How the Hell to Pick a Sofa On the Internet

The right leather sofa can be hard to find. You want it to be premium quality, ideally hand dyed and finished, and in a cool or timeless silhouette. Leather looks better with age, after all, so you want to make sure your sofa checks all of the boxes.

Arhaus combines craftsmanship with cool design, making it absolutely worth the price tag. If you want something beyond the basic leather sofa, Arhaus has plenty of options, including an actually stylish leather recliner. And there’s no fake leather here. Arhaus’s fabric is 100-percent buttery soft leather, ranging in color from creamy caramel to deep graphite. It’s hand-dyed and finished, so it has the maximum amount of texture and detail.

We’re not going to lie, $7,000 for a two-seater leather sofa is a lot, but it’s an investment piece that’ll hold up for a decade, unlike the cheap, faux leather sofa you got on sale from a big retailer that’ll start cracking after a few years. Our favorite Arhaus sofa of the moment: Rowland Tailored Leather Four-Piece Armless Motion Modular Sofa

Let’s say you don’t want a leather sofa from Wayfair or Amazon, but those Instagram direct-to-consumer furniture retailers also freak you out. Understandable, sometimes they can be a miss, but Article is one of the best ones. From the desks (which I’ve personally tested and love) to the sofas, everything I’ve tried has been shockingly made-well when you consider the price.

The cheapest leather sofa from Article I’ve highlighted below is $1,799. That’s a little more than a month’s rent for some of us, and the couch is made out of 100-percent top grain, full-aniline Italian pull-up leather. Pull-up means that the leather has been treated with oils and waxes, which will cause the leather to look more lived-in over time.

Our favorite Article sofa of the moment: Cigar 92" Leather Sofa - Indiana Brown

If you want a designer with a capital D sofa, then Design Within Reach is your best bet. The retailer boasts the largest selection of designer furniture, whether you’re hunting for an Eames chair or Noguchi table. Its leather sofa offerings are no less impressive, with couches from TOGO and HAY available.

Every room needs a focal point, and this couch will win the spotlight easily. The leather of the two pieces we featured are crafted out of fine Italian leather. The TOGO loveseat even boasts a beautiful Olive leather option that’ll add a pop of color to your space.

Our favorite Design Within Reach sofa at the moment: HAY Quilton Corner Sectional

Custom furniture can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, which not many people can afford in this economy. Enter: American-made DTC disruptor Benchmade Modern. You can get a custom-made sofa for roughly $5,000 and within three weeks. Simply pick a sofa profile, and then you can customize the depth, the overall size, upholstery, and cushion fill. The caveat, in my opinion, is that the sofa silhouettes are more modern and can look a little like building blocks, which is great if you love that, but if you want a vintage or sofa that feels slouchy, you should look elsewhere.

Benchmade Modern has a lot of different Italian cowhide, full-grain leathers to browse, including a rich terracotta-colored leather and gravel-y gray leather. It patinas over time.

Our favorite Benchmade Modern sofa of the moment: Crowd-Pleaser Sectional

Velvet automatically adds luxury and elegance to any space. It’s also a robust fabric for a sofa, cat scratch-resistant and easy to clean. Cheap velvet can admittedly look terrible, but I only allowed the nicest velvet couches on this list.

For those unfamiliar with Soho Home, it’s a modern luxury home brand that bases its wares off of the furniture and decor in Soho Houses, which are private, members-only clubs around the globe. The brand makes well-designed, visually stunning sofas that also actually look comfy to lounge in. If I ever win the lottery, you’ll know because my apartment will be decked out in pieces from Soho Home.

Soho Home is also obsessed with velvet couches, so much so that there are 35 velvet sofa options on the site. These don’t have your basic Lawson design either, all are elevated (and so are the prices). The velvet is made out of a mostly cotton blend with a splash of polyester, where most velvets are polyester-heavy. I particularly love the design of the lichen green Linden couch, which includes two built-in shelves on either side of the sofa. It’s both practical and beautiful.

