SonderCare vs Rehabmart: which bed is right for care at home?
If you’ve been searching Rehabmart and you’re hesitating — the catalog is enormous, the prices look right, but you’re not quite sure what you’re getting, who sets it up, or what happens if the bed is wrong for the room — that hesitation is worth listening to. A home hospital bed is usually a one-time purchase you’ll live with for years, and the lowest sticker isn’t always the lowest cost. This page lays out the real differences, using facts published on Rehabmart’s own site, so you can decide with clear eyes.
Quick answer
Rehabmart is a generalist marketplace: a therapist-owned medical store, founded in 1998, that resells beds and equipment from 500+ third-party brands — Invacare, Medline, Drive Medical, Joerns, and many more — across nearly every medical category, and competes on price. SonderCare is the manufacturer of its own premium home hospital bed, which it designs, certifies, delivers, assembles, and warranties as a single product. These aren’t better and worse versions of the same bed; they’re two different kinds of purchase. The right choice comes down to whether your need is short-term and budget-led, or long-term and lived-in.
Key takeaways
- Rehabmart is a broad generalist marketplace reselling 500+ brands across many medical categories; SonderCare manufactures its own beds. That’s a difference in category, not just a difference in price for the same bed.
- On their own site, Rehabmart lists full-electric, semi-electric, and manual (hand-crank) beds, alongside facility-oriented “Med Surg Beds” and bariatric frames; ships heavy items by LTL freight; provides the manufacturer’s warranty rather than its own; and lists hospital beds among its non-returnable categories.
- Every SonderCare Aura bed is full-electric with FallSafe ultra-low 10″ height, arrives with white-glove in-home setup, and carries a 5-year parts warranty handled directly by SonderCare.
- If the need is short-term or strictly budget-driven, a lower-cost reseller bed may be all the situation calls for. SonderCare earns its place for long-term care, where caregiver effort, the dignity of the bedroom, and years of support matter most.
The bed you’re looking at on a large medical marketplace and the bed a manufacturer builds can carry the same words — “hospital bed,” “electric,” “home care” — and still be two very different purchases. Knowing which one you’re actually buying is the difference between a price you’ll feel once and a decision you’ll live with every day. That’s why it’s worth slowing down before you click “add to cart,” even when the situation feels urgent.
Most people who land on a Rehabmart review or comparison are mid-decision. A parent is coming home from the hospital, a partner’s mobility has changed, or a recovery is going to take longer than anyone hoped. You’re not loyal to any retailer — you’re trying to make one good choice under pressure, and you want to know whether the cheaper option is genuinely fine or quietly going to cost you later. That’s the right instinct, and it deserves a real answer rather than a sales pitch.
So this comparison does two things. First, it reframes the question: Rehabmart and SonderCare aren’t two points on the same shelf — they’re two categories of seller, and the questions you’d ask are different for each. Second, it puts the structural facts side by side, drawn from Rehabmart’s own published pages, with a plain-language note on what each one means for you. We’ll also be honest about when the marketplace is the smarter call, because sometimes it genuinely is.
Two different things are being sold
When you compare SonderCare with Rehabmart as if they were rival versions of one product, you’re already asking the wrong question. The most useful first step is to notice that they sit in different categories of business — and that the category, more than any single feature, shapes what you experience after the sale.
Rehabmart is a marketplace. By its own description it represents “500+” brands and offers “rehabilitation devices from over 500 manufacturing vendors and suppliers” across nearly every medical category, from mobility and pediatrics to diagnostics and therapy — beds are one aisle in a very large store. SonderCare is a manufacturer: it engineers, certifies, delivers, and warranties its own Aura and Impulse beds as one continuous product and relationship. Neither model is dishonest. They’re simply built to do different jobs — one for breadth of choice, one for depth in a single product.
Generalist multi-brand marketplace
Resells beds and equipment from 500+ manufacturers across many medical categories, and is positioned on price. A fit when budget and breadth of selection are the main deciding factors.
