The Best Murphy Bed Mattresses

The limits, and why each one exists

The minimum weight matters as much as the maximum. Bestar’s range starts at 60 pounds. A mattress that is too light does not hold the mechanism closed properly, which is counterintuitive and is why the range has two ends.

The depth limit is the cavity. Twelve inches is the cabinet, not a comfort opinion. A 14-inch pillow-top will not let the bed close and there is no workaround.

No box spring, ever. The bed frame is the foundation. A box spring doubles the depth and is not designed to be held vertical.

The mattress window sits inside a second limit that people usually check first and need least: the bed’s overall load rating. Every published figure in our registry, plus the three manufacturers that publish none, is collected in how much weight a Murphy bed holds.

What actually fits, by format

For a queen wall bed: a conventional 8-to-12-inch foam or hybrid mattress inside the weight range. An eight-inch memory foam queen sits comfortably in the middle of Bestar’s window and is the safest default — the Zinus eight-inch runs two inches of memory foam, two of comfort foam and four of high-density base. Check the actual shipping weight against the 60-to-90-pound range rather than assuming.

For a thin-cavity or DIY frame: six inches. A Linenspa six-inch innerspring is the usual answer and is firm in a way that suits a slatted frame.

For a cabinet bed: the manufacturer’s tri-fold. The Night & Day Cube’s optional mattress is 80 by 63 by 6 inches of gel-infused memory foam; the Arason Creden-ZzZ includes a 53-by-75-inch six-inch tri-fold. The cavity is dimensioned to that mattress, so substituting is rarely straightforward — a tri-fold from elsewhere is included here only as a reference for what the format is. Six inches with two fold lines is a different proposition for three hundred nights than for three, which is the argument the best Murphy beds for daily use works through.

What does not work, and the reasons

A 14-inch pillow-top. Will not close. Nothing to discuss.

A heavy hybrid. Latex and thick coil hybrids in queen can exceed 100 pounds, which is outside every published range on this page. The bed becomes hard to lift and the mechanism is working against its balance.

A futon mattress. Bestar explicitly excludes futons on the MERITLINE sofa model, and the general reason applies across the range: a futon mattress is built to fold and a wall bed holds a mattress flat and vertical. The two constructions are working against each other.

Anything on a box spring or a topper stack. A three-inch topper on an eleven-inch mattress is a fourteen-inch mattress.

Bedding and straps

A wall bed keeps the bedding on the mattress with straps while the bed is up, which is the single most useful practical feature of the format and the reason a wall bed is more pleasant to use than a cabinet bed day to day: nothing has to be stripped or remade.

Two practical notes. Use a fitted sheet with a pocket depth matched to the mattress — deep-pocket sheets on an eight-inch mattress bunch, and bunched bedding is what makes a strapped bed hard to close. And skip a heavy comforter if the mechanism is near the top of its weight window; bedding counts.

Comfort improvements that do not add depth are in how to make a Murphy bed more comfortable.

Two specifications decide this purchase before comfort gets a say, and each now has its own page: the published depth window, bed by bed, in Murphy bed mattress thickness, and the exact size each platform is cut for in what size mattress fits a Murphy bed. Read both before ordering a mattress, because the mattress is the half you cannot send back once it is unrolled. If you would rather not choose at all, the two beds that arrive with a mattress already in the box are covered in Murphy beds with a mattress included.