Best Office Chair for Big and Tall 2023

Generous Weight Capacity and Sturdy Construction

Standard office chairs typically have a weight capacity in the range of 250 to 300 pounds.  We consider that to be the absolute floor limit, with more being better.  In addition to that, construction quality matters very much.  The materials used in construction don’t necessarily have to be top end (although that helps!), but they do have to be durable and ruggedized with good quality welds and high capacity and high-quality pistons to control height adjustment.

Seat Dimensions

Generously Padded & Highly Adjustable

Bigger people need more padding if the chair is going to be comfortable.  This is particularly important for people looking for a great office chair designed to be used for several hours at a stretch. 

In a similar vein, adjustability matters.  While this aspect of office chair design certainly isn’t unique to big and tall users, more adjustability is always better.  The more a chair has to offer on this front, the higher we tended to rate it.

Upholstery Options

Earlier, we mentioned the three upholstery options office chairs are available in.  People typically have a clear preference for one or the other, but typically, people will happily switch between fabric or leather.  Mesh, however, tends to be a different matter.

While leather upholstery looks nice, it has the disadvantage of not being very breathable, which means that if you sit in a leather chair for any length of time, you’re all but guaranteed to start to sweat.  Further, many leather chairs are upholstered in bonded leather.

Bonded leather is real leather, but it’s made from scraps that have been fused together.  This makes it less supple and less durable.  It doesn’t tend to stand up very well to the rigors of heavy daily use.

For this reason, although we’ve included leather and fabric-upholstered chairs in the same table above, fabric chairs tend to have a slight advantage where overall ranking score is concerned, simply because they’re more breathable and thus, better suited to the rigors of heavy daily use.

Mesh chairs tend to be somewhat less attractive than the others, but the material is incredibly durable and long lasting.  Even so, most people who are interested in mesh chairs aren’t interested in anything else, which is why we’ve broken them out into a separate category.

Overview

A quick note before we get into the specifics of the Leap Plus:  The company Leap product line contains a number of different products, so if you’re not big or tall, know that Steelcase makes a comparable chair for you that contains most of the features offered by this model.

Having said that, let’s take a closer look at our winner, starting with a review of the basic stats that define it:

Seat Depth

While the smallest setting of the seat depth is quite far from being suitable to the big and tall market, this is one of the few office chairs being sold today that allow you to modify the seat width on the fly.  At maximum extension, it has a quite respectable 20.5” depth, which is outstanding.

Seat Height Adjustment

The same thing holds true for the seat height adjustment range.  While most big and tall chairs gravitate toward an 18” to 22” height adjustment range, the Leap Plus takes a different approach, starting at 15.5” and going to 20.5.” 

Seat Width

The seat width is one of the few elements of the Leap that can’t be adjusted, but at 19.25” it sits comfortably within the range we like to see for a big and tall chair, which brings us to the maximum supported weight.

The only other chair on our list that supports as much weight as the Leap Plus is the Flash Furniture Hercules, so where supported weight is concerned, the Leap has just about everybody in the big and tall market covered.

Of course, a good office chair is more than just the sum of its dimensions, and we’ll talk about the Leap Plus’s features next.

Features Galore

LiveBack

There’s a lot to like here, with one of the most powerful features being a proprietary technology that Steelcase calls “Liveback.”  The seat is made up of a series of slats.  When you sit in it, and your back begins to put pressure on the seatback, each slat will give depending on how much pressure you’re back is exerting on it.

The theory is delightfully simple, but it has a powerful impact, allowing the seatback to custom-conform to the shape of your body, providing optimal support along the length of your spine.

Tension and Support Control

Third, the chair offers not one, but two different dials you can use to tweak the amount of tension and support the seatback provides.  One dial controls the tension in the upper portion of the seatback, and the other dial controls the tension and support level for the lower portion.

Again, this builds on the idea that everybody is different and one part of your back may require more support than the rest. Giving you the ability to fine-tune the level of support you’re getting for your upper and lower back is huge and has tremendous therapeutic value.  If you suffer from chronic back pain, you may currently find it virtually impossible to spend more than short periods in a conventional office chair. The Leap Plus can literally redefine your ability to work productively in those cases. That’s huge.