Medical-grade bed manufacturer
Designs and builds its own beds, certifies the Aura line to International Hospital Standard, and stands behind each one with white-glove delivery and a 5-year warranty. Built for long-term, lived-in care.
How long, and how lived-in?
A short, functional, budget-first need points one way; years of daily care in a bedroom that should still feel like home points the other. The category you need follows from your timeline, not the logo.
Read that way, “Is SonderCare better than Rehabmart?” dissolves into a clearer question: which category fits the care you’re actually providing? The facts below help you answer it.
What the facts show
Everything in the table below is drawn from Rehabmart’s own live pages — their about page, their bed catalog, their warranty policy, and their returns policy — checked on June 25, 2026. We’ve deliberately left out anything we couldn’t source, including any claim about side-rail certification, which their pages don’t confirm either way.
The point isn’t to score points. It’s to show you the structural differences that don’t appear in a price comparison, and that tend to surface only after the bed arrives.
| What to check | Rehabmart | SonderCare | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who makes the bed | Marketplace reseller of 500+ third-party brands (Invacare, Medline, Drive Medical, Joerns, and others); founded 1998, therapist-owned | Manufacturer of its own Aura and Impulse beds | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Store focus | Generalist medical marketplace spanning many categories (DME, mobility, pediatric, diagnostics, therapy); beds are one aisle | Dedicated to home hospital beds and their accessories | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Powered operation | Full-electric, semi-electric, and manual (hand-crank) frames listed as separate categories | Full-electric on every Aura bed; one-button hi-lo, no hand crank | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Design intent | Catalog includes facility-oriented “Med Surg Beds” and bariatric “healthcare bed systems” alongside home beds | Residential design as a primary requirement; Aura Platinum upholstered Slate Gray Crypton panels | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Warranty & support | Manufacturer’s warranty, not Rehabmart’s own; the buyer claims with the maker and may pay return shipping and technician fees | 5-year comprehensive parts warranty, handled directly by SonderCare; optional +$199 parts & labor | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Delivery & assembly | Ground carrier by default; heavy items ship by LTL freight; buyer brings it in and assembles it | White Glove Standard ($599): full in-home setup, installation, walkthrough, and debris removal | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Returns & cancellation | Hospital beds listed as non-returnable; returnable items: 30-day window, 30% restocking, new/resalable only; freight orders can’t be cancelled once shipped | Pre-purchase consultation with a bed expert to confirm size and fit before you order | Verified 2026-06-25 |
| Price position | Full-electric home beds from roughly $682 to about $1,651; manual from $484.95; low beds from $306.45 | $3,999 (Impulse) to $12,999 (Aura Companion); Aura Premium $6,999, Aura Platinum $8,499 | Verified 2026-06-25 |
What these facts mean for you
Because the bed is built by another company and sold through a marketplace, you’re buying a catalog item rather than a product its seller designed. If something goes wrong, you may end up coordinating between the store and whichever brand made the frame — instead of calling the one company that engineered, built, and stands behind it.
A store carrying hundreds of brands across nearly every category is built for breadth, not for depth in any one product. With a home hospital bed, that breadth means the guidance and after-sale relationship are spread across a huge catalog, rather than concentrated on the one bed you’ll depend on every day.
On a semi-electric or manual bed, raising the height for care and lowering it for safety means turning a hand crank, often dozens of times a day. That repetition lands on the caregiver’s back and shoulders. SonderCare builds every Aura bed full-electric for exactly this reason — height, head, and knee move at the touch of a button.
Many of these frames were engineered first for hospitals and care facilities, then offered for home use. In a bedroom, a med-surg or institutional frame can look and feel like a patient room — the opposite of what most families want for a parent or partner. Residential appearance is a primary design requirement for SonderCare, not a finish you add later.
