About Helix Sleep

Based in New York City, Helix Sleep is a direct to consumer mattress brand with a unique approach of customization, delivering the value of a personalized mattress at a reasonable cost. Launching in August of 2015, Helix is one of the youngest of the No Middleman mattress brands, but they grew quickly and received investor funding to the tune of $7.4 million at their one-year mark in August of 2016.

Helix is a hybrid mattress consisting of both coils and memory foam, with a 10″ thickness, 3 layers of memory foam, and one layer of coils. On their FAQ page, the brand has one of the most detailed product descriptions we’ve seen, when it comes to the actual materials and explanations of why they used them.

Products and Pricing

Currently, Helix offers 6 unique styles of mattresses with the same pricing ($600 – $1,245, on the day of our review). They also offer 3 unique mattress styles: one for tall/plus-size sleepers, and two dual-sided mattresses (firm on one side, plush on the other—great idea!). Their simplified pricing is a nice feature, as consumers will be able to focus on comparing product features instead of pricing.

On the day of our review, Helix was offering a $75 – $125 discount on their mattresses. To further reduce the net cost of your mattress, as well as the cost of a friend’s mattress, Helix offers a referral program: a $50 Amazon card for you, if you refer a friend; and $100 off a Helix mattress for your referred friend.

Compared with the other No Middleman direct to consumer mattress brands, Helix’ pricing puts them slightly toward the higher end of the spectrum, but if the brand continues to offer discounts and referral bonuses, their pricing will remain competitive with this category’s low cost leaders.

Customization: Smooth and Valuable

Helix is unique and stands out from other brands with their smooth-but-robust customization capabilities. Your mattress will be customized and personalized based on your preferred levels of “feel, support, temperature regulation, and point elasticity,” in their words. According to a 2016 Techcrunch article, Helix achieves this through an algorithm that first assesses a customer’s body type and sleeping preferences, then creates a custom construction for the mattress, based on research in biomechanics and sleep ergonomics.

After walking through this customization menu ourselves, we feel these personalized results (and simple explanations) deliver incredible value for consumers, and earns a place for Helix among the No Middleman favorites in the mattress category.

More Value: Service, Showroom, and Returns

Customer service looks great for this brand, with phone support until 8pm EST on weekdays and 6pm EST on weekends, as well as online chat and email support. Helix has an advantage in the New York City area, where consumers can visit their showroom to test out the mattresses—but consumers everywhere can order with confidence, as the brand offers a reassuring 100-Night Trial program and 10 year warranty.

Final Thoughts on Helix

Helix is a No Middleman favorite in their category, and we expect them to stay that way! Their product quality is strongly reflected in their 4,528 five-star reviews (with a 4.7 star average on Google, on the day of our review)–quite impressive for a brand as new as theirs. But it’s not surprising to us, because for the amount of customization offered, Helix’ pricing makes their mattresses an incredible value for consumers.

We would expect this forward-thinking brand to use their current and future funding to fuel further innovations and possibly scale into more company-owned or company-controlled showrooms, to supplement their current showroom in the Flatiron neighborhood of New York City.

The brand’s three founders, who met in the Wharton MBA program, seem committed to their personalization-heavy, direct to consumer business model. In an interview for MattressClarity.com, co-founder Adam Tishman said, “We aim to be at the forefront of two cultural shifts: (1) the shift from retail to online in the mattress industry and more importantly, (2) the shift from mass to personalized products driven by data and analytics.”

Overall, we feel the strength of this brand’s leadership team, their value pricing for premium innovation, and their commitment to online mattress sales will make Helix a long-term No Middleman favorite in the direct to consumer mattress category.