How to choose the best standing desk for you
Struggling to choose the best adjustable-height standing desk for your home or office? We get it. We love it when our customers hit us up every day with emails, social media messages, and calls, asking us how to choose between our many different Jarvis models, desktop converters, and more unique options like Jaswig, and that’s why we put together this guide. After countless conversations, we’ve found there are three big considerations when shopping for a new desk:
Style
What style appeals to you and fits your vision for your workspace?
Space
How much space do you have for a desk?
Budget
How much do you have to spend on one (and is your employer helping cover the cost)?
Whether everything in your world is small, or the sky’s the limit, we can help you find your way to healthier working. Read on to learn more about your style, space, and budget options for each of our unique desks.
Intro to standing desks
Desk converters
Great for small spaces and small budgets
Turn any surface into an adjustable-height sit-stand workspace.
Jarvis
Fitting most budgets, spaces and styles
Extended-range frames accommodate the shortest sitters and tallest standers.
Remi
Simple and reliable for smaller budgets
Should accommodate most sitting and standing heights.
Desktop converters
Great for small spaces and small budgets
If your “office” is really just your kitchen table (and you have to relinquish it at dinner time), or you want to transform your existing desk at work into a standing one, you might consider a standing desktop converter— also known as a riser.
Converters use clever mechanics to transform most surfaces— tables, existing fixed-height desks, and even low bookshelves— into a standing desk, getting you moving in a small space and on an equally small budget.
We offer two options, each with their own strengths. Learn more about our Cora Standing Desk Converter and Cooper Standing Desk Converter below.
A good fit if:
- You’re working with a small space
- You have a small budget
- You need to turn a dining table or existing desk into an adjustable-height workspace.
Cora
Small but mighty
Cora is just 1.3” tall when completely flat. Press the side levers and give a little lift, and it blossoms into a desktop that can hold 22 pounds and extend to 15.7” tall. It also fits perfectly on a standard dorm room desk, and easily slides under your bed, in a closet, or under the couch when not in use.
With Cora, you can get up out of your chair and moving for around $149.
Cooper
Bigger with a built-in keyboard tray
Boasting ample surface area and a keyboard tray that adds even more room and the ability to get your hands into a better posture. A smooth, silent hydraulic cylinder lifts this standing desk converter as much as 16”, hitting every measurement in between. And Cooper is tough. It can lift 35 pounds of computer hardware. You can even attach a Jarvis Monitor Arm.
Cooper starts at just $299. That’s a great price for a standing desk converter that hits all the heights you need. The ample space and superior materials are what set it apart from other desk converters online.
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ii. Jarvis
Jarvis adjustable-height standing desks
Fits most budgets, spaces, and styles
There’s good reason our Jarvis Standing Desk is the best reviewed desk on the internet. If you have the space and budget for it, Jarvis is the way to go.
The magic of Jarvis is in the legs and frame construction. No matter which size, price, or style of Jarvis you choose, you’re always getting a standing desk that has earned us an average review of 4.7 stars. 
Frame colors
Alloy, black, silver, white
A good fit if:
- You have space for an entirely new desk (even a small one)
- You crave serious style and/or want to customize your desk to suit your space
- Your budget has some flexibility
A guide to customizing your Jarvis
From mini to L-shaped and bamboo to hardwoods, Jarvis comes in a variety of sizes, desktops, frame colors, price points and more. To help you explore your options, we’ve created the below guide. Start with the desktop style you like, and then check out the size, style and price options available. Then check out some of our more unique Jarvis options.
Laminate desktops
Black, graphite, maple, oak, walnut, white, whiteboard
Our Jarvis laminate desktops come in 12 sizes, including five size options for our L-shaped frame. They are also among our most affordable, starting at $479 for the 30”x24” size.
The tops are made with a high-density core of 100% recycled wood fiber on the inside, and a water-proof, scratch-resistant polymer on the outside. Our laminates are GREENGUARD certified to be low in chemical emissions. Good for you and for the planet.
If you’re willing to spend a little more, we make our Jarvis adjustable standing desk with a whiteboard top where you can write formulas and notes, or perfect your graffiti. Jarvis Whiteboard Standing Desks start at $609 and come in three sizes.
Bamboo desktops
Natural, dark
Jarvis bamboo desktops come in 15 sizes, including five options for our L-shaped frame and three in our contour-shaped desktop. Wonderfully earth-friendly, they start at $499.
The bamboo we use for our desktops comes from sustainable forests, where it's grown without pesticides or fertilizers and matures for five years. To preserve its natural beauty, we apply a tough UV-cured, water-based polyurethane coating. And for our new dark bamboo, we've sourced an environmentally friendly water-based stain that allows the grain to show through.
Designer Ply desktops
Black, classic blue, evergreen, moss, pale, peak, white
Whether black, white, or classic blue, our Oregon-made Designer Plywood tops have a laid-back modern aesthetic that’s the perfect complement to the powerhouse Jarvis frame. Rich color and an exposed-ply edge combine to make a casually striking statement in any setting, these tops start at $599.
