How ComfortDNA™ Scores Every Mattress
Most mattress websites tell you every mattress is comfortable. We measure it instead.
ComfortDNA™ is our assessment and matching system. Every mattress sold on InstaMattress is put through the same structured assessment in our Assessment Studio and scored across six criteria before it's allowed on the site. When you take our 2-minute sleep assessment, your answers are matched against those scores — so your recommendations come from data, not from whichever mattress earns us the most.
This page explains exactly how it works. No black box, no secret sauce claims — just the method.
The six criteria every mattress is scored on
Support
How well the mattress keeps your spine aligned in your sleeping position. A mattress can feel lovely for five minutes in a showroom and still let your hips sink out of line by 3am. We assess how the support system — springs, foam core, or hybrid construction — holds different body weights in side, back and front sleeping positions.
Comfort feel
The surface feel: soft, medium, firm, and everything between. Crucially, we grade firmness against a consistent scale, because one brand's "medium" is another brand's "firm" — a problem anyone who has shopped for mattresses will recognise. Our scale is the same for every mattress from every brand.
Temperature regulation
Whether the mattress sleeps hot, cool, or neutral. Memory foams trap more heat; open-coil and natural-fibre constructions breathe more. If you run warm at night, this score matters more to your match than almost anything else.
Motion isolation
How much you feel a partner moving on the other side of the bed. Pocket springs and foams isolate movement well; traditional open coils transfer it. If you share a bed with a restless sleeper — or you are one — this score is weighted accordingly in your match.
Edge support
How firm and usable the edges of the mattress are — for sitting on the side of the bed, and for sleeping near the edge without the feeling you might roll off. Reinforced perimeters score higher; it matters more for couples maximising space and for anyone who sits on the bed edge to dress.
Durability
How the mattress is likely to perform over years, not weeks. We assess construction quality, materials, spring counts and gauges, foam densities, and the manufacturer's guarantee terms. A mattress that feels perfect in month one but dips by year two fails the people who bought it — this score exists to protect you from that.
How the assessment works
Every mattress goes through our Assessment Studio — a structured evaluation process, not a quick look and a gut feeling. Each of the six criteria is scored against defined standards, and the scores are recorded before the product can be published to the site.
Three rules keep it honest:
Whether it's from a household-name brand or a smaller specialist, the assessment is identical. No brand pays for a better score, and no score can be edited to help a sale.
Manufacturers sometimes revise fillings, spring units or construction. Our supplier agreements require notice of any specification change, and a changed mattress is re-assessed before it's sold again. The score you see always describes the mattress you'd actually receive.
Simple as that. The range on InstaMattress is smaller than some retailers' — deliberately.
How matching works
When you take the sleep assessment, we ask about the things that actually determine which mattress suits you: your sleeping position, body build, temperature at night, whether you share a bed, any aches you wake with, and what matters most to you in the trade-offs every mattress makes.
Your answers create your sleep profile. The matching engine compares that profile against every mattress's six scores and ranks the results — so a hot-sleeping side sleeper with a restless partner sees a completely different list than a solo back sleeper who runs cold. The percentage you see against each match reflects how closely that mattress's measured characteristics line up with your profile.
What the match is not
- It's not a popularity list.
- It's not a margin ranking.
- It's not the same three mattresses shown to everyone.
Two members of the same household will get different matches if they sleep differently — which is rather the point.
Founded on twenty-eight years of bed trade.
InstaMattress was founded by Nigel Cairns — the same person who launched the UK's first online bed retailer in 1999, back when selling a bed on the internet was considered mildly eccentric. Twenty-eight years in the bed trade teaches you two things: most people buy the wrong mattress, and it's rarely their fault. The industry gives them firmness labels that mean different things from different brands, showroom trials of ninety seconds, and advice from whoever's on commission that day.
ComfortDNA™ is the alternative: measure the mattresses properly, ask the customer the right questions, and let the data make the introduction.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to stop guessing?
Two minutes, eight questions, and your matches — scored, ranked and explained.
Take the ComfortDNA™ assessmentRelated pages