Best Cots for Guests (2026)

Why a guest cot is a different purchase

A cot you buy for a spare room is a camping cot doing an indoor job, and the job changes which specs matter. Nobody is carrying it to a campsite, so weight stops counting — all five cots here are between 19 and 30 lb and it makes no difference. Nobody is squeezing it into a tent, so a wide deck is a straightforward win. And your guest is in it for a full eight hours rather than a tired six after a day outside, which makes deck width, deck tension and a pad far more important than they are in a tent.

Three specs become more important indoors than out:

• Height off the floor. A cot 17 to 19.5 inches up is the same height as a bed: a guest can sit on the edge to put socks on and stand up normally. One 11 inches up is a floor-level camping cot, and an older guest will struggle out of it.
• Folded thickness, not folded length. A camping cot lives in a garage. A guest cot lives behind a door, under a bed or in a closet eleven months a year, and the spec that decides whether that works is how thin it folds.
• Whether a torn deck ends the cot. A cot used three nights a year should last twenty years. That only happens if the maker sells a replacement deck.

How we picked

Everything here is a folding cot with a published rated capacity, deck dimensions and warranty term. The order follows our Built-to-Last Score — rated capacity, frame and fabric, the written warranty, listed parts, then fit and portability, with the bands on our scoring methodology page. We did not invent an indoor rubric: the same evidence that predicts whether a cot survives a season of camping predicts whether it survives a decade of Thanksgivings. Every figure links to the page it came from.

The five, side by side

Why the TETON is first

It is the closest thing in our registry to a real bed that folds. TETON publishes an 80 x 35.5-inch sleeping surface — longer and wider than every other single cot we score except the Disc-O-Bed 2XL — in IronStretch 600D Oxford canvas, 19.5 inches off the floor, rated to 600 lb. Thirty-five and a half inches is only a couple of inches narrower than a twin mattress, which is why a guest can roll over on it without finding an edge.

The part that justifies the price over twenty years is the parts list. TETON lists the canvas cot top, end bars, side rails, middle and outer legs, feet, frame caps and pivot-arm components as orderable spares, and publishes a video showing how to replace the cot top. Pair that with a limited lifetime warranty against defects and you have a cot that is genuinely repairable rather than disposable. Two caveats: spares are ordered by email to TETON's customer team rather than from an online store, and the same product page lists the frame as both steel X-legs and “Frame Type: Aluminum”, which is an internal contradiction we have not been able to resolve. At 26 lb and 45 inches packed it is also the bulkiest thing here to store. The full read is in our TETON Outfitter XXL review.

The rest of the list

Disc-O-Bed XL Single (#2). The answer when two guests have to share one room, because two of these stack into a bunk with Disc-O-Bed's adapter kit. On its own it is a 79 x 35-inch deck in 1200D PU-coated polyester — the heaviest fabric in our registry — rated to 500 lb per cot, on powder-coated anti-rust steel, with no center bar under your hip. Disc-O-Bed's own store lists the 35-inch XL mat, the end frames, rails, discs and foot plugs individually, so every wear part is replaceable, under a five-year warranty. Two things to weigh: the deck sits only 11 inches off the floor, which is low for an older guest getting up at night, and Disc-O-Bed states its cots fit users up to 6 ft 4 in. The bunk configuration is ranked in best camping cots for two.

Coleman Pack-Away Cot with Side Table (#3). The practical middle: an 80 x 32-inch deck 17 inches off the floor, 300 lb rated, and Coleman states it fits campers up to 6 ft 6 in — the most generous height claim here. The removable side table with a cup holder is genuinely useful indoors, where it becomes the nightstand a guest room usually lacks. It also costs a fraction of the TETON. What you give up is everything behind the scenes: a one-year warranty, no published fabric denier, and Coleman Consumer Care confirming that cot canvas is not sold separately. A torn deck ends this cot.

Coleman Trailhead II (#4). Here for one spec: it folds to 38.1 x 8.5 x 4.7 inches, thin enough to slide behind a door or under a bed, which is the real storage constraint in a house. A 73 x 35-inch steel cross-bar cot, 17 inches up, 300 lb rated, 21.5 lb. Coleman designs it for campers up to 6 ft 2 in, so measure your guest before you buy — 73 inches is short for a six-footer who likes to stretch. Same warranty and parts situation as the Pack-Away: one year, nothing replaceable.

Regalo My Cot Portable Toddler Bed (#5). Not an adult cot and not scored against one fairly. It is 46.5 x 24 inches, 9.5 inches off the floor, rated for children up to 75 lb and ages two to five, on an all-metal frame with a washable waterproof nylon deck. At that age the waterproof deck is worth more than any other spec on this page. It scores last in our rubric because Regalo gives it a six-month warranty — the shortest term in our whole registry — publishes no weight, no packed size and no fabric denier, and lists no parts. For two or three years of visiting grandchildren it is still the right purchase, and the Deluxe version includes an attachable sleeping bag so there is nothing else to buy. The rest of the children's options are in best kids camping cots.

The part everybody forgets: a pad

What didn't make the list

• The Helinox Cot One and Cot Max. The best-engineered cots we score, at 4 lb 9.5 oz and up, and their whole value is being carried. Paying a premium for a cot that weighs nothing to move it from a closet to a spare room is money in the wrong place. They are ranked in best camping cots.
• The ALPS Mountaineering Ready Lite. Same reason — 5 lb, an 18-inch pack and a lifetime warranty with a replaceable bed, but only 6 inches off the floor and 78 x 28 inches. An adult guest would be sleeping almost on the carpet.
• Air mattresses. Genuinely a fair alternative for guests, and a different product with different failure modes — they go soft overnight and a slow leak ends them. We compare the two directly in cot vs air mattress, and rank the beds themselves in best camping mattresses with a built-in pump.
• Tent cots and cot-tent combinations. Outdoor products with a built-in shelter, pointless indoors.

How to choose a cot for guests

Measure the guest, then the deck

Published maximum heights here are 6 ft 2 in (Coleman Trailhead II), 6 ft 4 in (Disc-O-Bed) and 6 ft 6 in (Coleman Pack-Away), on decks of 73, 79 and 80 inches. Add about four inches to your guest's height as a working minimum, because on most cots the end bar sits above the deck plane and you cannot lie across it comfortably.

Width is what they will actually comment on

A twin mattress is around 38 inches wide. The widest single cot here is 35.5 inches, and the narrowest adult one is 32. That difference is the difference between rolling over freely and finding a frame rail with your elbow. If the guest room has the space, buy the widest deck you can.

Height off the floor decides who can use it

17 to 19.5 inches is bed height: sit on the edge, stand straight up. 11 inches is a camping height and a real obstacle for anyone with a knee or hip problem. If elderly relatives are the main users, treat this as the first filter, not the last.

Then work out where it will live

Folded thickness, in order: Coleman Trailhead II 4.7 in, Disc-O-Bed XL 4.5 in in a 39.5 x 15.5-inch bag, Coleman Pack-Away 6 in, TETON Outfitter XXL 7.5 x 13 in. Only two of those fit under a bed. Decide the storage spot before you order, because a cot that has to live in the hallway gets resented.

Buy the pad at the same time

Not later. A guest's first night on a bare deck is the review you get, and nobody buys the pad after the visit.

Finally, ask whether a torn deck ends it

For a cot used three nights a year, this is the difference between one purchase and four. TETON and Disc-O-Bed sell replacement decks; Coleman explicitly does not. Our cot replacement parts guide has every brand's parts situation with the date we checked it.