Our favorite Soho Home sofa of the moment: Linden Sofa

The name Joybird does not scream sofas to me (or you, either, probably), but it is indeed a DTC furniture company that has sprouted physical locations in major U.S. cities. Joybird focuses on custom, upholstered, mid-century modern pieces. When I went to visit Joybird’s Manhattan store with a friend who was couch-shopping, I was stunned by all of the velvet options and impressed by how comfy they were.

The silhouettes are indeed on the simpler side, but that allows the velvet to shimmer. There’s even a “velvet” box that shoppers can select to filter by velvet colors, which range from berry to Pantone’s controversial 2025 Color of the Year, Mocha Mousse. If you’re seeking out a specific velvet color, you’ll find it here at an affordable price.

Our favorite Joybird sofa of the moment: Holt Sectional with Storage

I know, I know. I can hear the groans from here. This divisive fabric weave elicits love or hate reactions, with very little middle ground. It is an easy way to add texture into your space, though, and from browsing many websites, it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Yes, another DTC site. I swear there are more traditional brick-and-mortar retailers on this list. Unlike other new furniture sites that have decided to stick to one design era, à la mid-century modern, Castlery boldly bounces between multiple. Some of the couches, like the Marlow Curve, feel very modern, while others veer more MCM. Overall, everything feels fresh and stylish, though sometimes on the trendy side.

So it’s fitting that Castlery has some fun bouclé sofas that go beyond simple silhouettes. Castlery has a performance White Quartz bouclé, which is made out of 100-percent polyester. Usually I’m not keen on polyester, but if you’re going to get a white couch, you might as well get it in a spill-resistant fabric.

Our favorite Castlery sofa of the moment: Marlow Performance Bouclé Curve Sofa

CB2 is basically Crate & Barrel’s cooler younger sister. She’s on top of modern, edgy furniture trends and provides those at Crate & Barrel prices. If you want your home to look cool and elegant at the same time, you should look for furniture here, especially sofas. CB2 will collaborate with designers and occasionally celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow, whose Goop x CB2 collection is surprisingly good. There are also 25 brick-and-mortar stores throughout the country if you really want to see something in person.

It’s unsurprising then that CB2 has more than a few bouclé couches in statement-making profiles and a few colors. The bouclé sofas I checked out on the site are made of a mix of wool, acrylic, and polyester to achieve that chunky, woven texture.

Our favorite CB2 sofa of the moment: Sevigne Ivory Boucle Sectional Sofa by goop

Linen makes for a great sofa fabric, because it’s breathable, durable, easy to clean, and even biodegradable. All of that said, it was harder to find the best linen sofas than I anticipated, perhaps because it’s a natural fabric and it’s more expensive.

Your parents’ house is full of Pottery Barn furniture for a reason. This classic furniture retailer just makes good, classic, and quality sofas. In fact, there’s a 25-year-old Pottery Barn loveseat in my living room as we speak. PB isn’t fussy, ships relatively quickly, and provides you with a lot of customization at a decent price.

And in the era of performance fabrics, Pottery Barn has 18 linen sofa options available in a variety of timeless silhouettes. There are three different types of linen to choose from in a variety of colors for the two sofas below: Rustic (55-percent linen and 45-percent cotton), performance linen, and performance slub weave.

Our favorite Pottery Barn sofa of the moment: Union Armless Sleeper Sofa

The mid-century modern and modern furniture retailer still reigns supreme when it comes to high-quality, moderately priced furniture. Sister to Pottery Barn, West Elm is cozier, more inviting, and usually boasts clean lines. If you want your home to feel accessible rather than an art museum, West Elm makes that easy to do, not that I recommend buying everything from there. I have walked into several apartments that look like glorified West Elm showrooms.

