Do I Need a Pillow-Top Mattress?

I was recently chatting with someone at my yoga studio about which mattress she should buy, and when I asked what she was looking for, she told me that she likes a soft mattress, “like a pillow top.” That connection she made — between softness and pillow tops — is really common. Most people hear “pillow top” and, even without knowing anything about mattresses, can assume it means the bed is softer. That’s a logical assumption and one that I also made before I started writing about mattresses. But having tested dozens of different mattresses of all types, I have often wondered how much of a difference pillow tops really make. They certainly aren’t the only soft mattresses out there — and they seem to be more expensive than other styles. So I am setting out to answer the question of what exactly is a pillow-top mattress, and are they really worth buying?

What makes a pillow-top mattress different from other styles of mattresses is essentially a minor construction detail. A pillow top is an additional comfort layer sewn directly onto the top of the mattress. It’s usually made with foam, fiberfill, or another soft material and is tufted to create a plush and pillowlike surface. It’s as if you attached a mattress topper permanently to the bed. You can usually spot a pillow top by the small, V-shaped cavity between layers of the mattress. The pillow top is stitched so that there are two separate layers (the pillow top and the rest of the mattress), rather than a seamless mattress with all the layers underneath one cover.

Pillow tops were originally added to mattresses to make them feel softer, back when firm innerspring mattresses made up the majority of the mattress market in the United States. According to the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA), innerspring mattresses made up as much as 92 percent of mattress sales in the 1970s and early 1980s. And it wasn’t until the 1970s that pillow tops really started to enter the picture. According to ISPA, in the first half of the 20th century, “mattress producers seemed to be in something of an arms race when it came to making ever-firmer mattresses.” In the summer of 1977, the editors of Bedding magazine started to see a shift toward manufacturers using terms like “gently firm” and incorporating pillow tops, indicating the beginning of mattresses starting to get softer. Innersprings generally have a comfort layer over the coils, but a pillow top is a great way to make one feel much softer, since a bed made primarily with coils tends to lean on the firm side. By the mid-’90s, pillow tops were becoming popular, as customers wanted more luxurious mattresses — and were willing to spend more on them.

Aaron Masterson, founder of Local Furniture Outlet, told me that from his experience selling mattresses over the past 20 years, it’s true that pillow-top mattresses used to be much softer than others. But nowadays, it’s less of a firmness or comfort indicator and more of a marketing tactic. To the average consumer, “pillow top” implies a higher quality, a better value, and a softer mattress. To illustrate the point, he told me that if you put two mattresses next to each other that are exactly the same, but one has a pillow top, most people will be drawn toward the pillow top because of that perceived value. Masterson also pointed out that the pillow-top mattresses on the market today can range widely in how firm they feel — there are even pillow-top mattresses marketed explicitly as being firm. For example, Serta sells its Serta Perfect Sleeper mattress with a pillow top in plush, medium, and firm models. The “pillow top” feature of that mattress doesn’t indicate much about how firm or soft the bed is going to feel; rather, it’s a difference mostly in how the mattress looks. “The biggest change is that pillow top used to be synonymous with softness,” Masterson said, “but now it’s more of a visual.”

The main disadvantage for pillow-top mattresses is the potential of the pillow top starting to sag and wear out before the rest of the mattress. Some advocate against them entirely for this reason. According to a survey by Sleep Like the Dead of consumer experiences, at least 30 percent of pillow-top mattress owners reported sagging or compression within the first three years of owning the mattress. For non-pillow-top owners, 17 percent reported sagging and compression within the same time frame. That’s not a drastic difference, but it does seem significant. Anecdotally, it seems like a common issue — there is lots of discussion on Reddit threads and other forums about sagging pillow tops. One staffer here at the Strategist even ran into an issue with a sagging pillow-top mattress recently. However, it’s worth noting that a lot of durability also comes down to materials and quality of construction (as well as how well the mattress is cared for), whether the mattress has a pillow top or not.

Pillow tops can often be more expensive than other beds. The same Sleep Like the Dead study found consumers reported pillow-top mattresses being 30 percent more expensive on average, compared to non-pillow-top mattresses. It’s easy to see this when you are shopping for a mattress, since brands frequently offer a pillow-top version as an upgrade to a non-pillow-top mattress for an additional charge. However, if you compare across brands, you can easily find pillow-top mattresses that are less expensive than non-pillow-top mattresses, simply because some brands are more expensive on the whole than others.

