The Best Priced Ergonomic Office Chair (Herman Miller vs. FlexiSpot)

Do all good office chairs have to be over 1,000 dollars? We seem to have a pretty large issue with companies creating chairs and charging a premium to compete with other long-lasting and reputable brands.

But recently, I was informed of another new chair brand on the market that’s actually doing the opposite. They’re claiming to be among the best for less than half the price. So they offered to send me one of their top of the line chais to compare to my tried and true Herman Miller chair.

The two chair models are (1) the Hermon Miller Aeron, and (2) the FlexiSpot C7 Ergonomic Chair. Your welcome to check out the full video where I break down each chair if you are more of a visual person, but if not, feel free to read on!

Now this is the chair I’ve been using for the last 5 years, as mentioned above, is the Herman Miller Aeron, and these office chairs have been considered the top line, golden standard office chairs for some time. It feels like every corporation or office space you work in has these chairs either at a conference table, or at everyone’s desk.

But there’s just big problem: the Aeron chair retails at just over $1800.

Now I have the previous model of the Aeron, which retailed at $1,200, and there are certain reasons to why the price is so high based on functionality and comfort. But there aren’t a ton of people that can just take out a small loan to buy an office chair.

So up until this point, I’ve never been able to refer any office chairs to my friends or family, because they just can’t afford it.

Luckily, FlexiSpot offered to send me their ergonomic C7 office chair to compare to my Herman miller, and their chair comes in just below $370 (give or take which additions you add to it). And don’t be too quick to assume anything based on price, because we have a lot of ground to cover in order to see exactly how well this chair stacks up to the iconic Herman miller name.

If you check out the video linked above, you’ll also be able to check out some other people’s opinions on both chairs other than myself. I wanted to keep this comparison as honest as possible and see which chair people liked best.

Now I’m a full time YouTuber and designer, and I literally sit all day long. So if you also sit for work all day, then I think you’ll be pleased with this breakdown.

We’re going to grade each chair based on 8 essential categories: Packaging, Ease of Assembly, Materials, Ease of Use, Comfort, Back Support, Customer Support & Warranty, and obviously Price. And at any point, if you’d like to check out the chairs for yourselves, the links and pages are linked here to check out. In full transparency, they are my affiliate links, so I’ll get a small kick back for each sale, which really helps me out.

Packaging

Now, I didn’t order my Herman Miller online, I just got it fully assembled in person. But what’s crazy is, when you buy a Herman Miller online now, it already comes fully assembled. The box is massive, and depending on which model you get, the Aeron comes either full assembled, or dual assembled, which means the actual seat and back are already together, and you just need to pop it onto the base, which is ready to go right out of the box.

Now the FlexiSpot box arrives with a pretty nice branded type and illustrated area on the box, but inside there aren’t any specific molded inserts like you would see in the Miller packaging. Each of the pieces of the chair are separately wrapped in protective foam (which I think is fair), and then you have the individual screws, wheels, arms, and other pieces in a box that’s at the bottom of the bigger box. This is a pretty common furniture box structure.

Now the first chair that was sent to me by FlexiSpot actually had a few issues. My guess is, because of how stuff was placed in there, the box that had all of the accessory pieces in it looked like it had been rained on and thrown out of a window or something. It was pretty rough, and a few of the chair pieces had this strange gunky film on it. So I reached out to support and they immediately had another chair in the mail the next day.

This was one of the most pleasant customer support exchanges ever, I just showed them a few pictures and they were super apologetic claiming that this is not their standard, and another chair was at my door in like 4 days.

Now I had 0 issues with the second chart in terms of quality, but I do want to say that the inside of the box and the whole unboxing experience could be more branded and just feel better.

So for packaging Herman Millers gets a 7/10 (because for over $1,000 dollars, the box should be made with gold or something), and FlexiSpot I am giving a 5/10, just cause I think there is some improving to be done.

Ease of Assembly

I already mentioned the Herman Miller chair either comes fully or dual assembled, which is the easiest and best possible solution ever, so they get a 9/10. 9 because the box should still be way nicer.

Now the FlexiSpot chair does not come assembled and everything from the wheels to the actual base lever mechanism has to be screwed in. And this will probably take you a while, and you’ll need some space to work.

There’s a sticker on the chair that says this is not a screw hole, which even though I can read what it says, it just absolutely flabbergasted me, and I had to look up what was going on in a video tutorial.

To be completely honest, putting the chair together was a bit of a hassle. There were some areas putting the screws connecting the base into the chair where it’s extremely difficult to get to them, and you can’t do a full rotation with the allen wrench because the plastic base is blocking it. So, you have to take it back out and screw it in a little at a time.

So Herman Miller gets a 9/10, and FlexiSpot gets 5/10 for assembly. Even for the size of the box, I think there’s a way to have more of the FlexiSpot chair already assembled, and that’s really just feedback from my perspective. This doesn’t have anything to do with the ability to sit in the chair.

Materials

Both of these chairs are amazing in terms of material. Both companies have chairs with options for foam cushion backing as well as mesh. I have the mesh in both, because personally, I think it’s much more breathable and makes for a much more pleasant sitting experience since it conforms to your body better.

