The Best Futon Chair Beds

Two different objects share this one name

Before the figures: “futon chair” is sold for two mechanically unrelated things, and mixing them up is how people end up disappointed.

The pull-out chair. A real upholstered armchair with a bed folded into the base. It has a frame, legs, arms and a seat at normal chair height, and it pulls forward into a single bed. The MALOL and the KINFFICT here are both this. They look like furniture when closed, they are heavier — 72.5 lb in the MALOL’s case — and they need assembly.

The boneless folding chair. No frame and no legs: a thick foam or coil cushion with a sewn cover that folds into a chair shape and unfolds into a mattress on the floor. The MEGAYES, the CUBIOU and the COMAX are all this. They ship vacuum-compressed, need no assembly, weigh 28 to 40 lb, and sit low. They are also the only version of this product that can be moved by one person without help.

Neither is better. They fail differently, and the failure modes are the useful thing to know: a pull-out chair fails on weight and on a thin pull-out deck, a boneless chair fails on seat height and on foam that packs down.

The flat length, and why it is the first question

A standard twin mattress is 75 inches long. A twin XL is 80. Both of those exist because adults need them.

The KINFFICT publishes 69.29 inches of flat length. That is 5 ft 9 in., and it is the honest, useful thing about this listing — KINFFICT gives both footprints, chair and bed, which almost nobody in this category does. It also means anyone taller than 5 ft 9 in. sleeps with their feet over the end, and we would rather say so than let the number pass as a feature.

The COMAX publishes 71 inches, and goes further: it states outright that the open bed is not queen size despite the model name carrying the word, and that 71 inches is four short of a bedroom full. A manufacturer correcting its own marketing in the bullet points is rare enough to be worth rewarding.

MEGAYES solves the problem differently and, for a tall sleeper, better: it does not publish a flat length at all, but it sells six sizes and labels them by sleeper height — S, T and F for people up to 5 ft 9 in., and SXL, TXL and FXL with extended legroom up to 6 ft 4 in. That is a more useful axis than inches on a listing for a product whose length depends on how it is unfolded. It is also the only maker here doing it.

MALOL publishes nothing about the open size. We filled that in from the COLAMY listing of the same chair, which is the next thing on this page that needs explaining.

The same chair, two brands, two prices

The MALOL chair and a COLAMY chair are, on the evidence of their listings, the same piece of furniture. Both carry the model number 6060. Both publish the same three backrest angles — 106, 120 and 180 degrees. Both publish the same 300 lb capacity, the same USB port, the same fold-down side table and the same removable pillow, in some places word for word.

What differs is which dimension each one chose to publish. MALOL gives 33.07 inches of depth; COLAMY gives 70.07 inches. On one chair those read as closed and open — which is how this page can tell you that the MALOL needs roughly 37 inches of extra floor when the bed comes out, a figure MALOL itself does not provide.

Two practical consequences. First, if you are comparing chair beds and two listings share a model number, you are comparing badges, and the cheaper one is the better buy. Second, read both listings before you buy either, because between them they often publish the complete specification that neither gives alone. Both are in the sources at the foot of this page.

This is not unique to chairs. The same pattern turns up on wall beds — one of the twin cabinets in the best twin murphy beds is sold under two brand names with identical dimensions and a two-hundred-dollar spread.

What is inside the cushion

On a boneless chair there is no frame to blame, so the fill is the product. Three constructions turn up here and they age very differently.

Pocket coils. The MEGAYES is pocket coils over polyester fill and foam — a mattress construction in a chair-sized object. Coils resist the thing that ruins this category, which is a permanent dip where everyone sits. MEGAYES also makes a point of the one-piece backrest with side hook-and-loop reinforcement, which is aimed at the other common complaint: boneless chairs whose separate backs slide away from the seat.

A high-density foam block. The COMAX is two high-density foam layers that stack as a sofa or open flat. Foam blocks hold their shape far better than loose fill and worse than coils, and they are the usual middle of this market.