When the warranty is the manufacturer’s rather than the seller’s, reaching it is largely on you — including, by their policy, paying to ship the bed back and covering technician fees if the maker requires it. Most home care lasts for years, so it’s worth knowing who you’ll be calling. SonderCare’s 5-year parts warranty is one company, one phone call, for five years.
A hospital bed is a heavy, freight-class item, so it typically arrives by carrier for someone at home to move inside and assemble. If there isn’t a strong, available helper, that’s a real obstacle — and once a freight order has left the warehouse, cancelling it can mean paying freight both ways plus a restocking fee. SonderCare’s White Glove Standard service brings the bed in, sets it up, walks you through it, and takes the packaging away.
Here’s the catch most buyers miss: you usually can’t tell whether a bed fits the room until it’s set up — but the policy lists hospital beds as non-returnable, so once it’s yours, it’s yours. That puts the risk of a wrong size, height, or look entirely on you, which is why a fit conversation before ordering is worth the few minutes it takes.
The low entry price is genuine, and it’s the real reason to consider a reseller — if upfront cost is the deciding factor, they can win on the sticker. The honest trade-off is everything around the bed: who sets it up, who supports it for years, and whether it looks like furniture or equipment in your home.
Three questions worth asking before you decide
You don’t need anyone to tell you what to think — you need the right questions to think with. These are the three we’d quietly ask ourselves before buying any home hospital bed, each tied to a fact above.
In year two, who actually stands behind the bed?
It’s worth knowing before you buy. Rehabmart’s policy provides the manufacturer’s warranty rather than its own — it offers to share the maker’s contact details, and you may have to ship the bed back and cover technician fees to make a claim. SonderCare includes a 5-year comprehensive parts warranty handled directly — one company, for five years. Home care often lasts longer than a single year, so the real question isn’t only the price today; it’s who you’ll be calling later.
Who carries the bed inside and sets it up — and what if it’s wrong for the room?
On Rehabmart, heavy items like beds ship by LTL freight by default, so a bed may arrive for you to move and assemble. Their return policy lists hospital beds as non-returnable, and a freight order can’t be cancelled once it’s left the warehouse. Since you often can’t judge fit until the bed is built, that’s a narrow margin. SonderCare’s White Glove Standard service brings the bed in, assembles it, and removes the packaging, and a bed expert helps confirm size and fit before you order.
Does the lowest sticker still feel like a saving a year in?
That depends on who uses the bed and how often. If you choose a semi-electric or manual model, the height adjusts by a hand crank the caregiver turns many times a day; if the frame was designed for a facility, it’s what the family sees in the bedroom every morning. A lower price is real — but so is the daily effort and the look of the room. Only you can weigh them. The point is to weigh them on purpose, rather than discover them after delivery.
Which SonderCare bed fits the situation
If you’ve decided this is long-term, lived-in care, the next question is simply which configuration answers your specific worry. You don’t need the most expensive bed — you need the one matched to the concern that’s actually keeping you up at night.
Two worries come up most often among families who start out comparing marketplace beds: “I don’t want a clinical-looking frame in our bedroom,” and “the daily lifting and cranking is wearing me out.” Here are the SonderCare configurations built for each, with current prices.
The bedroom that still looks like a bedroom
For families worried about a clinical look- Appearance: Upholstered Slate Gray Crypton side panels, furniture-grade finish
- Height range: Full-electric hi-lo, 10″ to 39″
- Fall prevention: FallSafe ultra-low 10″ platform (17″ to mattress top)
- Certification: Certified to International Hospital Standard
- Operation: 54 dB(A) — quieter than typical conversation
- Warranty: 5-year comprehensive parts, included
The bed that does the lifting for you
For caregivers doing daily transfers- Operation: Full-electric — height, head, and knee; no hand crank
- Transfers: 21″ pre-programmed bed-to-wheelchair transfer height
- Positioning: Zero Gravity, Cardiac Chair, Trendelenburg tilt
- Fall prevention: FallSafe ultra-low 10″ platform
- Capacity: 500 lbs weight capacity
- Warranty: 5-year parts; +$199 for parts & labor
If the budget needs to start lower, the Impulse Residential Bed ($3,999) brings full-electric head, knee, and hi-lo adjustment in a residential design — an entry point into the manufacturer category without dropping into a freight-and-crank purchase. For couples who want to keep sleeping side by side, the Aura Companion Bed ($12,999) is a split-king with each side independently adjustable.
