If you've spent any time trying to find the best office chair for your home office, there's a good chance you've come across Herman Miller already. The brand is known for its premium seats, most of which cost well over $1000, but they're backed by a 12-year warranty and hours upon hours of research to achieve their unique designs.
Herman Miller offers 15 distinct office chairs of various sizes, heights, and build qualities, including several extra-bougie Eames models that blur the line between practical seating and statement furniture. It can be a lot to navigate, which is why I've put together this guide on the differences between the brand's seven most popular chairs.
Most of these chairs look wildly different from one another -- heck, take a look at Herman Miller's two most popular models, the Aeron and Embody, to see what I mean. Even their silhouettes are discernible from a mile away. That said, we can boil down the non-aesthetic differences between these models to a few simple categories.
Material: Herman Miller uses several popular methods to make its chairs comfortable. The Aeron and Cosm, for example, use a thin mesh lining to keep your back breathing with a little give, whereas the Embody uses a thicker, softer fabric backing for an extra plush feel. Several other chairs, including the Mirra 2 and Sayl, have a hard back with perforations to improve airflow without sacrificing stiffness for those who want it.
Backrest Height: You also have your pick between low, mid, and high-back chairs from Herman Miller's lineup to give yourself your preferred level of back and neck support. A low-back is best if you want a compact chair that still gives you some lumbar support, and a high-back will support your full back and neck but theses taller chairs don't store away as easily. A mid-back is a compromise between the two that supports you up to your shoulders and takes up less space than a high-back chair.
Adjustability: The chairs we're looking at here are all height-adjustable, but depending on the model you pick, you can have a lot more freedom to configure their fit to your needs. Several models have adjustable recline angles, most have adjustable armrests, and every model can be customized to better suit your needs for an additional price.
Cost: Herman Miller doesn't make it easy to see the price of its chairs up-front on its site, but be wary: the cheapest chair on this list, the Lino, costs less than a third of what you'd pay for the Embody (the former is $640 and the latter is $2110 for the base builds on the brand's site). This price difference may reflect some design and material decisions made for each chair, but do what research you can to find the fit that's best for you before you splurge on the most expensive chair. To help with this, you can visit one of the company's retail stores or an authorized dealer.
The Aeron is one of Herman Miller's flagship models alongside the Embody. It's the brand's most popular model, and you can find it populating offices all over the country and even the world. That's for good reason: it's light, unbelievably comfortable, and highly adjustable. It rocks a premium price tag starting at $1275, but our tests have shown that it's a worthwhile investment.
The standout feature of this chair is its ultra-thin mesh seat and backrest, which maximize airflow around your body while providing some extra pliability. It comes standard with a carpet-friendly casters and a basic, resistance-adjustable recline. Possible upgrades include adjustable armrests, a tilt limiter for the recline, quieter wheels, and additional lumbar supports.
If you're in need of full-back support, however, this model isn't for you. We recommend looking at the high-back Cosm for a higher back with a similar mesh lining.
Want cushioning that's a little more substantial? Unlike the Aeron, this top-shelf offering is a tad taller, running up to most people's shoulder blades, and it uses a standard cushion for the seat rather than thin mesh. The back also has a more pronounced contour that hugs your spine and gives you extra lumbar support.
The price tag on this model is not for the faint of heart, though: the lowest price you can secure for an Embody on Herman Miller's site is $1830, and you can rack it up to as high as $2305 by upgrading the casters and customizing your frame and upholstery colors.
Okay, let's take a break from the top-dollar stuff for a second. The Mirra 2 is, in essence, a more budget-friendly version of the Aeron, substituting the mesh backrest for a hard, perforated plate that allows airflow but is a bit stiffer. It reclines in the same fashion as the Aeron and similarly has an optional tilt limiter upgrade, and it all costs as low as $1045. You can still get plenty cheaper, but if you want an effective discount on the Aeron with few compromises, this is a good place to look.
The Cosm isn't quite as adjustable as some of the other models on this list due to its joined seat and backrest, but it's still plenty comfortable. It has a mesh lining just like the Aeron, and it has a more intense contour around the lower back to boost lumbar support. To some extent, it's a hybrid between the Aeron and the Embody, as it visibly employs design principles from both chairs.
You don't get as many configuration options with this chair as you would with the Aeron, but the big sell for this chair is that you get your choice of backrest height. A high-back Cosm does cost nearly $600 more than a low-back one on Herman Miller's site, but you can still get a base-level high-back for as low as $1625. That makes it considerably more affordable than the Embody, even if it's still a steep price.
This chair looks like Herman Miller stole it from the future thanks to its avant-garde gridded backrest, but there's no denying the Sayl can still be plenty comfortable. The backrest is similar to the Mirra 2 with its sturdy body and ample perforations for airflow, and the seat is a plush cushion. This is also one of the most affordable chairs on this list at $735 for the base model.
The shape of the backrest, while seemingly uncomfortable, is actually quite accommodating thanks to its inward-curving sides that allow you to lean side-to-side with a bit more grace.
Perhaps the most minimalist option on this list, the Setu is a compact office companion that offers a lack of bells and whistles as a strength. It has almost no adjustability beyond height, and armrests are even optional, but it's still a comfortable chair thanks to some engineered flex built into the seat.
Instead of a set of pivots allowing you to recline, the lower part of this chair actually compresses and flexes to bend the chair backwards without breaking. This does mean you can't really adjust the resistance of the recline, but if you don't want a thousand levers to fuss with, this is a stellar option.
The Lino is Herman Miller's cheapest base-level chair at $640, and it's about as simple as a mid-back chair can get. It still has the top-notch build quality representative of the brand, but it has limited adjustability and a backrest that doesn't have much of a contour. You can get lumbar support as an add-on, as well as adjustable arms, both of which will get you a much nicer build that still runs under $1000. However, if you don't want anything fancy, the base model can still be quite comfortable, albeit not exceptionally supportive.