Have you noticed anything different about Casper Sleep lately? For its 10th anniversary, the brand introduced a whole new lineup of beds in February 2024. Over the last decade, Casper has made some of the best mattresses on the market – including my personal favorite, the now-discontinued Casper Wave Hybrid Snow.
Casper is consistently rolling out new products, but why the overhaul? To find out, I visited Casper Labs in Brooklyn to speak to CEO Joe Megibow and VP of Product Development Russell Jelinek. To sum it up, Casper is embarking on a new era of innovation that focuses on the restorative benefits of sleep and the comfort people crave when climbing into bed after a long day. Keep reading to learn more about what's changed and what Casper is planning for the future.
During my visit to Casper Labs, I had the chance to test the new mattresses firsthand. You can read about my experiences in my guide to the best Casper mattresses. If you're looking for a Casper mattress deal, you're in luck. Casper launched its Memorial Day mattress sale early by taking 30% off its entire range. If you're intrigued by Casper's newest beds, now is a great time to buy.
Joe Megibow has held multiple CEO and board roles over his 30+ year career. He was named the CEO of Casper Sleep in January 2024. Before that, he served as CEO of rival mattress brand Purple and Bright Cellars, an online wine discovery platform. His favorite Casper mattress is the Casper Dream Max, but adds, "It doesn't matter what I think – my wife says it's the best mattress she's ever slept on and she's a very particular sleeper."
Russell Jelinek joined Casper Sleep in 2015 and has been its VP of product development since 2023. He led the development of the Casper Wave mattress in 2017 and continues to spearhead the company’s mattress innovation by translating customer feedback and research into tangible products. Before Casper, he was a design engineer at Pottery Barn Kids. His favorite Casper mattress is the Casper Dream Max: "It feels special. We put a lot of work into it."
Why did Casper overhaul its lineup?
"At Casper, we're always looking for ways to improve our products to give our customers their best sleep possible," says Jelinek. "This is not a relaunch of any models in our current mattress portfolio. It's the launch of a brand new line that, like all Casper products, incorporates our customers' feedback." According to Jelinek, these new Casper mattresses feature improved temperature regulation, better ergonomic support, varying firmness levels, and a broader range of price points.
We're starting from a different place – we're not focused on what features sell mattresses, but on what features actually improve sleep.
Joe Megibow
"We started as a one-product company," says Megibow, referring to the very first Casper foam mattress ever sold. The brand expanded its offerings over the years but both Megibow and Jelinek felt like there were too many choices, which made it harder for customers to find exactly what they wanted. Thus, Casper pared down its lineup of mattresses while meeting as many needs and price points as possible.
But instead of working with what was already there, Casper decided to go back to the beginning. "We're starting from a different place. We're not focused on what features sell mattresses, but on what features actually improve sleep," says Megibow.
How did Casper develop its new mattresses?
As with any new Casper product, Jelinek says, "It always starts with the customers." Jelinek and his team reviewed feedback from Casper's customer experience team, customer reviews, product review sites, retail partners, and Casper Sleep Store sales associates, as well as consumer research surveys and interview panels.
From there, Jelinek and his staff established performance targets for Casper's new mattresses, with feel, support, and temperature control being the most important categories. "Depending on the product needs, we work with suppliers to either create new materials or utilize existing materials. We build prototypes to test in our lab (with human testers) and make changes if we need to," Jelinek explains.
Once everyone was satisfied, the mattresses underwent standard regulatory testing before being manufactured and officially launched for sale. (All Casper mattresses use CertiPUR-US certified foam.)
"Everything in this lineup is based on what people were saying about our old products and what people want in a mattress," says Jelinek. One example is the new Casper Snow cooling mattresses, which feature a top layer of traditional memory foam instead of a more responsive polyfoam.
This was a customer-driven change, according to Jelinek. ("Consumers like memory foam," he says.) However, memory foam is prone to trapping heat so Jelinek's team worked with Casper's suppliers to develop a material that's soft and contouring but not stifling.