For those with DTC trust issues, West Elm is one of your antidotes. You generally get what you pay for and have the benefit of a lot of variety, when it comes to sofas. Like Pottery Barn, West Elm had one of the largest selections of linen sofas online. It offers Deluxe Linen (100-percent linen), yarn-dyed linen, and performance linen for some of its most popular sofas, including the Andes, which is always a crowd-pleaser.

Our favorite West Elm sofa of the moment: Martense Sofa

Interior Define is primarily known as an online customizable sofa seller, though it has several brick-and-mortar locations, too. Similar to Benchmade Modern but with more choice, they let shoppers pick fabrics, legs, cushions, lengths, and depths. All of that said, Interior Define has one of the longest shipping timelines on this list, so only patient sofa shoppers should partake in browsing. If you need a sofa yesterday, check out one of the other retailers I’ve mentioned.

With not quite as many linen options available as West Elm and Pottery Barn, Interior Define still has some nice linen couches available in neutrals, like Parchment, Dune, and Sea Salt. The sofas tend toward classic and mid-century modern design.

Our favorite Interior Define sofa of the moment: James Sleeper Sofa

Most of the sofa fabrics out there today are deemed “performance fabrics.” They’re usually made up of a combination of synthetic and natural materials, like polyester, acrylic, nylon, linen, and cotton. Some blends are entirely synthetic, which is where you get your “stain resistant” quality from, though some have a mix between polyester and linen for example. When shopping for performance fabrics, it’s ideal if they claim to be made out of nontoxic materials.

Sundays aspires to make sofa shopping as easy as a Sunday morning. If you’re easily overwhelmed and feel inundated by too many options, Sundays has a curated West Coast modern collection of couches. Even the names—Movie Night and Wind Down—inspire a sense of calm and help you remember that most of the time you spend on your couch is going to be spent at rest. Founded in Vancouver by four furniture design industry veterans, Sundays has three showrooms in the U.S. and three in Canada.

Designed with pets and kids in mind, the brand makes premium furniture that is made to endure life’s many challenges and changes, so it’s no surprise that they have some beautiful performance fabric options. The fabrics are made out of 100percent polypropylene or 100-percent polyester and have a higher-than-average rub count of 50,000. Sundays’ LiveLife Performance Fabric is nontoxic, washable, moisture-repellent, and stain-resistant.

Our favorite Sundays sofa of the moment: Quilt 3-Piece Modular Sofa

For DTC furniture company Burrow, its beauty is in its simplicity. Sure, there are some wow-worthy statement pieces on this list, but sometimes you just need a comfy, well-made sofa, and Burrow provides that at a very reasonable price. The four-piece sectional we’re highlighting is only $1,799, for example. Plus, the best part about Burrow is that everything is customizable and comes in modular pieces.

If you’re a big home re-arranger or move frequently, Burrow should be your go-to. You’ll be able to strike the “Will the couch fit through the door?” worry off of your list. Plus, you can buy and add modules onto your couch if you ever move into a larger space and suddenly have room for a 6-seater. Burrow is for people who need a little bit more flexibility, which is also where its performance fabrics come into play. They’re easy to clean, stain-resistant, and come in a plethora of colors.

Our favorite Burrow sofa of the moment: Field 5-Piece One Arm Sectional Lounger

This is my motto when it comes to buying cheaper furniture online: If it’s under $1,000, you’re getting what you pay for. It’s a little bit like gambling, honestly. You can’t expect West Elm-quality at a Wayfair price. That said, you can find a decent sofa that’ll last you a few years. I’ve visited Wayfair’s Chicago showroom and found a few couches that I think are worth it, especially if you’re looking for a sleeper sofa for your office.

Most of the budget-friendly sofas on Wayfair’s site will be covered in synthetic, performance fabrics, which means they’ll resist stains and moisture. Just be sure to read the reviews carefully before making a purchase.

Our favorite Wayfair sofa of the moment: Serta Monroe Full Size Convertible Sofa