With a core of cross-laminated Baltic Birch, Designer Ply tops are built to be as tough as they are handsome. And a high-grade Ecolab-approved finish ensures they’re scratch-resistant and easy to clean.
EcoTop desktops
Black, white
Our EcoTops are among our most earth-friendly desktops and start at $479. These powder-coated MDF (medium-density fiberboard) tops are made from fiber that’s a minimum 92% pre-consumer, recycled, or recovered, and found right here in Oregon. We engineered the proprietary powder-coated finish to ensure incredible durability, enclosing the entire desktop so there are absolutely no seams--not even around the edges. You’ll notice a very subtle texture that gives EcoTop an organic feel. The result is a clean, minimalist look that creates an empty canvas for your workspace.
Wood Veneer desktops
Ash gray, natural oak, light walnut
Wood Veneer has all the warmth and elegance of solid wood without its natural irregularities and defects. Made from a blend of fast-growing Obeche and Poplar trees, Wood Veneer is a 100% natural wood veneer that is rotary sliced to get more material from every log. These slices are then dyed, layered, and pressed before being flat cut and restacked into a block. The result is not only environmentally friendly, but consistently beautiful.
Our strict reforestation standards ensure that only one mature tree per three acres is cut down, and that a new tree is planted in its place, every time. Wood Veneer starts at $529 for the 30” x 24” size.
ii. Jarvis
Hardwood and reclaimed wood desktops
For fans of handcrafted wood desktops, we offer sustainable maple (starting at $1,099), walnut (starting at $1,349) and reclaimed timber of various kinds (starting at $1,249).
Mid-century inspired
Master woodworker Vincent Leman has created Jarvis desktops with some really handsome, custom versions with built-in drawers. Take a look at Jarvis Albright (starting at $1,799) and Jarvis Evolve (starting at $1,849). He hews his desktops from solid walnut, cherry, oak, and maple in his studio on the shore of Lake Michigan, where the hardwoods grow. He has a line of modern furniture called Rocket Mission. It’s his take on the Mission style. Jarvis Albright is his very modern take on the Carlton House Desk, an English icon.
Many drawer and surface options
He hews his desktops from solid walnut, cherry, oak, and maple in his studio on the shore of Lake Michigan, where the hardwoods grow. He has a line of modern furniture called Rocket Mission. It’s his take on the Mission style. Jarvis Albright is his very modern take on the Carlton House Desk, an English icon.
ii. Jarvis
Jarvis Crank-Powered
The most budget-friendly Jarvis is our Jarvis crank desk, which starts at $479 and has a hand crank that raises and lowers the desktop instead of an electric motor. You still get the same gorgeous bamboo top as our electric Jarvis, but it’s only available in two sizes and in the black, silver and white frame colors.
Jarvis Treadmill
DIY Jarvis
You can also buy just the frame for both our classic 2-legged Jarvis (starts at $399) and our L-shape (starts at $849). You can add any top your heart desires by following our drill template. Grab some inspiration on our blog and our Instagram from awesome customers who have made their Jarvis unique to them.
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iii. Remi
Remi standing desk
Simple and reliable for smaller budgets
Remi is the result of a collaborative mission by Fully designers to launch a new adjustable-height desk that’s more accessible to budget-conscious customers, without sacrificing quality. Remi uses the same dual motor construction as Jarvis, making it a truly solid alternative.
A good fit if:
- You would really love a Jarvis, but your budget just doesn’t stretch far enough
- You’re happy with fewer style choices
Remi is available in just three sizes— 38" x 27", 46” x 24” and 58” x 27”. You have four color combination options between the black or white frames and the black or white laminate desktops.
Remi starts at $429 for the 38” size. It can also be assembled in about 20 minutes flat, making it even easier to get serious movement into your workday. Remi is also BIFMA and UL certified.
Desktop options
Black, oak, white
Frame colors
Black, white
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iv. Jaswig
Jaswig
Stylishly low profile and affordable
If your office is really just a converted bedroom closet or a corner of your living room, and you want to get up from the old folding table you stuffed in there, we have an idea for you: our Jaswig Nomad adjustable standing desk. With a patented height-adjustment mechanism and an easy assembly process, the design is elegantly simple, but not simplistic. You really have to see it to believe how the height adjusts with no motors or gears.
A good fit if:
- You want something small while still making a statement
- You want something that fits a smaller budget
Jaswig’s surface is 31.5” by 21.5”. That’s big enough for a laptop, coffee, a notebook, and even a picture of your pet. It will brighten up any corner you put it in, and it has space in the desktop for supplies. Beyond the home office, it makes a great little workstation in the kitchen for paying bills or making grocery lists.
And Jaswig Nomad can be yours for $325.
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We hope this guide has helped you turn those dials and figure out which adjustable standing desk, or standing desk converter is right for you. If you need help convincing your boss or HR team to help you pay for your new desk, we have some great information for you here.
Want more help deciding? Get in touch with any questions. We love talking about how you can get a move on at work.