The Best Wayfair Couches (Tested by Editors!)

Buying furniture online can be so intimidating, especially when it comes to sofas. Despite all of your frantic measuring, you don’t know how something is going to fit or look in your space before you buy it, let alone how it’ll feel when you sit on it. That’s exactly why we launched our Personal Shopper series and continue to widen our scope to check out the retailers you’re most curious about. This time we’re looking for the best Wayfair couches.

Our visit to a Wayfair store was especially important in our eyes. Wayfair launched its first-ever brick-and-mortar store in Wilmette, Illinois. Luckily for you all, one of our shopping editors lives there, so she drove to check out the two-floor store, and spent several hours trying out every couch. Obviously, there were more than six couches at Wayfair, but we narrowed it down to the very best Wayfair couches. 

The vast majority of people shop for furniture on Wayfair’s website and make decisions sight unseen, unless you live within driving distance of this single store. We decided that it would be a good service to readers to test out the sofas in person.

As a retailer that people turn to for furniture, Wayfair offers thousands of sofas in essentially every aesthetic at varying price points, though many of them are relatively budget-friendly. It even offers free shipping and, on select sofas on this list, white-glove delivery, where they will carry the sofa into your home and assemble it. 

We judged every couch in-store based on the following five criteria to help us determine the best Wayfair couches and who they suit best.

Every Wayfair sofa was tested by Apartment Therapy’s former deputy commerce editor, Alicia Kort. Alicia has tested and reviewed furniture for the Personal Shopper and Best List series to help readers find the best pieces for their homes, especially small spaces. From sofas and bed frames to dining tables and accent chairs, she’s covered it all — making her a furniture expert. 

Alicia spent the day at the Wayfair store in Illinois to evaluate the brand’s sofas on their overall sit, firmness, and appearance.

What impressed us: Trends may come and go, but this couch will remain stylish. If you’ve been dreaming about putting a leather couch in your space for years, we recommend this one from Wayfair. The leather is soft and smooth to the touch. The cushions are filled with high-density foam, which means that you won’t end up with a saggy leather couch after a few years of use.

But,because of the firm cushions and tufted back, you might not want to take a ton of naps on this sectional. It’s better suited for entertaining and working from home. It can seat three comfortably (though you could probably squeeze a fourth person in). It also comes with a left-side chaise, so one of the sitters can extend their legs out for lounging.  The left-hand facing sofa is currently sold out, but the right-hand facing model is still up for grabs!

What impressed us: We’ve featured this chic mid-century modern sofa in many of our Wayfair articles, because it’s one of the top-rated sofas on Wayfair. This velvet sofa is the Goldilocks of sofas in our opinion: It has a standard height and seat depth, so it’s a good compromise if one member of the family likes deep couches and the other prefers shallow. The Geo Velvet Sofa boasts multilayer foam cushions — plus, the back two are reversible.

We found it to be one of the comfiest couches we tested. It’s ideal for lazy weekends in. One of the best features is that the couch is wrapped in performance velvet with a rub count of 100,000. It’s easy to clean, and cats avoid tearing up velvet couches because their paws just slide right off, so it’s ideal for cat owners, too. 

What impressed us: This modern bubble-designed sofa looks straight out of CB2. Despite browsing Wayfair’s website several times per week, we had never seen anything like this couch. This modular sofa has a low profile and cozy silhouette that inspires you to sink down and stretch out for hours of relaxation.

Its cushions are constructed out of a mix of high-density foam and inner springs, allowing the sitter (or person lying down) to get the support their hips and spine need. In the store, this sofa was arranged as a giant L. Because it’s modular, you could buy several and arrange them throughout the room. One cube could stand alone as a single seat, for example.

One note: This sofa does take up more real estate, widthwise, than other sofas on this list. It’s also made out of high-performance velvet fabric, so it’s ideal for families with kids and pets. 

What impressed us: The Barton convertible sofa seemed like a popular choice when we went to Wayfair’s store. Several shoppers were testing it out. This writer’s friend also owns this sleeper sofa, which her large dog named Bumi loves to lounge on when it’s in sofa form. It has a standard depth and height, which made it comfortable to sit and lounge in. It can fit up to two people comfortably, both sitting and sleeping.

The bottom piece of the sofa pulls out and requires little force, thanks to two pull fabric tabs. There’s also little-to-no possibility of pinching your hand while getting the sofa set up or putting it away, which is a big plus. Swathed in microfiber fabric, this couch is high-performance, though we do recommend putting sheets on this sleeper sofa for guests. The toss pillows are shown as doubling as bed pillows, too, if you’re in a pinch. 

What impressed us: When you see a couch like this in the store, you automatically assume it’s going to be a minimum of $3,000. In the Wayfair store, this couch looked (and felt like) it was double the price of what it costs. We know that it’s a bit more expensive than some of the other couches that we viewed on this list, but with this iconic silhouette and tufted design, the three-seater Anorea sofa is a real statement piece.

It has a low-profile that enhances the sitting experience. It would be comfortable to work from or watch TV on, though we don’t see ourselves taking a long nap on it. This sofa was designed with longevity in mind, because it’s made out of stain-resistant leather.

Staining a leather couch is usually fatal, or at least means a call to the couch doctor, so though you don’t want to go out of your way to try to stain this couch, you can breathe a little easier when guests have beverages near it.

What impressed us: This cute little loveseat is the smallest sofa we could find in the entire Wayfair store (and trust us, we looked very thoroughly). The Hendrix Velvet Loveseat, with its scalloped back, resembles a flower. We can just imagine this loveseat in a woman’s dressing area 100 years ago. Although not all of us have that much space, we think this sofa could serve as the perfect pop of color in a studio apartment and serve as the place for visitors to take a load off.

This loveseat is on the firmer side, so if you’re planning on curling up with a book, we recommend adding some throw pillows to cushion your elbows or sides to elevate your lounging experience. There are a lot of color options to choose from, which means a shopper will be sure to find one that matches their aesthetic and makes this couch the focal point in any room.