8 Best King Size Mattresses with Our Budget Friendly Pick

King sized mattresses were once reserved for the rich and famous. The amount of materials required for their manufacture combined with the reasonably low production run sizes means that they are one of the most expensive kinds of mattress on the market.

However, things are changing, and with improved manufacturing processes and reduced material costs – almost everyone can afford a bed fit for a king.

With that in mind, today we are going to discuss what we think are the best king sized mattresses on the market. We’re going to look at several different products and talk about what we like (and don’t like) about them.

Let’s get started

Difference Between A King And A California King Mattress

Many people think that California King sized mattresses are just bigger versions of a king-sized mattress. While that’s technically true, it’s not as simple as that.

King mattresses are super wide products (the widest on the market) and are 80 inches long by 76 inches wide.

California king sized mattresses are thinner than king-sized mattresses (72 inches wide) but they are longer instead (84 inches long)

The only people that are really going to benefit from a California king-sized product are people that are very tall. They allow you to have a good night’s sleep without your feet hanging over the edge of the bed.

We strongly recommend you opt for a king sized product if you don’t need the additional length a California king provides. Buying sheets and linen for a California king product is difficult, you’re going to have to go to specialist stores, and even then your selection is going to be limited (and you’ll be paying more for the privilege too).

Overall Best King Size Mattress: The DreamCloud

We’ve found quite a few good products that are available in king size, and we’re going to list some in different price brackets below. But we think that overall, this product from DreamCloud is the best king sized mattress on the market right now.

This is a hybrid product that uses 8 different layers of material that work in harmony with one another to create an excellent final product that is much better than the sum of its parts.

Cashmere Blend Eurotop

The top layer of the DreamCloud is what gives it the luxurious plush comfort that the brand is well known for. It’s essentially a big pillow that has been stitched on to the top of the mattress and stuffed with a rich cashmere wool. It gives the product a luxuriousness that would be at home in the presidential suite of a 5-star hotel.

Gel Infused Memory Foam

This layer of memory foam has been infused with cooling gel to help combat the overheating problems that the material is well known for. The gel in this layer spreads the heat out when it enters the mattress and ensures that hotspots don’t form. It doesn’t actually make the heat go away, but as it is spread out more – it feels cooler for the sleeper.

Quilted Memory Foam

This layer of memory foam has no cooling technology inside of it, but as it’s not in direct contact with the sleeper we don’t think that this is all that much of a problem. This is a layer that has been added for opulence and comfort – and it provides very little support. The quilted nature of this memory foam provides some loft to the mattress and works well with the eurotop layer to provide further luxuriousness.

Natural Latex

This is one of the most important layers of the entire product. Pure foam products can sometimes have a little bit of a problem with responsiveness. This means that when you get on the bed you just kind of sink in like quicksand and there’s no pushback from the mattress.

Latex is one of the few kinds of foam that has a little bit of responsiveness to it, and when you get on this bed you’re going to be greeted with a reassuring bounce that feels much more natural for most people. Latex is also really good at ventilating heat out into the bedroom – as it is inherently a very breathable material that promotes unrestricted airflow.

Dream Plush Memory Foam

This is a standard layer of high-density memory foam that is medium firm. It’s the first layer to provide any kind of support, and quite honestly, it’s kind of boring.

Super Dense Super Soft Memory Foam

This is another layer of normal memory foam that’s pretty similar to the layer above. It’s a little firmer, and it continues the gradient of firmness down into the coil section below.

Best Rest Coils

This is a super impressive layer that’s made from independently wrapped coils. The coils in this layer will only compress when you apply direct pressure to them (unlike an innerspring product that has all the coils connected to one another). This means that they create a very accurate representation of your body shape when you lie down on the mattress, and they are very supportive.

However, the super interesting thing about this layer is how the coils have been divided up into different sections.

There are 5 different zones in this layer, each zone has a different density and firmness of coil. This allows DreamCloud to make their product provide more support where you need it and less support where you don’t. It promotes excellent spinal alignment – and makes it one of the best mattresses in any price bracket for side sleepers.

High-Density Support Foam

The base of this product is a strong and stable high-density support foam. All it does is provide a secure base for the rest of the materials above to rest upon. It’s uninteresting, but it does its job well.

Pros And Cons

Pros

• Zoned support section provides tailored support
• Cool sleeping surface
• Plush cashmere eurotop
• Great brand with a good reputation
• Thick product with 8 layers
• Resort style luxury
• Cooling gel memory foam

Cons

• Could be a little cheaper (but it’s great value for money)

Best King Size Mattress Under $2000 – The Solay

The best product that costs under $2000 and is available in king size is the Solay mattress in our opinion. It’s a hybrid product that combines several different materials that work in perfect harmony with one another to create a great product.