Loose shredded foam. The CUBIOU is 7.87 inches of high-density shredded foam. Shredded fill is comfortable immediately and packs down over months — it is the reason a two-year-old boneless chair feels like a different product. CUBIOU has done the sensible thing and put a rigid support frame behind the backrest so the chair cannot tip backwards when somebody leans into it, which is a real engineering answer to a real complaint. The fill is still shredded foam.

The pull-out chairs are a different question again: the MALOL and the KINFFICT are upholstered decks on frames, so what you are sleeping on is thin padding over a mechanism rather than a mattress. KINFFICT states high-density sponge under velvet and publishes no depth; MALOL publishes no depth either. If the chair will be slept on more than a few nights a year, that is the thing that will decide it, and are futons comfortable to sleep on sets out why depth beats everything else over a full night.

Covers, and the 11.8-inch seat

Two practical points that decide more purchases in this category than comfort does.

Only one cover here comes off. The COMAX has a zip-off machine-washable corduroy cover. The CUBIOU states plainly that its cover is non-removable and non-washable. MEGAYES says its cover is professionally sewn and asks you not to remove it. MALOL and KINFFICT describe no removable cover at all. For a chair bought for a child’s room, a dorm or a rental, that is close to a deciding factor on its own — and credit to CUBIOU and MEGAYES for saying so in the bullet points rather than leaving you to discover it.

And the COMAX sits 11.8 inches off the floor. COMAX publishes this against the 17 to 19 inches of a standard boneless seat, which is an unusually honest piece of comparison on a product listing. Low seating is a preference for some people and a genuine obstacle for anyone protecting a knee or a hip — getting up off a 12-inch seat uses the knees in a way a 19-inch seat does not. It is the reason the COMAX is ranked third here rather than first despite having the washable cover, the published open footprint and the largest sleeping surface.

If that matters, the MALOL at a 34.25-inch overall height is the chair on this page that behaves most like a normal armchair, and the senior-specific criteria are worked through in the best sleeper sofas for seniors.

Who should buy which

Buy the MEGAYES if the chair will actually be slept on, or if the sleeper is tall. Pocket coils rather than foam, six sizes with extended-legroom versions to 6 ft 4 in., 28 lb, no assembly, ready in about a minute. Accept that the cover is not meant to come off, that no flat dimensions are published for any size, and that the 500 lb capacity is printed as theoretical next to a 250 lb recommendation.

Buy the MALOL if it has to look like a chair. Three backrest angles, a published 300 lb capacity, a USB port and a fold-down table, at normal seat height. Accept 72.5 lb, assembly, no washable cover, and that its own listing never tells you how much floor the open bed needs — about 37 extra inches, from the twin listing of the same model. Check the COLAMY price before you buy; it is the same chair.

Buy the COMAX if two people will sit on it, or if the cover will need washing. Fifty-nine inches wide, a 59-by-71-inch bed, a zip-off machine-washable cover, 39.7 lb, no assembly. Accept an 11.8-inch seat height — floor seating, by the maker’s own comparison — and no published weight capacity.

Buy the KINFFICT if the budget is the constraint and you need to know it fits. It is the cheapest here and one of only two that publishes both footprints, 33.86 in. as a chair and 69.29 in. as a bed, so you can measure before ordering. Accept 5 ft 9 in. of sleeping length, no published capacity or weight at all, and velvet on a chair sold with cup holders.

Buy the CUBIOU if the chair is mainly for sitting and the complaint you want solved is tipping. The rigid backrest frame is the real feature. Accept shredded foam that will pack down, no published flat length, no capacity, and a cover the maker says cannot be removed or washed.

And if none of that fits: a chair bed is a compromise about length. The next size up without giving up much floor is a loveseat, ranked in the best loveseat sleeper sofas, and if the room is a dorm the whole category is compared at that size in the best dorm futons. If the chair is going in as the only guest bed in a studio, read studio apartment guest bed ideas first.