When Rehabmart is genuinely the right call
For a genuinely short-term or purely functional need — a few months of recovery in a spare room, or a basic frame where appearance and long-term support aren’t priorities — a lower-cost reseller bed may be all the situation calls for, and paying for furniture-grade design and a five-year warranty would be more than the moment requires. A broad marketplace can also make sense when you’re buying many different items at once and a hospital bed is only one line on the list. SonderCare is built for the opposite case: long-term, lived-in care, where daily caregiver effort, a bedroom that still feels like home, and one company standing behind the bed for years are what matter.
Frequently asked questions
Is Rehabmart a good place to buy a hospital bed?
Rehabmart is a generalist marketplace that resells beds from other manufacturers, such as Invacare, Medline, Drive Medical, and Joerns, across a catalog of 500+ vendors. If your need is short-term or strictly budget-driven and you’re comfortable with freight delivery and assembling the bed yourself, it can be a reasonable choice. For long-term, lived-in care where daily caregiver effort, appearance, and multi-year support matter, a manufacturer like SonderCare is built for a different job.
Are Rehabmart’s hospital beds full-electric, or do they need a hand crank?
It varies by model, so confirm before you buy. Their catalog lists full-electric, semi-electric, and manual beds as separate categories, and semi-electric and manual frames use a hand crank for height adjustment. That matters because height is the function a caregiver uses most. Every SonderCare Aura-series bed is full-electric — height, head, and knee are all motor-driven, with a one-button hi-lo and pre-set positions.
What warranty comes with a hospital bed from Rehabmart?
Rehabmart provides the manufacturer’s warranty rather than its own — its policy says it offers to provide manufacturer contact information so you can make a claim with the company that built the bed, and you may have to pay return shipping and any technician service fees. SonderCare includes a 5-year comprehensive parts warranty on every bed, handled directly by SonderCare, with an optional upgrade to a 5-year parts-and-labor warranty for $199.
Can I return a hospital bed to Rehabmart if it doesn’t work out?
Generally no. Rehabmart’s return policy lists hospital beds among its non-returnable categories, and for items that can be returned the standard window is 30 days with a standard 30% restocking fee, in new and resalable condition with the original packaging. Because a hospital bed usually has to be assembled before you know whether it fits the room, it’s worth being sure before it’s ordered.
Does Rehabmart deliver and set up the bed in my home?
Their standard fulfillment is by ground carrier and, for heavy items like beds, LTL freight across the 48 contiguous United States — so someone needs to bring the bed inside and assemble it. Cancelling a freight order after it leaves the warehouse can mean paying freight both ways plus a restocking fee. SonderCare’s White Glove Standard service ($599) includes full setup, installation, a feature walkthrough, and debris removal, with a rush option available in 1 to 3 business days.
How does SonderCare’s price compare with Rehabmart?
They sit in different categories. Rehabmart lists full-electric home hospital beds from roughly $682 to about $1,651 and competes on price. SonderCare’s line runs from $3,999 for the Impulse Residential Bed to $12,999 for the Aura Companion split-king, with the Aura Premium at $6,999 and the Aura Platinum at $8,499 — figures that reflect in-house design, International Hospital Standard certification, white-glove delivery, and a 5-year warranty. If the lowest upfront price is the priority, the reseller wins on the sticker; if total ownership across years of care matters more, SonderCare is built for that.
Not sure which bed your situation calls for?
Tell us what’s happening at home — the care needs, the room, who’s doing the lifting — and we’ll recommend the right fit honestly, even if that means a smaller bed than you expected. No pressure, ever.