We really like the pocketed coils that have been included, they are of an exceptional quality and provide brilliant levels of support (but they are not zoned like the DreamCloud above). The Tencel covering of the mattress is another great feature, and it’s an eco-friendly, soft, and durable material that will allow huge amounts of ventilation in and out of the mattress.

The cooling gel memory foam layers work well with the standard comfort foam and motion isolation layers to provide you with contouring support throughout the night (and you won’t get disturbed when your sleeping partner changes position either). It’s a great product that is worthy of the reasonably high price tag it commands.

If you’ve got the budget for it, we strongly recommend you check it out.

Best King Size Mattress Under $1000 – The Nectar

The Nectar is one of the most famous mattresses in the world. The brand has developed a reputation for innovation and quality over the years that newer brands aspire to achieve.

It’s a hybrid product that is memory foam based. We love the inclusion of a super high-quality cooling gel in the top two layers of the product. The top layer of memory foam has a quilted design pattern too which adds a huge amount of luxury and loft to the product (similar to the quilted layer in the DreamCloud).

The Hi Core memory foam that makes up the bulk of the thickness of this product (if we don’t count the base layer) is particularly impressive. It’s a special kind of memory foam that we don’t see in other products all that often. It contours better than memory foam, and it’s much more adaptive. The speed at which it conforms to your body shape is much quicker than standard foam too – which is a very welcome addition that you’re going to appreciate when you first get into bed.

Best Budget-Friendly King Size Mattress (Under $500) – Zinus Green Tea Memory Foam

This is one of the cheapest products on the market that you’ll find in king size – but it’s still packed full of performance.

The biggest selling point of this mattress is the green tea infusion that has been added into the memory foam layers included in its design. Memory foam has a horrible smell to it when it is still new, and most products suffer from a stinky off-gassing for a while (even premium products). The green tea removes this smell almost entirely, and it also protects against bacteria that will enter the mattress throughout its lifetime – keeping things fresher for longer.

Apart from that, it’s a standard kind of product that’s about what you’d expect for this kind of price. It’s worth checking out if you’re on a budget, but don’t expect too many bells and whistles.

4 More Really Good King Size Mattresses

To end this article, we quickly want to point out 5 other excellent king sized mattresses that we feel are more than worthy of your consideration.

The Puffy

This is one of the best mattresses on the market right now. It uses a special material that Puffy themselves created called Comfort Cloud. Comfort Cloud has similar contouring properties to memory foam – without any of its weaknesses. It’s a naturally excellent thermal regulator and will spread the heat out instead of creating hotspots.

It’s also very well ventilated and there’s a huge amount of airflow inside the foam. The Cooling Cloud cooling gel that Puffy made specifically for this product aims to get to an optimum temperature instead of being as cool as possible – if they used a normal cooling gel, the product might be too cold to be agreeable (which is astonishing).

The Muse

The Muse has a wide variety of high-quality materials inside of it, most of which are pretty interesting. It’s a memory foam based product that uses cooling gels of the highest quality combined with a few layers of comfort and high-density foam.

The covering of this product is perhaps the most interesting part. Muse have created a kind of metal fiber that has been woven into the cover. It’s super soft, and you can’t feel it, but it absorbs your body heat before it gets into the top layer of foam. This allows it to spread the heat out evenly at the point of contact. It’s an extremely effective cooling system that works like a cooling gel – only better.

Live and Sleep Resort Classic

This great product uses a thick layer of Visco foam instead of memory foam, and it’s a great option for those of you who don’t like the feel of a memory foam product. Visco foam is a synthetic latex, which has been designed to have some of the best properties of latex (like responsiveness, support, contouring, and breathability) without its weaknesses (like a shorter lifespan). It’s a great product that’s certainly worth looking into.

LUCID 12 inch King Hybrid Mattress

This is a hybrid product that combines layers of memory foam with a coiled section in a similar way to the DreamCloud. We really like the charcoal and aloe vera infusion that has been added to several layers of this mattress. It works in a similar way to the green tea we talked about in the Zinus and it protects against the horrible “new memory foam smell” while also killing bacteria and eliminating odors for the entire lifetime of the product.

Conclusion

So there you have it, that’s what we think are some of the best king sized mattresses on the market right now.

There’s no getting around the fact that king-sized products are the most expensive kind of mattress on the market. The amount of materials that are used in these mattresses are significantly greater than other sizes.

However, just because they cost more doesn’t mean they aren’t good value for money.

Any of the products we’ve talked about today are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck possible – and they are all more than worthy of your consideration.

Sweet dreams.