The best mattress for heavier people should be chosen through careful research of the details in craftsmanship, construction, and design. Luckily, when it comes to the Big Fig Mattress vs Bear Mattress, we’ll help make your decision easier.
Big Fig’s life-changing sleep speaks for itself with thousands of 5-star reviews. We’re proud to be the first and ONLY mattress specifically designed for the plus size and big & tall community. Don’t worry. Whether you’re a side sleeper, back sleeper, or anything in between, serving this community is the singular mission and objective of our company and the products we make, not just some product tag we tacked on. It’s literally all we do.
While Bear claims that its Hybrid mattress is their most popular option for plus size sleepers (everyone loves it?) with copper-gel memory foam and individually encased coils, the truth is it wasn’t built for everybody and won’t support heavier sleepers. However, we’ll let you decide for yourself. Read on to see how Bear Hybrid stacks up against the Big Fig.
To see how we stack up against ALL our competition, be sure to check out the full competitor comparison . We’re here to make sure you’re finding a mattress that’s perfect for you.
Design & Manufacturing
While Bear touts a lot of mattress review sites giving them top awards as a hybrid mattress, they were not designed to support a bigger figure. The Bear Hybrid tops out at a 750lbs weight limit whereas Big Fig holds up to 1,100lbs or 550lbs per sleeper. We’re also just a touch firmer than the Bear Hybrid. They rate their mattress as a 6.8 out of 10. Big Fig is more like a 7-8 on the firmness scale. When you’re a plus sized sleeper, you want a mattress that is comfortable AND supportive, not just some soft mattress.
Weight Stress Test
Bear: LOSER
Big Fig Mattress: WINNER
Edge Support
When it comes to edge support, they’ve gone with springs and when you look at our comparison shots...well they just don’t hold up, slipping and dumping off less than 200lbs of weigh, when 270lbs would be more akin to the weight distribution of a 550lbs sleeper. Big Fig uses high density ILD (indentation load deflection) foam. This keeps the center of the mattress supportive and contouring to your body, using our 1,200 individually wrapped coils (in a queen), without sliding you off the edge. This gives you a broader area of usable sleep space and some general piece of mind that you won’t be finding yourself on the floor. Did we mention that these pocketed coils also provide you with a mattress that will form to your body better? Bottom line– if you’re a big fan of falling off your bed, the Bear Hybrid mattress is perfect for you, but if you’re not… Big Fig has your solution to edge support.
Edge Support Test
Bear: LOSER
Big Fig Mattress: WINNER
Mattress Surface Test
Once it’s all assembled, we hand-tuft each mattress to keep all the layers of materials secured, preventing dips, gaps, or breakdown. The Bear Hybrid doesn’t use tufts meaning that materials can shift and gap over time. But Big Fig Mattress goes the extra mile for heavier bodies because our founding family has been in the mattress business for more than 100-years. Gives us a bit of a leg up on Bear’s 25-years.
Mattress Surface Test
Bear: LOSER
Big Fig Mattress: WINNER
Warranty
We strive for perfection (don’t we all…), but the rare defect can happen, and, in that case, Big Fig Mattress supports you with our 20-year warranty. We’re in it for the long haul after all! When sagging is a common issue for most mattresses trying to support heavier sleepers, we’ve designed our mattress not to sag, but even 1” of visible sag is covered by our warranty. Bear won’t have your back until an inch and a half. However, we’ll give them credit where credit is due. As of January 2022 their mattresses have a lifetime limited warranty, but you only get one replacement per purchase…so for bigger figures, if the Bear Hybrid (a mattress not really designed for plus-size bodies) fails you in 3 years…well that’s not much of a lifetime, is it?
Warranty
Bear: LOSER
Big Fig Mattress: WINNER
Shipping & Return Policies
Nobody thinks the 10-minute store test is going to give you a sense of whether a mattress works for your body, but there’s getting a feel for your mattress and then there’s... too much. Big Fig asks for 14-nights of your time to let your body adjust to better support. Bear requires 30-days minimum so that their mattress can get broken, but they do have a 365-night trial which is nice if you’re super indecisive. We think you’ll love ours sooner than that. Don’t worry though– we believe our product is the best mattress available for heavy sleepers, so we’re confident it’ll be love at first sleep no matter what.
And finally, we have reached some bad news for our Canadian readers… at least if you thought you were considering a Bear… They don’t ship to Canada. But we do! And honestly… we’re the better choice for plus sized sleepers anyway.
Return Policy
Bear: LOSER
Big Fig Mattress: WINNER
