TL; DR
Are Black Friday prices actually lower, or do they just look lower?
Mhmm! You might think this is the same old November question, and honestly it is because people ask it every year for a reason.
Early deals always feel a bit all over the place. Some offers look bigger than they really are, while a few categories like budget laptops, headphones, Fire TVs and small home gadgets do get genuine dips if you look closely.
That mix is exactly why the question keeps coming back. The skepticism has always been there, though.
A major consumer group found when they looked at actual pricing data instead of the marketing.
They tracked 175 home, tech and health products across eight big retailers like Amazon, AO, Argos, Boots, Currys, John Lewis, Richer Sounds. They studied the prices from May 2024 to May 2025 and here is the part that made everyone stop and rethink Black Friday.
Every single product was either the same price or cheaper at another point in the six months before or after Black Friday. When they looked at the whole year, 83% of those products had been cheaper or equal at least once.
If you take a look at the Google Pixel 9a. Its price has hovered around $399.99 multiple times this year, not only during Black Friday. So, the deal is still good, it’s just not a once-in-a-year moment.
And 42% were genuinely cheaper at some point. So, the idea that Black Friday is the one unbeatable moment in the year did not really hold up.
It gets more interesting. After the Black Friday period ended in 2024, 35% of products dropped below their Black Friday price and 68% were equal or cheaper.
People on Reddit noticed the same thing on a day to day level.
Many people have noticed that early access and preview deals can be a bit misleading. A product might be advertised at 30–40% off, but once you check its price history, the actual reduction is usually closer to 5–10%. This happens when retailers bump up the “original” price right before the sale, making the discount appear much bigger than it is.
Overall, the pattern is kinda like this:
Real early discounts: mid-range electronics, older-gen tablets, smart home starter kits
Mostly hype: flagship phones, new Apple releases, high-end GPUs.
So, let’s break it down properly a bit deeper and how you can assess any Black Friday deal without getting misled.
People in Reddit communities like BuildaPCSales and DealHunters keep things pretty straightforward. They use simple tools like Keepa and CamelCamelCamel to check how prices have moved through the year. That way they can tell if a “deal” is actually new or just the same price you saw in July.
From what they share, many of the real Black Friday discounts on electronics land around 18–25%, which is still a meaningful drop if you are buying something you genuinely need.
They have also noticed a pattern.
A lot of the best deals tend to appear in the last three to four days before Black Friday weekend, usually between November 22 and 29. That is often when retailers start adjusting prices to compete, and some great short-window discounts show up.
So, what do you do with all this?
Should you trust the discounts, or should you wait? The answer is somewhere in the middle. Not every deal is fake, and not every deal is groundbreaking. Some categories get real drops, others barely move at all, and a few items see may have their best prices outside November. So, our question is:
Here is a straightforward list to help you judge any Black Friday deal.
A deal can look huge on the banner, but the real question is: How far is today’s price from what people normally pay? This is where the average price helps.
Most price-tracking tools show you the product’s average selling price over the last few months. If the Black Friday price is clearly below that range, it is usually a solid deal.
Take the AirPods 4. Their average Amazon price through the year sits around $105, and they mostly stay between $100 and $120 during regular sales. On November 25, Amazon dropped them to $69, which is their lowest price ever recorded. So, this one is clearly a genuine Black Friday deal.
The % off can be useful, but the best way to understand a deal is by looking at the final price and the real money you save. When you check both together, you get a clearer picture of how good the offer actually is.
Say a gadget shows 50% off, dropping from “$60” to $30. But if you check around and see it normally sells for $32–35 throughout the year, the real savings are only a couple of dollars.
The 50% label looks big, but the final price is basically the same as its usual sale price.
A quick way to understand whether a deal is actually good is to check what a few other retailers are selling the same product for.
The Galaxy Watch 7 is priced at $129.99 across Best Buy, Samsung and Walmart for this Black Friday, and its usual average price sits around $209.
When multiple retailers match the same number, you know that is the standard Black Friday deal for this product. If one store goes slightly lower, you can always grab that offer and save a little more.
Sometimes a deal looks amazing because the product is actually the previous year’s model. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but it helps to know what you are paying for.
Knowing the model year helps you judge whether the deal fits what you actually need.
If you do not mind slightly older features, last year’s model can be a great bargain. If you want the newest upgrades, it is worth double checking before you click buy.
Sometimes the best Black Friday deals are not the ones with the biggest price drop but the ones that come with extra value added in. Bundles can save you more money than a small discount on the product alone.
Walmart is selling a PS5 Digital Edition + a DualSense controller for $449.99.
Buying the gaming consoles separately usually comes to around $460–$470, so the bundle gives you the extra controller for a little less than its normal cost.
If you already need the accessory, bundles like this can be an easy way to get more value without overthinking the discount.
Some products are discounted so often that the Black Friday price ends up being the same sale you would see during any other month.
A lot of shoppers who track prices online often point out that many “big” discounts appear multiple times a year.
So, if a product gets 20% off every other month, the same 20–25% Black Friday discount isn’t surprising.
Last but not least, if you would never consider buying the product at its regular price, there is a chance you might not actually need it. Black Friday can make everything feel urgent, but buyer’s remorse is real, especially with impulse purchases.
A quick gut check helps:
If the product still feels worth it even at full price, then the discount is a bonus. If it only feels appealing because it is “on sale,” it might be better to skip it.
Like anything else, Black Friday has the good, the bad and the slightly confusing. Some deals are genuinely solid, some are just okay and a few are more marketing than actual savings.
So yeah, not every deal is a scam, and not every deal is amazing either; it sits somewhere in the middle.
At the end of the day, if the product fits your needs, fits your budget and feels like the right buy even the next morning, then you have made a good choice.
