Best Futon: What the Seat Costs You for the Bed You Get

Which futon do you mean?

Two different things share the name, and it is worth thirty seconds because the search results mix them.

One is the convertible: a frame with a seating position and a bed position, which is what almost everything below is, and how that differs from a sofa bed comes down to whether one surface does both jobs. The other is the shikibuton, the Japanese floor mattress that is rolled out at night and put away in the morning, which is a bedding purchase rather than a furniture one.

This page is about the first. If it is the floor mattress you are after, the questions are firmness, thickness and airing rather than seat depth, and none of the products here answers them.

How these were judged

The seat first, because it is what the piece does almost every day: the seat depth, the seat height and what is under the cover.

Then the bed: how wide and how long the sleeping surface actually is once it is open. A bed narrower than about 38 inches is a one-person surface whatever the listing calls it.

Then the mechanism and the cover, since a piece that gets slept on collects more than a sofa does, and whether the cover comes off decides what you can do about that.

Then the terms. Every IKEA piece here carries the same 10-year limited warranty, so the differences show up in the return window and in how much each listing publishes about materials.

Best bed for the money, if you can live with the seat: IKEA NYHAMN Sleeper Sofa with foam mattress, Skartofta black and light gray

The widest sleeping surface here for the least money. It is 78 3/4 inches wide by 38 1/4 deep by 35 3/8 high, and it opens to a bed of 55 1/8 by 78 3/4 inches, which is a genuine two-person surface. Underneath is a steel frame with layer-glued wood veneer slats, a foam mattress, a click mechanism and storage. It was $549 with a 10-year limited warranty.

Now the number that decides whether it suits you. Its seat is 28 3/4 inches deep and 12 1/4 inches high. The depth is generous, but 12 1/4 inches is the lowest seat height published on this site by a wide margin, and it is a long way down and a long way back up. On a piece bought mainly for guests that may be a fair trade. As the only seating in a room where somebody has bad knees, it is not.

Best seat to live with every evening: IKEA KIVIK 1-Seat Sleeper Sofa, Gunnared medium gray

The one that is furniture first. Its seat is 23 5/8 inches deep at 16 7/8 inches high, which is ordinary sofa geometry rather than a compromise, and it is built like a sofa: pocket springs under high-resilience foam at 2.2 pounds per cubic foot plus foam at 1.2, with a removable machine-washable cover. It is 35 3/8 inches wide by 38 1/4 deep by 33 7/8 high, and it was $699.

The bed is the trade, and it is a real one. At 35 3/8 by 77 1/2 inches it is narrower than a twin, so this is a one-person bed and should be bought as one. The terms are the best in the set: a 10-year limited warranty and a stated 365-day full-refund window.

Best at both, and it costs: IKEA FRIHETEN Sleeper Sofa, Faringe brown-orange

The only piece here that does not force the choice. Its seat is 24 inches deep at 18 1/8 inches high, the tallest seat in this comparison, and its bed is 56 3/4 by 78 3/8 inches, the widest. It is 88 5/8 inches wide by 41 3/8 deep by 32 5/8 high, over plywood, particleboard and solid wood with 2.0 pounds per cubic foot foam, and it has storage inside. It was $899, in two flat-pack packages, with a 10-year limited warranty.

The catch is on the cover. The Faringe version has a stationary cover, meaning it does not come off, which matters more on a piece that gets slept on than on one that does not. If a washable cover is what you want from this shape, the KIVIK above has one and the bed is a third narrower.

Best entry price: IKEA BALKARP Sleeper Sofa, Vissle gray

At $399 this is the cheapest way into the category, and the seat is where the money went. Its seat depth is 19 1/4 inches, which is more than four inches shallower than anything else here, at a 15-inch seat height. The foam is polyurethane at 1.5 pounds per cubic foot, the lowest published density in this comparison, over polyester webbing and a steel mechanism in a frame of laminated veneer lumber, solid pine and particleboard.

It is 33 1/8 inches wide, and it opens to a bed of 39 3/8 by 74 3/4 inches. That is a single bed and a compact one, and 74 3/4 inches of length is short enough to matter if anybody sleeping on it is much over six feet.

Bought as an occasional piece for a spare room or a first apartment, those numbers are the price of the price. Bought as the sofa somebody sits on every evening, the 19 1/4-inch seat is the figure to sit on before ordering.

Best published construction: IKEA HYLTARP Sleeper Sofa, Gransel gray

The most sofa-like build in the set, and the most expensive at $1,699. It publishes a steel pocket-spring unit with high-resilience foam at 2.2 pounds per cubic foot over foam at 2.0, under a cover of 43 percent cotton, 27 percent viscose, 18 percent recycled polyester and 12 percent linen, and the cover is washable. It carries the same 10-year limited warranty as the rest.

What its page did not carry, when it was read, were the overall dimensions, the seat measurements and the bed size. On the most expensive piece here those are exactly the figures to ask for before ordering, and they are the reason it is not ranked higher.

The traditional frame, sold without a mattress

There is a second route into this category, and its pricing works differently in a way that catches people out.

The Futon Shop's Durango Wallhugger is a frame only. It publishes 80.25 inches of wall space, a 33-inch frame height, a 37-inch seat depth and a 57.75-inch bed seat depth, rising to 35 inches with a futon on it, and it uses a front-loading wall-hugger mechanism so it converts without being pulled away from the wall. Its warranty policy lists two years on wallhugger and Amish hardwood frames. The mattress is a separate purchase, so a frame price is not comparable with any of the all-in figures above.

Its Custom Eco Sofa Bed is the other end of the same shop: a sofa of 66 by 39 by 37 inches opening to a bed of 66 by 24.5 by 75, in LiveSmart stain-resistant upholstery over micro pocket coils, coconut coir and a latex core, on a European pop-up mechanism with no assembly. Delivery is free white glove with setup and packaging removal. It is custom made in four to eight weeks, it carries a two-year warranty, and custom sofas are not returnable. That last term is the one to weigh, because it removes the escape hatch that every IKEA piece above keeps open.

Frequently asked questions

What should I look at first on a futon listing?

The seat height and the seat depth, because those decide what the piece is like on the evenings nobody is staying over. Across the models here the seat height runs from 12 1/4 inches to 18 1/8, which is nearly six inches, and it is the single figure most listings bury under the bed dimensions.

How wide does the bed need to be for two people?

Around 54 inches is the usual full width, and only two pieces here reach it: NYHAMN at 55 1/8 inches and FRIHETEN at 56 3/4. The KIVIK 1-seat at 35 3/8 and BALKARP at 39 3/8 are one-person surfaces, and no amount of mattress topper changes that.

Does a removable cover matter that much?

On a piece that is slept on, yes, because bedding does not protect the parts of it that people sit on in the day. KIVIK and HYLTARP publish washable covers here; the FRIHETEN Faringe publishes a stationary one, which means spills are a spot-cleaning job for the life of the sofa.

Why do some futons cost a few hundred dollars and others a few thousand?

Partly construction, and partly what is in the box. A frame-only futon is priced without its mattress, so it is not comparable with an all-in sleeper, and at the top of the range you are paying for pocket springs, natural fills and made-to-order delivery rather than for a bigger bed.

Decide which of the two jobs this piece is really for, then read the seat numbers before the bed numbers. PlushPick has the sleeper sofas judged on the bed first for when the guest room is the whole point, and the sofa beds under $500 for the tighter end of the budget.