The Herman Miller mesh is some sort of synthetic material that is so breathable, it’s insane. The mesh on the FlexiSpot is also nice, but I think it’s just like really thin fabric of some kind. It’s still breathable, just a different feeling to the touch.

Also, the plastic of the Herman Miller chair is definitely a higher quality, again, I’m not a plastic scientist, but whatever Miller is using, it’s super dense and seems to be a synthetic metal. The plastic on the FlexiSpot chair is your standard plastic. So for materials, Herman Miller gets a 10/10, and FlexiSpot gets an 8/10.

Ease of Use

Now both chairs are easy to sit in, so that’s good. But sometimes these expensive chairs come with lots of bells and whistles and levers and knobs, and it can feel like you are conducting a train or something.

In terms of these levers, I think the FlexiSpot is definitely easier to use. Both chairs can go up and down, slide the seat forward or backward, lean forward or backward, adjust the lumbar support, raise the arm rests up or down, and adjust the arm wrests side to side.

And this may be because I have the older version of the Aeron, but using the knobs and levers take a bit more force to use, and I have to remember what each one does on which side their on. The FlexiSpot levers I instantly figured out how to use from looking at the main picture.

Maybe one day we’ll have these functions just as buttons like in your car where you can just adjust them exactly the way you want. So, Herman Miller gets a 5/10 and FlexiSpot gets a 7/10.

Comfort

This honestly surprised me. As I mentioned, I sit all day long, and I’d already been using the Herman Miller chair for coming up on five years, so I had to use the FlexiSpot for a while to give it decent level of comparison.

After a week or so of using the FlexiSpot, I ended up liking it better overall. Originally, I didn’t think I would like the headrest, but it really came in handy if I was on a long call, or for when I’m reviewing footage, or just typing a long script, and it was such a nice added touch.

I did a fair amount of switching back and forth between the two chairs, and honestly it’s tough to notice a difference in overall comfort (which should tell you something based on the price).

The lumbar mechanism on the FlexiSpot is way more customizable, at least in my opinion. I will say the Herman Miller is more breathable, as in, it’s cooler to the touch. The only issue I have with the FlexiSpot chair is that the armrests are very easy to rotate outward and it happened to me several times. I do wish there was a way to lock the position of those in place so that I can’t move them out or in.

So for comfort, HM gets a 7/10 and FlexiSpot gets a 9/10.

Back Support

Now for back support, I’m not even going to break it down. FlexiSpot wins. I don’t know how they figured out this mechanism where you can release this lumbar section, move it to where you want, and then lock it in place, but it’s awesome. Now the Aeron chair I have from Herman Miller - I actually took off the lumbar support bar because it was annoying, and it would just raise up or down, not press in or out of your back. I do know the new Aeron has a better system, but it’s also like $1,000 more dollars, and from what I’ve seen, I’m not sure it’s any better.

So for back support, HM gets a 7/10 and FlexiSpot gets a 9/10.

Customer Support & Warranty

Let’s talk about customer support and warranty. Both companies offer an amazing warranty with Herman Miller at 12 years, and FlexiSpot at 10 years. That is a lot of time. Most household appliances don’t have a warranty that good unless you pay extra for the extended warranty. I can’t say anything on the customer support side for Herman Miller, although I’ve heard it’s quite good. But I already mentioned an exchange I had with FlexiSpot and it was very pleasant and easy to to get sorted out.

So for both chairs, I’m giving a 10/10 for warranty and support.

Price

Alright the last one is price. Now both companies pretty constantly run a discount or promotion on their office supplies, so it’s rare you’ll ever have to pay the full $1,800 for the Herman miller, or the full $600 dollars for the top tier FlexiSpot. Both companies have ample alternative and secondary options on Amazon as well. But for this review, the two prices at hand for the models I have were $1,200 for the Herman Miller, and $370 for the FlexiSpot C7.

Now based on everything I just talked about in terms of comfort and support, there is no contest here. FlexiSpot wins by a landslide. Literally Herman Miller is a 0/10 on price, and FlexiSpot I’ve given an 8/10 for the quality of the chair.

Now if we tally up and average out our final scores, that gives us a 68/100 for the Herman Miller, and 76/100 for the FlexiSpot. So on paper, the FlexiSpot wins. But the question is: is the FlexiSpot chair worth the $370?

After a couple weeks of using it and letting my brother use it on and off, I can say with certainty that I would 100% recommend this chair to my friends, family, and colleagues. It was worth that amount of money, especially to have a 10 year warranty, which guarantees a replacement on anything that breaks or stops working.

I had honestly given up hope at finding a potential chair that would contend with the Herman Miller, and I was actually afraid of ever getting another chair, because I honestly don’t have that much extra cash laying around to get an upgraded Herman Miller.

And I am seriously grateful to FlexiSpot to reaching out to let me do a comparison video on my YouTube channel, knowing that I told them I would be brutally honesty.

So I have an affiliate link to the FlexiSpot C7 chair here, along with a special promo code for you to get $30 off your purchase of the C7 chair. You can use promo code DREW30 at checkout.

Now if you are reading this on my blog, it would mean a ton if you could go and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. It really helps me out and allows me to keep producing high quality videos like this. I have so many ideas for product videos, tutorials videos, unboxing videos, and just so much stuff, and your support helps me get there.

Thanks for joining me on this chair journey, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!