Another commonly cited con for pillow-top mattresses is that they can’t be flipped, because the pillow top is only on one side of the mattress — and so if you flip it over, you’ll be sleeping on the firm coils. This is definitely a con for the pillow top, but frankly, it’s a con for the majority of mattresses on the market. According to BedTimes magazine, the vast majority of mattresses available now are one-sided and can’t be flipped. From my own experience reviewing mattresses, this rings very true — there are some “flippable” mattresses out there, but most are designed to let you swap between firmness levels (like Layla’s mattresses or the Plank mattress) rather than flip the mattress to increase the longevity of the mattress. So the advice your parents probably gave you to flip your mattress periodically is no longer relevant for most mattresses, pillow tops or otherwise.

Probably. If you want a little extra softness or cushioning on your mattress without risking the sewn-on pillow top wearing out, a mattress topper is an easy solution. The only real con for a topper compared to a pillow top is that a topper can shift on the surface of the mattress. But that’s not that big of a deal, especially if you get one with straps to hold it in place. If the topper wears out, it’ll be much easier to replace since it isn’t permanently attached to your mattress. If you want something that’ll give your bed the same tufted, pillow-y effect as a pillow-top mattress, I’d recommend something plush with baffle-box stitching, such as the Coop Retreat mattress topper, rather than a solid slab of memory foam.

A Euro top is a specific style of pillow top. It can also be called a tight top, because the main difference is that a Euro top is stitched flush to the rest of the mattress, rather than having the defined cavity that a traditional pillow-top mattress has. This difference in stitching can give the Euro-top mattress a slightly more boxy and uniform look than the traditional pillow top. They may also be slightly more durable, since they are more integrated into the mattress. Sleep Like the Dead found Euro tops offered better edge support compared to traditional pillow tops, and edge support can be a good indicator of durability.

According to Masterson, this difference in stitching means the Euro top is cheaper to manufacture too. This makes sense, as the stitching to make the traditional pillow top requires more intricacy, which in manufacturing generally means a higher price. Given that pillow tops generally have cache as a perceived value-add with consumers and the cheaper manufacturing of the Euro top, Masterson told me that Euro tops have also become more popular as a sort of sub-marketing tactic within the broader pillow-top marketing strategy. It’s basically another way to make a mattress seem more luxurious, but it requires less effort on the manufacturer’s part. On top of that, Masterson said since around 2009, many manufacturers have started simply adding a second tape edge (the thick, raised stitching around the edges of a mattress that hold different layers together) three to four inches below the top tape edge and calling it a Euro top. This again reinforces the idea that a lot of the purpose behind pillow tops and Euro tops is ultimately to provide an appealing visual and a marketing tactic.

All that being said, just because the pillow top is a bit of a marketing tactic these days doesn’t mean pillow-top mattresses are inherently bad. As Masterson told me, you probably just don’t want to let whether or not a mattress has a pillow top be the reason you buy it. Ultimately, it all comes down to how you feel on the mattress — pillow top or no. I heard the same thing from the CEO and founder of Earthfoam, Karl Shevick, who told me he wouldn’t encourage consumers to take pillow tops into consideration when mattress shopping as it is mainly a “cosmetic detail.” From my own experience testing mattresses, I pretty much agree with Masterson and Shevick. I’ve tried pillow-top mattresses that I thought were really nice and I’ve also tried non-pillow-top mattresses that I thought were really nice. And I’ve definitely tested my fair share of non-pillow-top mattresses that were very soft, so you really shouldn’t feel confined to pillow tops if soft is what you’re after. Even if you like the tufted look of a pillow top, there are plenty of mattresses out there with tufted or quilted covers that aren’t pillow tops. Mattress construction and technology has changed a lot since the pillow top’s rise to prominence in the 1970s through 1990s — I think the balance of support and softness most pillow-top shoppers are looking for can be accomplished through your run-of-the-mill hybrid mattress, which generally contains individually wrapped coils for a support layer and one or more layers of foam for a soft comfort layer.

Essentially, no one should buy a pillow top mattress, because it’s not a feature that will have any effect on how your mattress feels. The important thing is just to know what you’re looking at and understand that the pillow top is mostly decorative, will likely cost you more, and has some potential of wearing out. If you really want that pillow-top look — go for it. But as Masterson said to me, your sheets are going to cover it anyway.

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