asl search
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in posts
Search in pages
guides
products
Filter by Categories
Anti-Snoring Reviews
Bedding
Bedding Information
Bedding Reviews
Best Bed Frames
Best Comforters
Best Mattress
Best Mattress Pads
Best Mattress Protectors
Best Mattress Toppers
Best Pillowcases
Best Pillows
Best Sheets
Interviews
Mattress Accessories
Mattress Comparisons
Mattress Coupons
Mattress Information
Mattress Reviews
Mattress Sales
Mattress Sizes
Mattress Topper Reviews
Pillow Reviews
Sheet Reviews
Sleep
Sleep Environment
Sleep Products
Sleep Tracker Reviews
Uncategorized
Weighted Blanket Reviews

Our Research Process

Written by Tuck Staff

Our mission is to deliver accurate, up-to-date product information and unbiased reviews based on extensive in-house testing and backed up by verified consumer experiences. We’ve spent thousands of hours testing mattresses and sleep products internally and on top of that have aggregated validated customer experience data and secret shopped to ensure the customer service of any company whose products we review is where it needs to be. Below is a detailed breakdown of our process for researching products, collecting data, and generating performance ratings.

Our Data Set

Sources

We draw on the following general sources to generate our product ratings:

In-House Product Testing

We have a testing facility that we use to put 100% of the sleep products we review to the test.  For mattresses, we use three sleeper types: light (130lbs>), average (130lb-230lb), and heavy (230lb+) and look at all of the criteria that we rate products on below. This product testing process is featured across our site and on our YouTube channel for each product reviewed.

Publicly Available Information

We never generate customer or performance ratings based on product descriptions or marketing claims that come directly from product manufacturers or brands. However, most of these companies provide detailed product specifications and company information that we use in our brand and model profiles. These details include:

  • Material composition
  • Country of manufacture
  • Available sizes
  • Product availability, including online and brick-and-mortar sellers
  • Current price-points for each available size
  • Length, width, and thickness dimensions
  • If applicable, product firmness
  • Care instructions
  • Weight
  • Company history, including years in business and contact information
  • Shipping and delivery policies
  • Sleep trial and return policies
  • Warranty information
Secret Shopping

Along with all of our internal product testing, our team will secret shop to ensure all claims made by companies can be verified like honor return/refund windows, stated shipping times are accurate, etc.. We’re able to do this at least once a year for all major mattress companies and roughly the same amount for other sleep products like pillows, sheets, anti-snoring devices and more.

Verified Customer Experiences

Knowing that we’re only testing a single product in our facility, we also look to aggregated and validated customer reviews to make sure real consumers are receiving the same quality product and the same customer service we do. In order to do this, we have a proprietary method for weeding out the rampant fake/sponsored reviews that are all over the web and only looking at ones that are legitimate. The sources we draw from include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Forums/Discussion Boards
  • Retail Product Pages

What is NOT Included in Our Data Set?

 User-Submitted Reviews

We encourage all our visitors to share their mattress stories and experiences with us, and greatly appreciate your feedback. However, we do not incorporate reviews from our users into our ratings.

What Makes Us Unique?

We’re Comprehensive

Tuck Sleep offers complete coverage for all sleep products, from mattresses and bedding to alarm clocks, blackout curtains, and other sleep accessories. These products are subject to constant change in terms of pricing, availability, material composition, and other key factors that matter to consumers. Occasionally, we will not collect enough customer data to generate what we consider to be accurate product reviews. However, rest assured that whatever you find on Tuck is as much as — if not significantly more than — you’ll find elsewhere on the web.

We’re User-Friendly

Creating your optimal sleep environment is no easy feat considering the myriad of products that are available today. Mattresses, pillows, sheets, and bedside accessories all carry important considerations for any consumer, especially first-time buyers. Our comparison tool is straightforward and easy to use. We also offer an extensive selection of individual brand and model reviews to help you narrow down your choices, as well as research-based guides covering a wide range of sleep-related topics. To look up a specific topic, use the search tool found in the top right-hand corner.

Accuracy

Accuracy is one of our highest priorities, and we do everything in our power to ensure the information on our site is correct, up-to-date, and reflective of our own testing and consumer experiences. For this reason, we have established parameters for our rating process. In order to generate accurate ratings, we do the following:

  • We test ALL products internally through a battery of performance tests. Unlike many other sites out there that just pull from information available on the web, we’re really putting each product to the test to make sure anything we recommend will meet the expectations set by the company and the average consumer.
  • We back up all of our testing with secret shopping and validated customer experiences to ensure we’re not getting a different experience compared to the average consumer.

We’re Unbiased and Unaffiliated

We want to stress this point in great detail, so we’ve created an advertising disclosure that outlines how we collect information, generate money for the site, and communicate with different companies and brands. Please visit the page to learn the specifics and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

We’re Here to Help!

Please contact us if you want to learn more about brand and products, sleep-related topics, or the site itself. A member of our sleep team will promptly respond to make sure all of your questions are answered. Day or night, rain or shine, we are committed to ensuring your experience on Tuck is informative and meaningful.

Our Product Rankings, Explained

We rate products on the following criteria:

Sleep Ratings

We keep our ratings system simple and calculate averages using the five-tier system outlined below:

  • Poor: 0.0 to 0.99
  • Fair: 1.0 to 1.99
  • Good: 2.0 to 2.99
  • Very Good: 3.0 to 3.99
  • Excellent: 4.0 to 4.99

The following performance factors are subject to ratings based on owner and customer experiences.

Sleep Positions

Your experience with a mattress, pillow, or other sleep product often depends on your preferred sleep position. For each applicable product, we look at data from the following groups:

  • Side sleepers
  • Back sleepers
  • Stomach sleepers
  • Although we do not include ratings for combination sleepers (those who sleep in multiple positions), we use data from these sleepers based on their experiences in different positions.

