Saatva Plush vs Luxury Firm vs Firm: Which One Is The Best For You?

Offering high-end, luxurious features at a remarkably competitive price, Saatva is fast becoming one of the more popular mattress brands in the market right now. The core lineup shares the same name as the company, and it is divided into three variants: Plush, Luxury Firm, and Firm. And while each of them is quite good at their intended application, it is up to us, as the consumers, to decide which application is most suitable for your needs. In other words, you need to know which Saatva mattress variant to select; I’ve written this Saatva plush vs luxury firm vs firm comparison to help you with exactly that.

Construction

All three variants share the same basic construction: a 1.25 inches Euro top cover, then beneath is a 3/8 inches memory foam comfort layer for initial conformity, followed by 4 inches deep 14-gauge individually wrapped comfort coils, and for the support core, 7 inches deep 13-gauge tempered steel coils.

The two coil layers have a parameter made out of edge support foam, which ensures that you don’t sink in when you sit on any of the sides. All Saatva variants are encased in a 100% organic cotton cover for a soft, breathable initial feel.

To create the different levels of comfort and support, the manufacturer uses foams with varying degrees of firmness (including in the pillow top) atop the basic coil-on-coil structure:

a. Plush

The plush mattress uses the softer, more conforming foams in the upper layers to yield an enveloping (but not entirely sinking) feel for the bed.

b. Luxury Firm

The ‘flagship’ variant uses foam that yields a blend of support and conformity so that the mattress contours to your spine without letting you feel like its encompassing your body.

c. Firm

The firm model uses firmer foams in the comfort layer so that the mattress pushes back against your body, giving you a springy, floating feel.

Each variant is available in either the standard 11.5 inches height, or an augmented 14.5 inches height. Both offshoots feel exactly the same, as per the manufacturer, and the difference is purely aesthetic.

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Firmness and Feel

This is the main discriminant which sets apart the three variants:

Plush:

The plush model has an ILD rating of 18, and on a scale from 1 to 10 (with 1 being fluid-like softness and 10 being tabletop-like hardness), this model can be considered a 3. Given its enveloping nature, this model offers the highest degree of motion transfer reduction.

Luxury Firm:

The manufacturer does not disclose a concrete ILD value for their flagship variant for proprietary reasons, but on the same scale as the one mentioned above, it lies between 5 and 7. Despite the slight increase in stiffness, the individually wrapped coils are still able to offer a good motion isolation with minimal bounce.

Firm:

The firm version has a decidedly stiff ILD of 30, but it still yields enough contouring to be considered an 8 on the 1-to-10 scale (so it isn’t completely unyielding to your weight). The stiff nature of this foam does let a bit of bounce to carry through though.

The manufacturer makes it clear that these variants do not cover the needs of people who want extreme sinking plushness or unyielding hardness.

Given the significant differences in the feel and support offered by each of the three variants, it is hard to choose a single best option amongst them. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to separately describe the consumers that each one of them is geared towards.

Plush

This Plush Saatva is best suited to people who prefer sleeping on their side: the soft foam upper layers provide the high degree of contouring needed for the bed to adjust to the awkward posture of a side-sleeper so that they get optimal spinal alignment without any back pain. The plush option also works well for light-weight individuals whose bodies can’t sink into firmer mattresses.

Luxury Firm

This variant is geared towards the average sleeper, and it attempts to create a balanced sleeping surface that can accommodate side, back, and stomach sleepers.

Firm