Gaiam Premium vs Gaiam Essentials: Which One Should You Buy?

Premium, Premium Reversible, Essentials, Classic Print: Gaiam’s 6 mm PVC mats share a foam, a surface texture and a guarantee, and the names do very little to tell them apart. The two here are the plain ones. The Premium is the two-color reversible mat at $29.98. The Essentials is the budget one at about $22.13.

Nothing about how these feel underfoot separates them. The real differences are 4 inches of length, a carry sling, some color choice, and about $8.

The Premium is 68″ × 24″, the length most brands treat as standard. The Essentials listing we link is 72″ × 24″, so you get 4 more inches for less money. If you are around five foot ten or above, that is the most useful difference on this page, since a 68 inch mat leaves your heels or your head off the end in a long savasana.

One complication worth knowing: Gaiam sells an Essentials on its own site at 68 by 24 inches for $19.98 without the sling, so the length depends on which listing you buy. Check the dimensions before you order rather than assuming the longer version.

Both mats are 6 mm of soft PVC foam, which is thicker than the 3 to 5 mm most studio mats use. That extra padding is genuinely kind to knees and wrists in floor work, and it is the main reason these mats show up in beginner classes and studio loaner piles.

It also has a familiar cost. GearLab tested the Premium, gave it 6.5 out of 10 for comfort and support, and noted that pressing a hand into the foam leaves the print for a moment. Softness that cushions a knee also wobbles under a standing foot, so balance poses feel less certain than on a firmer mat. The Essentials is the same foam, so expect the same behavior.

Both use Gaiam’s textured sticky finish, which holds well enough in a dry room that you are unlikely to think about it. GearLab rated the Premium 5 out of 10 for grip overall, with dry grip at 6 and wet grip at 4, and listed poor wet grip as one of its three downsides.

The Essentials listing describes the same texture as suitable for heated practice. Take that as marketing. Any closed-surface PVC mat gets slick as soon as your palms are damp, and if hot classes are your regular practice you want a rubber or polyurethane surface, not either of these.

The Premium weighs 3.3 pounds and the Essentials 3.5, a difference you will never notice. Both are easy to carry, and GearLab called the Premium fairly portable in its test.

The Essentials includes a cinch carry sling, which the Premium does not. That is a small thing that costs a few dollars separately, and it is one more reason the cheaper mat is the better value here.

The Premium is reversible in two colors, so you can flip it and practice on either face. The Essentials comes in plain single colors: black, navy, grey, teal, green, purple, orange.

If you want a pattern rather than a color, that is the Premium Reversible, which carries printed designs on both sides for about $10 more again. Within the Gaiam line, appearance is most of what you climb the price ladder for.

Gaiam covers both mats for life, which is unusual at these prices and worth reading carefully. A guarantee like this addresses manufacturing defects, not the slow flattening of soft foam under regular use, and flattening is what actually ends the life of a mat in this class. GearLab found the Premium compresses over time and rated it 6 out of 10 on materials, listing shorter lifespan as a downside.

Both also warn against sun exposure, which makes PVC brittle. Store either mat rolled and indoors and it will last as long as the foam allows, which for a few sessions a week is a couple of years.

Worth being clear about the ceiling here, because it is the same ceiling for both. Six millimeters of soft foam is unstable under a standing leg, so tree pose and warrior three feel less certain than they would on a firm mat. The sticky texture stops working once your palms are damp, which rules out heated classes without a towel over the top. And the foam takes a set under regular use, so the mat you love in month one is flatter by month twenty.

None of that makes either mat a bad purchase at these prices. It does mean that if you find yourself fighting the mat rather than practicing on it, the fix is a different class of mat rather than the other Gaiam. A natural rubber mat solves the grip problem and a dense PVC mat solves the compression problem, and both cost three to five times as much.

Both mats sell steadily on Amazon, though not in the same volume. The Essentials averages 4.6 stars across roughly 15,000 ratings and sits around 16th in Amazon’s yoga mat category. The Premium averages 4.5 across roughly 2,700. Those star averages are close enough to be the same number, and they tell you these mats reliably do what people expect of a cheap mat.

They do not tell you the mats are good for a serious practice. Ratings at this price mostly reflect whether the mat arrived undamaged and cushioned a knee, which both do. GearLab’s more demanding test of the Premium put it 11th of 19 mats with a score of 62, and that is the more useful number if you are deciding whether to stay in this tier or leave it.

Gaiam’s own care instructions ask you to unroll the mat and air it out for two to three days before your first session, because these mats release a strong odor when first unwrapped. The company publishes a guide on removing it, which is a fair signal of how often people ask.

It fades with airflow and use. Neither mat is better or worse here; they are the same material from the same brand.

The Premium lists at $29.98 and the Essentials around $22.13, and both move with Amazon sales, so check the current price on the Premium at Amazon and the Essentials at Amazon. Colorways are often priced differently on the same listing, so a color you do not want may be several dollars cheaper.

On paper the Essentials wins: longer, cheaper, strap included. The Premium’s case is that it is the version outside reviewers have actually tested and rated, and that some people simply prefer the two-color look. Both are fine at these prices.

Get the Essentials. It costs less, runs 4 inches longer on the listing we link, includes a carry sling, and behaves exactly like the Premium underfoot. For a first mat, a guest mat, or a stretching mat, that is the whole decision.

Get the Premium if you want the reversible two-color surface, or if it is on sale below the Essentials, which happens. And if you are practicing several times a week and finding either one slippery, that is the signal to leave this tier entirely: our Manduka PRO vs Gaiam Essentials comparison covers what the extra money buys.