Body Weight

Like sleep position, your body weight may affect your experience with different sleep products. We’ve broken all weights into three groups:

  • Light: Less than 130 pounds
  • Average: 130 to 230 pounds
  • Heavy: More than 230 pounds

Please note that all sleep position and body weight ratings are based on the overall level of comfort and support reported by each individual subset. These ratings are subjective; your individual experience with a particular product may not reflect our overall findings related to your sleep position and body weight.

Next, we’ll look at the factors we’ve evaluated in our sleep ratings tables. The following factors are found in the ratings tables for multiple product types (mattresses, pillows, etc.)

  • Durability: This refers to how long the product maintains structure and provides comfort and support before it begins to deteriorate and develop indentations. As a point of reference, the average mattress lifespan is six to eight years; and the average pillow lifespan is two to three years.
  • Conforming: Some mattresses and pillows conform closely to the sleeper’s body. This helps align their spine and alleviate pressure points throughout the body. However, conforming ability also refers to how evenly the pressure relief is distributed.
  • Temperature neutrality: This refers to how hot or cold a product sleeps based on how much body heat it retains from the sleeper’s body. Several factors affect temperature neutrality, including thickness, material composition, and how well the product dissipates heat through airflow. The sleeper’s natural tendency to sleep hot or cold also plays a role.
  • Odor potential: Most new products emit chemical smells known as ‘off-gassing’ when they are removed from their packaging. Off-gassing odors are considered non-toxic and do not pose a safety risk to consumers, but the smells can be quite unpleasant. This data point refers to how strong and/or persistent a product’s off-gassing odors are.

The following performance factors are evaluated in our mattress reviews only:

  • Motion isolation: This refers to how effectively the bed’s surface absorbs motion transfer when someone gets up or shifts positions, and then prevents that transfer from spreading to other areas of the mattress. Motion isolation is particularly important to couples and other people who share a bed with someone else, since sleep disruptions are commonly reported with mattresses that do not minimize motion transfer.
  • Sex: Mattresses that are bouncier and more responsive tend to be better for sex, according to general consensus. Mattresses that are not responsive may cause couples to sink too deeply, which can negatively affect sex.
  • Edge support: In some cases, mattresses may begin to sink around the edges — particularly in places where people sit when they get out of bed. This sinkage (also known as roll-off) is more prominent with some mattress types than others.
  • Noise: Some mattresses — particularly those with steel springs or coils — can be quite noisy when bearing weight. Others are virtually silent. Material composition is usually the deciding factor when it comes to noise potential.

The following performance factors are included in sleep ratings tables for pillows only:

  • Firmness options: Every sleeper has a different firmness preference when it comes to pillows. Some pillow manufacturers offer a wide range of firmness options, while others only carry one or two.
  • Shape retention: The difference between a pillow with a full, consistent shape and one that flattens and requires constant fluffing is quite significant. This data point refers to how well a pillow maintains its shape, as well as the maintenance required to fluff it back to its original structure.
  • Moldability: Many people prefer to cuddle with a pillow while they sleep, and some models are more suitable for nighttime snuggling than others. When we evaluate moldability, we look at whether the pillow is soft or firm, as well as how compact it becomes when scrunched.
  • Ease of cleaning: For the purposes of this site, we consider a pillow relatively easy to clean if it can be machine-washed and machine- or air-dried. Pillows that require spot cleaning or professional (dry) cleaning are considered more difficult to clean. Please note that some pillow types cannot be machine-washed or machine-dried by design.

Lastly, the comparison engine incorporates the following product factors. Unlike those listed above, these factors are not subject to ratings based on customer experiences.

  • Product type: Type refers to material composition only. By selecting one of the type options, you will generate a comparison for all products that fit that criteria. For instance, let’s say you select ‘latex’ in the mattress comparison. This will generate a comparison for all models that qualify as ‘latex mattresses’ with latex comfort layers and latex/foam support cores. This will not include other mattress types (such as hybrids) that feature one or two individual latex layers.
  • Firmness: All mattresses and pillows have a firmness that falls between 1 (least firm) and 10 (firmest). We obtain this information from product manufacturers and customer reviews, but we do not ‘rate’ firmness.
  • Price: Our product pages list prices for all sizes and product options. Additionally, our mattress review pages feature a graph comparing that brand/model’s price against industry averages. For comparisons, we use the Queen size only. We never use temporary sales or discounts to generate prices but check each review for the most up-to-date discounts before purchasing

Why is This Product Missing Some Data/Rankings?

On some pages, you will find certain data points have been left blank or listed as not available (N/A). This indicates that the criteria either doesn’t make sense for a specific product for one reason or another or that testing is still ongoing.

Please check back for updates and feel free to contact us if you have additional questions.

Where Should You Start?

We recommend beginning with our guides to product types, brands, and models. This will help you understand what to expect in terms of price-point, sleep quality, and customer experience based on your height, weight, and preferred sleep position.

Next, use our mattress comparison engine to narrow down your choices based on type and brand, price, firmness, and customer satisfaction rating.

Once you’ve gathered the information you need, we encourage you to visit the product’s official page on the company’s website. If the product you want is exclusively sold in brick-and-mortar stores, make notes about the brands and models that interest you the most before making an in-store visit.

Questions, Comments, Concerns?

See something inaccurate or that needs to be updated?

Please reach out to us! We’re here at all hours of the day and want to make sure you get the information you need so let us know how we can help.

Want to share a review of your experience with a particular mattress?

Visit our submit a product review page and give us a detailed account. Although we don’t currently use user-submitted reviews these for our customer satisfaction scoring and sleep ratings, we still want to hear about your personal experience.

Table of Contents