Why our prices are on the page
For thirty years John Hilliard built adjustable beds for other people to sell. He watched them leave the factory at one price and reach the customer at four or five times that, sold in living rooms, at night, to people who had no way of knowing what the bed was worth. This page is the correction.
I knew what the bed cost. I could not tell you.
I brought adjustable beds to the British high street the best part of thirty years ago. For most of that time my job was to make them, not sell them. The beds went out of our factory to retailers, and what happened after that was out of my hands.
What happened after that was a salesman in your mother's front room.
I knew the numbers on both sides. I knew what the frame cost, what the motors cost, what the mattress cost, what it cost to deliver it and put it together in a bedroom. And I knew what people were being charged. Beds that should have been priced around a thousand pounds were routinely sold for four and five thousand. Not because the bed had changed. Because the sale had.
People ask why I never went direct back then, when I had the factory and the range and the knowledge to do it. The honest answer is that there was only one road to the customer, and I did not want to travel it. Selling adjustable beds in the nineties and two thousands meant buying leads off the back of adverts aimed at frightened people, putting a commission salesman in a car, and sending him to sit in a living room for three hours with an elderly couple until somebody signed something. There was a great deal of noise about how that trade behaved, and most of it was deserved.
I was not prepared to build a business on that. So I stayed where I was, made the beds, and let other people take them to market. That was my choice and I do not regret it. But I never stopped resenting the gap between what the bed was and what people paid for it.
The internet is what changed my mind. For the first time a manufacturer can put a bed, a specification and a price in front of somebody in their own time, in their own home, with nobody sitting opposite them. Nothing has to be hidden. There is no reason to hold a price back except one, which is that you intend to decide it once you have seen the house.
So here is how we do it. Every bed we make has a price on the website. It is the same price for you as it is for anybody else. It does not fall because you say no. There is no salesman coming, because we do not employ any.
Below is exactly what an adjustable bed should cost, what drives the number up and down, and what we charge. If you can find one thing on this page that is not straight, ring me.
The discount ladder
This is how a bed gets sold in a living room. The price does not reflect the bed. It reflects how long you can hold out. Every figure below is an illustration of a standard industry pattern, not a quote from any one company.
Read it the other way round
If a bed can be sold at £2,695 at half past nine, it was never a £5,995 bed. The first number exists so the last number feels like a rescue.
Which also means the person who signed at eight o'clock paid £1,300 more than the person who held on. Same bed. Same van. Same fitter.
The cost of running that visit, the lead, the fuel, the three hours, the commission, is inside the price of the bed. You are paying for the sale.
What you are buying in a £5,000 doorstep bed
A rough anatomy of a home visit sale, based on how the trade is structured. The bed itself is the smallest line on the list.
The bed
Frame, motors, control, mattress, packaging. The only part you actually keep.
Getting the appointment
Advertising aimed at people in pain, lead purchase, call centre, diary booking.
The salesperson
Commission, car, fuel, three hours in the room. Paid on what you sign, not on what suits you.
Discount headroom
Money built into the list price purely so it can be given away later.
Delivery and overhead
The van, the fitter, the office. Real costs, and the one part of this list we also pay.
Illustrative allocation for explanation. Structure varies by company. We publish it because nobody in this trade ever has.
What genuinely changes the price
These are the things worth paying more for. If a price is higher and none of these explain it, ask why.
The motor and control
An adjustable bed lives or dies on its actuators. Cheap motors are loud, slow and the first thing to fail. Ask for the make, the duty cycle and whether there is a battery back up so the bed can be lowered in a power cut.
Frame steel and weight rating
Gauge of steel and the number of welds set the safe working load. A bed rated for one user at 110kg and a bed rated for two at 150kg each are not the same object, whatever the photograph looks like.
Slat engineering
Slats are where cheap beds save money. Widely spaced slats let a mattress sag between them, which you feel through your hips within a year. Spacing, thickness and how the slats flex at the hinge points matter more than the fabric.
The mattress
The single biggest variable. A one piece reflex foam mattress and a pocket sprung mattress built to flex without breaking down are hundreds of pounds apart, and only one of them is designed to bend twenty times a day.