Recline Angle

Finally, the angle of recline is also controlled via a simple dial, allowing you to select any angle between 90 and 120 degrees. Simply dial in the position you want and lean back.  That’s all there is to it.

Upholstery & Finishing Options

You’ve got three choice where upholstery is concerned:

In general, the standard upholstery option is the most breathable of the lot, making it the best suited for long duration sitting, with the others getting progressively less breathable, but still quite good.  In practice, we found the differences between the three to be minimal, but your mileage may vary.

Color Options

In addition to choosing your upholstery of choice, all variants of the Leap are available in a modest number of colors, including:

Extras 

Finally, Steelcase offers a few different options and extras for their chairs, allowing you to further customize and personalize yours.  The most popular of these is the Steelcase Ottoman, which you can use as an impromptu workspace when you’re not propping your feet up.

They also sell an optional headrest which addresses the one shortcoming of the design, which is the lack of head and neck support.  Granted, you’ll have to pay extra to acquire these goodies, but you end up with exactly the chair you want.

Minimal Assembly Required

It gets better!  Unlike many office chairs being sold today, the Leap comes mostly assembled.  It might take you ten minutes to get the chair ready for first use when it arrives at your house, which is a nice touch.  No need to spend upwards of an hour struggling with getting the thing put together!

If none of the above is enough to convince you that this is the best chair on the market today, there’s also the fact that it’s made from 95% recycled materials, which makes it a great “green” option!

Honestly, the only negative we can find where the Leap is concerned is the fact that it’s expensive, but you get what you pay for.  It’s an amazing chair, especially if you suffer from chronic back pain.  Even if you don’t, buying one can help minimize the risk of back problems developing, given its rock-solid ergonomic support.

Where the big and tall market, in particular, is concerned, the only potential wrinkle is the fact that the height adjustment range isn’t quite as robust as you’ll find in other big and tall chairs.  That may be a deal breaker especially for tall users, so you’ll want to take careful measurements before committing to the purchase. 

We can’t recommend this chair highly enough.  It is well deserving of top honors in this roundup review.  It’s not only the best ergonomic office chair for big and tall people, it’s one of the best office chairs on the market, period.

Overview

Herman Miller is one of the best companies operating in the industry today, known for making durable, long-lasting office chairs that constantly push the envelope.  You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more innovative company in this industry.  While their products are expensive, this is definitely a case of getting what you pay for.

A Few Things to Consider

There are two potential issues that big and tall users might have with this model, however.  First, the weight limit of 300 pounds is adequate but far from exceptional.  In fact, we consider 300 pounds to be the starting point for a big and tall chair.  The Embody makes the cut, but only just.

Second, the maximum seat depth is just 18”.  Again, this is what we’d consider to be the minimum threshold for a chair designed for the big and tall market. 

Of interest though, note that the seat depth is customizable.  You can compress it down to a seat depth as small as 15”.  Again, this makes the Embody a great chair for a household where you’ll have a number of different users of a variety of shapes and sizes, while still managing to meet the criteria for big and tall users.

That brings us to what is, in our view, the single most impressive thing about this chair.  Virtually every aspect of it is adjustable.  You can adjust:

In addition to the extreme amount of adjustability this model brings to the table, it’s got two other design features that you just won’t find in other chairs currently sold today.

Unique Design Features

First, there’s the seat design.  Although the Embody only offers a modest amount of padding compared to the other chairs on our list of finalists, it’s much more comfortable than you might think because the seat itself is articulated, so its shape adjusts to the shape of your body as you move and shift position in the chair.  It’s a brilliant bit of design that makes the chair a delight to sit in, even for extended periods.

Second is the fact that the Embody has its own spine.  Looking at the back of the chair, you’ll find a series of articulated “vertebrae” which provides dynamic support.  It is this feature which allows the seatback to mold to you, following the natural curve of your body’s spine.  Again, this is brilliant, and exactly the sort of innovation that has made Herman Miller such a force in the industry.

Finish Options

Next, let’s talk about the Embody’s upholstery.  This is yet another feature that underscores the uniqueness of this design. There’s nothing about the Embody that is standard.  

