Amazon seems to sell just about everything these days under its internal Basics brand and while it all started with batteries, now Amazon is selling a pillow in direct competition with many of the pillows we review. Amazon Basics products vary wildly when it comes to quality and design but usually, this isn’t an issue since most of the Amazon Basics products are commodities, where quality and brand don’t really matter. When it comes to sleep products, however, quality does matter, so we’re skeptical.

The Amazon Basics Down Alternative Pillow is a very affordable pillow sold in a 2 pack, making a single pillow about ⅓ to ⅕ the cost of other pillows we review, meaning you can indeed save considerably buying this pillow over a name brand. This pillow is one of the most popular pillows on Amazon with over 23K reviews as of writing this. Many of these reviews are mixed, highlighting a very big difference in satisfaction from review to review.

Many pillows are being marketed as down alternatives these days, especially on Amazon. The aim is to have an affordable pillow that doesn’t go flat but retains the plush feeling of down feather fill. It's an appealing combination that we’ve seen done well in pillows like Colombia’s Ice Fiber Pillow. The pillow is also available in two firmnesses which is a nice choice usually not available in a cheap pillow. This allows you to choose a firmness based on your sleeping position and size. For this review, we purchased the medium firmness. The question is does the Amazon Basics pillow perform? Let's dig in.

Our process for reviewing pillows is a simple and objective one. Due to the fact that our bodies and sleeping positions are all highly unique, we believe that measuring the pillow firmness and support in the real world is the best way for us to make recommendations to our readers. We take a series of measurements on the support of each pillow we review in person using a simulation we developed to replicate real sleeping situations for typical male and female head weights. These measurements allow us to quantify how a pillow will support and align your neck, head, and spine and ultimately how each pillow could contribute or detract from a good night's sleep.

When formulating our sleep product recommendations one component is consistent and that is obtaining neutral spine alignment. It is widely agreed that when our bodies rest in a neutral spine alignment, the risk for joint or muscle pain is reduced and you often can achieve better sleep as a result.

The Amazon Basics Down Alternative pillow measured in at 7” uncompressed, which is fairly typical for most pillows. Shockingly the Amazon Basics Down Alternative went extremely flat during our testing. Our tests showed that during average sleep situations the pillow will compress down to just 1.1” in both our tests. We are surprised for a few reasons. First, these measurements make the Amazon Basics Pillow the thinnest performing pillow we’ve ever tested, meaning this pillow keeps your head off the mattress only 1.1”. The second reason we’re surprised is that there's no difference in height between our two tests. This means that regardless of who is using it, it will always bottom out at the same spot. Overall this means that the pillow will not support you much and it has minimal flexibility to support a variety of sleepers.

Side Sleepers - Our tests showed that the AmazonBasics pillow in medium firmness will only elevate your head about 1.1” off the mattress surface, which is completely inadequate for side sleeping and obtaining spine alignment as a side sleeper, regardless of your size or frame. Usually, we look for 2 times the elevation for side sleepers and usually don’t even recommend using a pillow that has less than 2.5” of support in our tests for side sleeping. It is possible that this pillow could work for children but consider it unlikely that any adult would be able to get spine alignment with this pillow.

Back Sleepers - Back sleeping is where this pillow has some hope since back sleep requires much less elevation to obtain spine alignment. Usually ~1.5” to 2” is adequate. In this case, we’re below that but not too far. For back sleepers that like thin pillows or the feeling of having your head right on the mattress itself, this is a great option.

Combination Sleepers (back/side/stomach) - Combination sleeping is always a compromise and because of the different needs required by your pillow for different sleeping positions, we can’t recommend the Amazon Basics pillow for anything other than back and stomach sleeping among those who are petite or appreciate the head on the mattress feel.

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Using our testing process, we took the following measurements from the Sealy All Positions Pillow. These measurements in combination with average male and female anatomy benchmarks and the needs of each sleeping position help us arrive at our recommendations.

Startsleeping Measurements:

Size and Pricing obtained from Amazon and our pillow sample on 3-23-2022

The Amazon Basics Down Alternative is a polyester-based pillow, like nearly all ultra-affordable pillow options. Polyester is a cheap but very useful material that's great in pillows when engineered correctly. The non-removable outer cover of the pillow is a polyester microfiber and the filing is shredded polyester fill. The AmazonBasics pillow is OEKO-TEX certified which makes it among the least expensive pillows we’ve reviewed to have an industry group certification for safety, which is great.

Trial - As the Amazon Basics pillow is a pillow sold by Amazon on Amazon, your best bet with a trial is to use it for 30 days and if you’re not happy return it. You work directly with Amazon on the issue rather than a third-party seller and it should be a very smooth and easy process to return if you don’t like it.

Warranty - We were unable to find warranty information on this pillow but suspect that it’s covered at a minimum by a 1-year limited warranty on defects and craftsmanship like nearly all pillows are but its possible Amazon has a better warranty, we just couldn’t confirm it.

Customer Service - Amazon is great when it comes to customer service and we expect that any issues you encounter during your pillow ownership will be handled right. This pillow currently has 100s of reviews (many of them mixed as mentioned above) citing great customer service and support from Amazon.

Company - While this is an Amazon pillow, it’s likely still made in a Chinese factory alongside other brands. We noticed a similar sewing design as other pillows we’ve reviewed around this pricepoint and suspect (like the mattress industry) there are a few large manufacturers that make the large majority of pillows. The new good news here is you’re dealing with Amazon, a company that obsesses over your customer experience and satisfaction.

Where to Buy - As far as we can tell, it doesn’t seem you can buy any amazon basics sleep products anywhere besides Amazon.com

Overall, the Amazon Basics is a very one-dimensional and niche pillow that is great for small back sleepers. The pillow isn’t remotely thick enough to support anyone besides a child in the side sleeping position. While the pillow is cheap and doesn’t cut corners on quality materials, it’s just not thick enough to satisfy a wide variety of sleepers.

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