What is "Cozy Performance"?
Both Megibow and Jelinek referenced "Cozy Performance," which is a design ethos that acknowledges sleep as both an emotional and technical experience. The "cozy" side is qualitative. "Think of the way your sheets feel against your face, or the springiness or 'gooeyness' of your mattress," Jelinek says. Then there's the quantitative "performance" side, such as the temperature regulation of a mattress or the alignment of your spine.
"I think that notion of 'Cozy Performance' is so important to [us] because if you're spending up to $8,000 on a mattress [elsewhere], you're buying a lot more of the 'cozy' and the storytelling around what's fashionable," says Megibow, adding that people who are shopping for a new mattress don't want to just feel comfortable – they want to reap the restorative benefits of a good night's sleep, too. (The "performance.")
"It's so important to us to make sure that, at our price point, there is a 'cozy' story. We sweat the details on that. The stitching, piping, zipper pulls – everything. But there also has to be a 'performance' element. I think where people get confused is they assume if they're paying more, they're getting more 'performance.' And I don't think that's how the industry works. Part of our mission is to educate customers on that," says Megibow.
What can we expect from Casper's new mattresses?
For fans of the Casper Original or The Casper, there's the Casper One, an all-foam bed that Jelinek calls "responsive and a little bit bouncy." However, he points out, "The new Casper One mattress does not have Zoned Support. That is the key difference." It's the only all-foam mattress in Casper's main lineup.
The Casper Dream is comparable to the Casper Original Hybrid. "They're both hybrids with a bouncy top layer of comfort foam and have our Zoned Support technology," says Jelinek. The Casper Dream Max adds twice the support zones and has a more breathable top layer. Jelinek says the Dream Max is most like the Casper Nova Hybrid.
The Casper Snow and Snow Max models represent the biggest changes in Casper's lineup, as both feature a top layer of memory foam instead of Flex Foam or Casper Signature Foam. "Using memory foam gives the new Snow beds a gooey and slow melt feel when you lie down, whereas Flex Foam is bouncier and more responsive," explains Jelinek.
Casper did release a Casper Snow mattress in 2023, but the current Casper Snow is a whole new mattress."It was clear to us that consumers understand Snow Technology and the Snow name, so we are keeping the name, but the product has been updated with a new feel and materials inside," says Jelinek. Like the Casper Snow (2023) and the Casper Wave Hybrid Snow, you'll still find a cool-to-the-touch cover, phase change material, and Casper's Heat Delete Bands.
What's next for Casper?
A complete overhaul of its main mattress lineup may seem drastic, but according to Megibow, it was time for Casper to have a cohesive assortment that speaks to the various needs of its customers. "Now each mattress has its place in the lineup, each mattress has its purpose," he says.
But Casper's just getting started. "We're always looking at new technologies, new materials, and new designs for all areas of sleep by listening to customers," says Jelinek. In addition to mattresses, Casper also sells pillows, mattress toppers, bedding, and furniture.
We're always looking at new technologies, new materials, and new designs for all areas of sleep by listening to customers.
Russell Jelinek
"There's a lot that we've been playing with, and Russell and I have some very exciting ideas. But when it comes to our approach of reinventing sleep, I think Casper is still in its infancy," says Megibow. "This is not an industry known for its rapid evolution or innovation. It's an industry that has built a lot of healthy margins... by doing the same thing over and over. But that's just not how we think."
Megibow wants people to view Casper as a consumer-centric company that's continuously improving: "With this new lineup we've started a product evolution that we fully expect to continue – and not just mattresses but also what goes under the mattress and what goes on top of the mattress. There's a whole story around the bed. We have a lot of exciting things we're going to be focusing on."
Special thanks to Joe Megibow, CEO of Casper, and Russell Jelinek, Vice President of Product Development at Casper, for sharing their time and expertise.