Colors

If you order Balance fabric, you can choose from four different colors (Berry Blue, Black, Carbon, or Iris).

If you order Rhythm Fabric, you have a slightly expanded color palette to choose from:

Minimal Assembly Required

Another cool thing about the Embody is the fact that when you order one, it will arrive at your door mostly assembled.  Sure, there are a few bits you’ll need to finish up on your own, but this process is quick and painless and can be done solo in a matter of minutes.  It will probably take you at least as long to get the chair out of the box as it will to get it set up and ready for first use.

Truly a great chair, and one of the best office chairs for big guys who are also power users.

Overview

Few companies know more about comfort than Serta.  Granted, they’re best known for their mattresses, but they have put those skills to good use in designing office chairs and other types of furnishings.  The Tranquility is an excellent example of their work.

Size & Specifications

A quick review of the chair’s basic stats reveals that the Tranquility is well-suited to the big and tall market, with a seat width of 21” and a height adjustment range that starts at 18” and extends to 22,” which is perfectly acceptable, and a slightly underwhelming seat depth of 19,” which exceeds our minimum threshold for a good big and tall chair, but not by much.

Max Supported Weight

In addition to that, the Tranquility supports up to 400 pounds of user weight.  While there are other chairs on our list of finalists that can support more weight, this is a generous number that makes the chair a good fit for a broad swath of the big and tall market.

Comfort

The raw stats, however, only tell part of the story.  The Serta Tranquility is easily the most comfortable chair on our list of finalists.  If comfort is what matters most to you, then this one is going to be hard to beat.

It could even be argued that there’s a sixth layer of comfort technology in place here because all of these rest in a padded comfort cradle.

In short, the Serta Tranquility is hands-down the most comfortable chair on this list.  It doesn’t sport the suite of cutting-edge ergonomic features of our top picks, but again, if comfort is what you’re looking for, nothing else comes close.

Ergonomic Features

Despite not having the latest and greatest in ergonomic features, the Tranquility does have a suite of well-designed, well-implemented standard ergonomic features, including:

Armrests

Of these, the weakest link are the armrests. While they are well-padded and comfortable, they’re not adjustable in any way. That’s certainly not a deal breaker, but it does mean that as an ergonomic feature, the armrests are just not as well-implemented as the others in the set.

On the flip side, there’s the matter of the bonded leather itself.  As we mentioned in earlier sections, bonded leather is real leather, but it’s composed of scraps that have been fused together, which makes it somewhat weaker and less supple than grain leather.  It just doesn’t stand up well to the rigors of heavy daily use.

Does Not Come Assembled

As with most office furniture, the Serta Tranquility doesn’t come assembled.  It will arrive at your home in a large box and in several pieces.  Production values are high, and the assembly instructions are quite clear, but this is a big piece of furniture and assembling it solo will take the better part of an hour and present you with a number of challenges.

Overview

There’s no denying that this is a great chair that has a lot going for it. Unfortunately, as you’ll see below, it’s got a couple of shortcomings that kept it from ranking more highly on our list of finalists. It’s important to bear those things in mind when deciding for yourself if this is the right chair for you.

Chair Specifications

Let’s start with the chair’s basic statistics, which brings its three less-than-awesome features right to the fore. The seat width is good at 20.5” but falls short of being exceptional, and the seat depth of 18.5” only barely qualifies as big and tall in our view, which is a bit underwhelming in our view.

Extras and Add-ons

Hands down, the best and coolest feature this chair brings to the table is the fact that ErgoHuman sells a variety of extras and add-ons that allow you to customize your seating experience in ways that just aren’t possible with any other chair on the market.

This is the reason we included the link to the company’s website because the extras and add-ons aren’t typically offered on third party vendor sites. If you want them, you’ll have to buy direct from the company, and those additions will add to the already hefty price of the chair.  Even so, depending on how you plan to use the chair, they’re well worth the added investment.

Standalone Ottoman

While there are a variety of options to choose from, the most popular are the matching, standalone ottoman which is designed in such a way that it could serve as a low work table if you wanted it to, and the articulated arm.

