The Best Sleeper Sofas for a Tall Person

Every open length we could find, longest first

Four of the seven convertibles there are shorter than a twin mattress. The Serta pair at 66.1 inches is nearly nine inches short of a twin, which its own listing calls a “full short twin” — an honest phrase for a short bed.

Novogratz is explicit about the consequence on the Brittany: at 70.5 inches, anyone over about 5 ft 10 in sleeps with their feet off the end. Use that as your calibration point. Subtract roughly five inches from any stated length for a pillow and you have the height of person each one actually suits.

Do the arithmetic on your own height first

Two minutes with a tape measure saves a return. Lie on the floor on your back, put a book against the top of your head and another against your heels, and measure between them. Then add four to five inches for a pillow, because a pillow takes length out of the bed.

Convertibles are generous on width and mean on length

It is worth understanding why, because it tells you which models to look at. A split-back sofa bed is as wide as the sofa and as deep as the seat plus the folded-down back. The sofa’s width becomes the bed’s length, and the seat-plus-back depth becomes the bed’s width.

So these beds come out short and wide. The Brittany is 43.5 inches wide against a twin’s 38 — five and a half inches more shoulder room — and 4.5 inches shorter than a twin. The Tallulah and the Vintage Tufted II are both 44 inches wide. If you are tall and sleeping alone, that extra width buys you nothing; you need the number the format is worst at.

Which is also why the Vintage Tufted II is the exception. It is an 81.5-inch-wide sofa whose sleep surface stays the full 81.5 inches when it opens, rather than narrowing the way the Brittany does from 81.5 closed to 70.5 open. Check that pairing on any model you are considering: closed width and open length should be close, and when they are not, the sofa is losing length to its arms.

The futon-frame route: buy length as a mattress

A futon frame takes a drop-in mattress in a standard size, which means the length becomes a mattress specification rather than a sofa specification — and mattresses come in honest sizes.

A full futon mattress is 75 by 54 inches. The 8-inch version with 15-gauge independently encased pocket coils is a genuine mattress that bi-folds, and at 75 inches it beats every convertible on this page except the Vintage Tufted II. The catch is 59 lb of mattress on a frame that has to fold, which is stiff for the first dozen folds.

A Japanese floor futon goes further: 80 inches long in every width, rolled away in the morning, no frame at all. If the room is a study or a spare room rather than a living room, that is the cheapest 80 inches of sleeping length available — see the best Japanese floor futons.

The verdict

Up to about 5 ft 8 in: any of the 71-to-73-inch split-backs is fine, and you should choose on footprint and mattress instead. Start at the best sleeper sofas for small spaces.

5 ft 10 in to 6 ft 2 in: the Vintage Tufted II at 81.5 inches, or a futon frame with a 75-inch full mattress. Nothing else in the convertible category clears it.

Over 6 ft 2 in, or sleeping there regularly: a wall bed on a real queen. Eighty inches of mattress, 8 to 12 inches deep, 1,000 lb rated — and 23.5 inches of closed depth, which is less floor than any sofa on this page. Read the best Murphy beds for small apartments and then Murphy bed vs sleeper sofa for the trade-offs.

Whatever you buy, measure the room before you order it. The open depth is the number people get wrong, and the method is in how to measure for a sleeper sofa.