lots of lift to keep their pelvises from sinking and their spines in neutral alignment. Heavier back sleepers also need the extra lift of a firm mattress to keep their bodies from “folding” in a too-soft bed.

SEE ALSO: Firm vs. Medium Mattress

Extra-Firm

Extra-firm mattresses (8 of 10) sacrifice just about all cushioning in favor of support. These mattresses can feel like sleeping on a slab to most people. This is why they’re among the least popular mattress choices. They’re really only a good choice for heavier stomach sleepers who can’t get enough support from a firm mattress.

Choosing a Firmness

There are three factors that impact what firmness level you need: your sleep style, your body type, and your personal preferences. Sleep style is the single most important factor in your decision, but you can’t discount your body weight or preferences.

Sleeping Position

Your sleep position is the thing that determines what firmness you need. This factor should decide your baseline firmness level, while your preferences and body weight determine whether you should go up or down from there.

For instance, a side sleeper would need a soft mattress. But a heavier side sleeper should consider going up to a medium-soft. And side sleepers who prefer a firmer feel might even go up to a medium mattress.

Back Sleepers

Back sleepers need a balance of support and cradling that slightly favors support. This allows the mattress to keep them lifted onto the sleeping surface while at the same time rising to fill in the lumbar curve to maintain spinal alignment. This means most mattresses for back sleepers should possess a medium-firm.

Combo Sleepers

Since combo sleepers change positions, they need a mattress that can handle all major sleep styles. The best mattresses for combination sleepers are those that can accommodate their tossing and turning throughout the night. 

They need enough support to keep their spines aligned when they’re on their stomachs or backs. They also need sufficient cushioning to protect their joints from pressure when they’re on their sides. That’s why a medium mattress is best for most combo sleepers.

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers need tons of cradling to protect their hips and shoulders from pressure. That means a soft mattress is the best choice for most side sleepers.

Stomach Sleepers

Stomach sleepers tend to suffer from lower back pain because their pelvises sink into the bed and bend their lumbar regions out of shape. A mattress for stomach sleeping needs to buoy their bodies to prevent this. That means stomach sleepers need firm mattresses to avoid back pain.

Body Weight

Your body weight determines whether you need to go up or down a firmness level from the one that corresponds to your sleeping position.

Average

Average-weight sleepers are between 130 and 230 pounds. They can generally stick to the firmness that works for their sleep style without accounting for body weight.

Petite

Petite sleepers are less than 130 pounds. People under this weight tend to need extra cushioning to get enough pressure relief. That means they should typically go down one firmness level from the ideal one for their sleep style when shopping mattresses for petite sleepers.

Plus-Size

Plus size sleepers (over 230 pounds) need extra support to keep them lifted onto the sleeping surface. So the best mattress for heavier people usually has them go up a firmness level from the one that corresponds to their sleep position.

Personal Preferences

This is the most subjective of all the factors impacting your firmness needs. After all, what the most comfortable mattress is for one person can fee uncomfortable to another, even if they’re both high-quality beds.

If you have a strong preference for a certain firmness and can’t get comfortable on anything else, try to stick as close as you can to the ideal firmness for your sleep style and body type without discounting your preferences.

For example, a plus-size stomach sleeper would need an extra-firm mattress. However, if that sleeper loves the feel of a soft bed, they might need to compromise and get a medium-firm to firm mattress to maintain some level of comfort to suit their preferences while still getting enough support to avoid lower back pain.

Consider also Mattress Sizes

FAQs

Should heavier side sleepers go for a soft or medium mattress?

Heavier side sleepers should consider a medium-soft or medium mattress instead of a truly soft one. A bit more firmness will fight sinkage for heavier sleepers. This keeps them lifted onto the sleeping surface and their spines in neutral alignment.

Are hybrid mattresses soft or firm?

All types of mattresses come in a range of different firmness levels. The amount of cushioning material in the mattress determines mattress feel, not mattress type. That means you can get a soft hybrid, a firm hybrid, and everything in between.

Is a soft or medium mattress best for side sleepers?

A soft mattress is best for most side sleepers under 230 pounds. When you sleep on your side, a lot of pressure is put on your joints. Soft mattresses relieve this pressure to help prevent pain in your hips and shoulders.

Which is the coolest mattress firmness level?

Firmer mattresses are generally cooler. Soft mattresses tend to hug your body and impede cooling airflow. However, if you want a cool mattress but need a soft feel, it’s better to get a cooling mattress type like a hybrid or gel memory foam mattress rather than an overly firm bed.

What’s the best firmness level for back pain?

Generally speaking, the best firmness level for back pain is medium-firm. This is because medium-firm mattresses offer the right balance between contouring and support to keep your spine in ideal alignment.

The main exception to this rule is for stomach sleepers. If your pain is caused by sleeping on your stomach, you may need to go up to a firm or even an extra-firm mattress to keep your spine in the ideal position.

Bottom Line

Choosing a mattress firmness doesn’t have to feel like a shot in the dark. All you need to do is keep your sleep style and body type in mind, as well as your personal preferences, to find the best mattress and ideal firmness for you!