Sofa Beds, Measured With the Bed Open

How Long the Bed Is Once It Is Open

The listing leads with the width of the sofa closed. The number that matters at night is the length of the bed open, and the two are not the same figure.

Seventy Eight Inches of Sofa, Seventy Inches of Bed

On a fold down or click clack sofa you sleep along the sofa, and on most of them the mattress lies between the two arms. That is how a 78 inch sofa opens to a bed of about 70 inches, two inches short of a 6 foot adult. Those two inches are why reviews of an otherwise good sofa bed so often say an adult cannot sleep on it. A pull out works the other way round: its mattress unfolds forward from under the seat, it is usually 72 inches long whatever the size of the sofa, and the arms only limit its width.

The table below puts the four figures side by side for every sofa bed listed: width closed, bed length, bed width and total depth with the bed open, because that last one decides whether there is still a way past it in the living room.

Of the 102 sofa beds in this table, 55 open to a bed shorter than 72 inches, the height of a 6 foot adult. On the 36 fold down and click clack models, where you sleep along the sofa, the bed is a median 11.0 inches shorter than the sofa is wide; on the 65 pull out models the mattress runs front to back, so its length does not depend on the sofa width at all.

Open dimensions are the ones each listing states for the bed. A dash means the listing does not give that figure. Open total depth on fold down and click clack models is the open bed width, since the bed lies where the seat and back were.

72" or longerOver 74"Under 70"

Pull Out, Fold Down or Click Clack

A true pull out keeps a folding mattress on a metal frame under the seat cushions; you take the cushions off and unfold it forward. A fold down sofa drops its backrest flat so you sleep on the seat and the back. A click clack does the same on a hinged frame that clicks through upright, reclined and flat. Modular sectionals rearrange their pieces into a bed.

• Pull outs give the longest, most bed-like surface and need the most floor in front.
• Fold down and click clack designs open in seconds and need little more floor than the sofa itself, but the bed is only as long as the space between the arms.

When the seat sits less than 15 inches from the floor, or the padding is a separate futon mattress you can replace, the product is a futon rather than a sofa bed, and it is compared in the futons judged by the mattress on top table instead.

True pull outClick clack

Mattress Thickness and the Bar Across the Middle

Fold down and click clack models have no separate mattress: you sleep on the seat and back turned flat, usually 4 to 5 inches of foam over a board or slats, with a seam where the two meet. A true pull out carries a folding mattress, most often 4 to 5 inches thick, on a metal frame, and that frame has a crossbar that can be felt at about the height of the lower back.

The bar is part of the frame, so no mattress removes it, but it fades once there is more than 5 inches of mattress over it. Most pull out frames take up to about 5 or 6 inches before the sofa stops closing, so a thicker replacement is not always an option: check the thickness here before buying.

Over 5"4 to 5"Pull out, over 5"

Twin, Full and Queen Inside a Sofa

Sleeper sizes borrow the bed names but not the bed lengths. A full sleeper mattress is 54 by 72 inches and a queen 60 by 72, against 75 and 80 inches for a full and a queen bed. A twin sleeper is about 39 inches wide and fits a loveseat. So a queen pull out is as wide as a queen bed but 8 inches shorter, and the name on the box says nothing about the length.

QueenFullTwin

Closed Footprint Against Open Footprint

Measure the room twice: once for the sofa closed and once for the bed open. A pull out typically reaches 80 to 90 inches from the wall once open, so a coffee table has to move and the TV wall needs to be far enough away; if the sofa faces a TV stand, leave a path between the end of the bed and the stand. Fold down and click clack models grow only by the depth of the backrest.

Under 70" closed70 to 85" closedOver 85" closed

Weekly Guest or Nightly Bed

The table splits sofa beds by what you sleep on, not by price. Over 5 inches of mattress or foam is marked Nightly use; 5 inches or less, where the frame bar or the seat seam comes through, is marked Occasional guest. A night a month on a 4 inch pull out is fine; every night is not.

Nightly useOccasional guest

Chenille, Corduroy, Velvet and Faux Leather

Chenille and corduroy are soft and hide wear; velvet looks rich but shows crushing on a seat that is also slept on; linen breathes but wrinkles; faux leather wipes clean and is the easiest with pets and spills, but can feel cold and sticky as a bed surface. On a fold down or click clack model you sleep on the upholstery itself, so the fabric matters more than on a pull out, where sheets cover a separate mattress.

ChenilleCorduroyVelvetFaux leather

What We Exclude From This Table

The table only lists sofas that convert into a bed, checked against each product's Amazon data and its declared mechanism, not just its title: much of this catalog puts futon and sofa bed in the same title. Left out:

• Futons, by one closed rule applied to each listing: a seat less than 15 inches from the floor, or a mattress that is a separate, replaceable futon mattress. Those go to the futon table.
• Daybeds, ordinary sofas with no bed, single chair beds and convertible ottomans.
• Folding beds, cots and air mattresses.
• Any listing whose stated dimensions do not give the length of the open bed.
• Covers, protectors, replacement mattresses and multi-unit lots.