Size and single or dual
A dual bed is two complete beds under one headboard. Two frames, two motor sets, two mattresses, two controls. Expect it to cost close to double, because it is.
Upholstery and headboard
Fabric grade, foam density and whether the headboard is genuinely upholstered or a printed board. Visible, and worth paying for if the bed is going in a room you sit in.
Delivery, installation and removal
Two people, into the room of your choice, assembled, tested, packaging taken away, old bed removed if you want it gone. Some sell this as an extra. We would rather it was in the price and named.
What you should expect to pay
Honest market bands for a British made adjustable bed, delivered and installed. Ours sit inside them, and every one of our prices is on its product page.
| Bed | What you get | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Under £600 | Flat pack, imported, single motor, thin gauge frame, foam mattress. Short warranty and often parts only. We do not make anything in this bracket and would not advise it for daily use. | Avoid |
| Entry, single | Adjustable platform or divan base, back and leg adjustment, wired handset, basic foam mattress. | £995 to £1,395 |
| Upholstered single | Fully upholstered base and headboard, quiet twin motors, wireless handset, pocket sprung adjustable mattress. | £1,595 to £2,295 |
| Double and king | One frame, one motor set, wider mattress. Both partners move together. | £1,995 to £2,995 |
| Dual double, king, super king | Two independent beds under one headboard. Each side moves alone. Two mattresses. | £2,895 to £4,995 |
| Riser recliner chairs | Single or dual motor, rise to standing, petite to grande sizes, fabric or leather. | £1,095 to £2,495 |
The Countess
- Dual motor rise and recline
- Three sizes, petite to grande
- Fabric or leather, full swatch range
- Battery back up as standard
Adjustable bed, double
- Upholstered base and headboard
- Quiet twin motors, wireless handset
- Engineered slat platform
- Zero gravity and anti snore positions
Dual adjustable, king
- Two independent beds, one headboard
- Two motor sets, two handsets
- Two adjustable pocket sprung mattresses
- Both sides move alone
Five things we will never do
Not policies. Conditions of trading, set by the man whose name is on the beds.
We will not come to your house to sell you a bed
We do not employ commission salespeople and we do not book home appointments. If you want to see one, come to us or ring us. Nobody is coming to sit in your front room.
We will not change the price because you hesitate
The price on the page is the price. It does not fall on the phone, it does not fall at nine o'clock at night, and it does not fall because you said no once.
We will not invent a price to cross out
No permanent sale, no fake list price, no was and now that was never was. When we run an offer it is genuine, it is dated, and everybody gets it.
We will not call it bespoke when it is not
Sizes, fabrics and options are options. Real bespoke work is quoted separately and itemised so you can see what the change costs.
We will not advertise at your fear
No one should be sold a bed by being told what will happen if they do not buy it. We will show you the bed, tell you what it does and what it costs.
VAT relief and finance
VAT relief
If the bed is for you or someone you care for, and that person has a long term illness or disability, the purchase may be zero rated for VAT. That is a rule set by HMRC, not a discount we are giving you. You claim it with a short declaration at checkout or over the phone. We do not charge for the paperwork and we do not present it as a saving we have generously arranged.
Eligibility is defined by HMRC. If you are not sure whether it applies, ring us before you order and we will talk it through without pressure either way.
Finance
Spread the cost over 6, 12 or 24 months at a published APR. The total repayable is shown before you commit, on the same page as the cash price, so you can see exactly what the credit costs you. Finance is never a way of making a high price sound small.
What the number on the page actually covers
The true cost of a bed is not the invoice. It is the invoice plus what happens over the next fifteen years.
Extended cover is available through Motion Care, Motion Care Plus and Motion Care Total. Priced and explained separately so you can see what you are buying rather than finding it folded into the bed price.
Four commitments, in writing
This page is not a marketing position. It is the reason the business exists in the form it does, and John will answer for it personally.
- Every product we sell has its price published on our website.
- You will never be quoted a different price to the one on the page.
- You will never be visited at home by anyone selling you a bed.
- Any offer we run is dated, genuine and open to everyone at once.
Have a look, or have a word
Browse the range with the prices in plain sight. Or ring and speak to someone who is not paid on what you spend.