Articulated Arm

This is an impressive innovation.  The arm can be attached to either chair arm and supports a level platform that’s big enough to hold a full-sized laptop, allowing you to work just about anywhere.

That’s awesome, but ErgoHuman’s implementation doesn’t give you the same kind of whole back support that a chair like the Leap Plus offers. Even so, you’ll like the chair's lumbar support system, especially if you suffer from chronic lower back pain.

Armrests

Turning our attention to the armrests, we find that although they are not ergonomically designed, they are height adjustable, and on top of that, they swivel in and out by up to 45 degrees.

Lifetime Warranty

Clearly, the designers put a lot of thought into the chair, and it is unique among our finalists in terms of sheer flexibility. There’s nothing else that even comes close. You can order exactly the chair you want, optimized for how you plan to use it and get it in a variety of colors. Best of all, ErgoHuman offers a lifetime warranty on their products, so if the dimensions of this model work for you, this is literally the last office chair you’ll ever need to buy.

Overall then, we provisionally recommend the chair, noting that the relatively modest weight limit (by big and tall standards) and the underwhelming seat depth may make it unsuitable for some segments of the big and tall market. If the dimensions work for you, however, and you love customization options, this is an amazing chair you’ll be proud to own.

Overview

Flash Furniture is an off-brand so it wouldn’t be surprising if you hadn’t heard of them before. As an off-brand though, Flash is in a class by itself. They make incredibly good furniture, offered at amazingly low prices, which is why their products are so commonly featured right alongside much larger and better-established brands.

The company’s Hercules lineup of furniture was specifically designed for high volume call center use. These chairs were intended to be used by multiple shifts operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As such, Flash pulled out all the stops here, constructing these chairs with durable, heavy duty materials and providing copious amounts of padding.

The armrests are ergonomically designed, the chair offers decent ergonomic support in the headrest and also features a good-quality lumbar support. Unfortunately, the lumbar support is not adjustable in any way. While this is another limitation of the design, for most people, it won’t be a deal breaker.

It gets better though. This chair offers an incredibly wide, deep seat and has a massive height adjustment range that starts at 21.5” and extends to 25.5.” That, combined with its incredible maximum supported weight makes this chair an ideal choice for the biggest and the big, and the tallest of the tall.

Since the overwhelming majority of home users aren’t going to be using this office chair anywhere close to 24/7 (which again, is what it was specifically designed for), you’ll find it to be delightfully durable and long lasting, capable of dealing with just about anything you can dish out.

Note: Although this chair is upholstered in fabric, you can also order a (bonded) leather-clad version. In our opinion, doing so would make this chair less well-suited to heavy daily usage, but if you prefer leather, you have that option here.

Overview

The reason we’re including this chair at the end of this section of our review is that it tied with our honorable mention and best value item, scoring exactly the same.

Given that the two chairs scored the same overall, and the fact that Amazon is such a respected company, we didn’t feel our review would be complete if we didn’t give this model a short mention.

In our view, although this model ranks identically with Flash Furniture’s Hercules 24/7, it’s not quite as good as a big and tall chair for reasons we’ll get into below.

First, let’s take a quick look at the basic stats that define the chair:

Also, note that the seat isn’t quite as wide as the chair we just talked about, but the difference is only a single inch, which won’t be a deal breaker for most people.

Unfortunately, this chair only supports a maximum of 350 pounds of user weight, which qualifies this as a big and tall chair based on the selection criteria we talked about earlier, but it’s definitely in the lower end of that spectrum, which means this chair won’t work for people at the top end of the big and tall segment of the market. We prefer seeing big and tall office chairs that support 400 lbs. or more, but those are surprisingly rare.

That one shortcoming aside, however, it’s an unmistakably solid design that is surprisingly full-featured. In our view, the chair’s biggest selling point is the fact that its excellent lumbar support system is height adjustable, allowing you to customize your seating experience for optimal comfort and ergonomic support.

In addition to that, it features excellent head and neck support with a well-designed headrest. The chair arms aren’t adjustable in any way, but they are generously padded. Unfortunately, although the seat seems to have been inspired by the waterfall design, it falls short of being a true waterfall-style seat, which limits its ergonomic use on that front.