Disclosure: I'm Alston Antony, and I built SaaS Black Friday, an independent tracker of SaaS and AI Black Friday deals. This post adapts the site's State of Black Friday 2025 report, so I have an obvious interest in it. Every number below comes from that report. Some outbound links on the site may be affiliate links.
If you run a small SaaS, freelance, or just pay for a stack of dev and marketing tools, Black Friday is the one week a year when annual plans get cheaper. The trouble is that the deals are scattered, the "up to 90% off" headlines are vague, and it's hard to know when to wait and when to buy.
So I counted. The site's deal database recorded 226 Black Friday deals from 226 SaaS and AI tools across 14 categories in 2025. Here's what they show, written for people who'd rather plan a renewal than doom-scroll deal threads.
1. Half price was the typical 2025 offer
- Median 2025 discount: 50%.
- Of the 189 deals that stated a percentage, 104 were 50% or more, and 48 reached 70% or more.
- 81 of those were "up to" offers. The headline number is a ceiling that applies to some plans, not all of them.
The spread looked like this (n = 189):
| Discount | Deals |
|---|---|
| Under 20% | 5 |
| 20–39% | 53 |
| 40–59% | 69 |
| 60–79% | 31 |
| 80% and up | 31 |
For devs: that last "up to" point matters. Before you buy, check which plan and billing term the big number actually applies to. It's often the longest commitment.
2. Infrastructure and VPNs went deepest
Median 2025 discount by category (categories with at least 5 percentage deals):
| Category | Deals | Median |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting & Infrastructure | 28 | 75% |
| VPN & Security | 21 | 75% |
| Cloud Storage & Backup | 5 | 60% |
| SEO & Marketing | 25 | 50% |
| AI Tools | 17 | 50% |
| WordPress | 28 | 40% |
| Email Marketing | 17 | 40% |
| Customer Support | 10 | 40% |
| Sales & CRM | 8 | 40% |
| Website Builders | 6 | 40% |
| Productivity & Collaboration | 14 | 37.5% |
| E-commerce | 5 | 30% |
If you've been putting off moving hosting or locking in a multi-year plan, 2025 says that's where the depth was. If you're waiting on a big e-commerce tool discount, the 2025 median was much smaller.
3. Sales open late and close after Cyber Monday
Timing is where most people get caught out.
- 67% of 2025 sales with a recorded start date (99 of 147) opened in the last two weeks around Black Friday.
- 26 sales (18%) were early birds that opened before Nov 10.
- 137 of 189 sales with an end date (72%) closed between Cyber Monday (Dec 1) and Friday, Dec 5.
- Median sale length: 15 days (from 143 sales with both dates).
The report breaks 2025 into four waves of start dates:
| Wave | 2025 window | Share of dated starts |
|---|---|---|
| Early birds | before Nov 10 | 18% (26) |
| The run-up | Nov 10–16 | 15% (22) |
| Lead-in week | Nov 17–23 | 36% (53) |
| Black Friday week | Nov 24 onward | 31% (46) |
In other words, Black Friday sat in the middle of the window, not at the start. In 2025 the busiest week for new sales was the week before Black Friday, and most deals were still open through the start of December.
4. Most deals were just a link and a percentage
Offer types in 2025 (n = 226):
- Percent off: 182 (81%)
- Lifetime deal: 21 (9%)
- Fixed price: 9 (4%)
- Free months: 5 (2%)
- Bonus credits: 5 (2%)
- Extended trial: 4 (2%)
How you redeemed them:
- Direct link: 152 (67%)
- Coupon code: 49 (22%)
- Marketplace (AppSumo): 20 (9%)
- Contact sales: 5 (2%)
So for most tools you don't need to hunt for a code, but roughly one in five did need one in 2025.
5. Depth has been steady for three years
The database holds 71 deals for 2023, 95 for 2024 and 226 for 2025. That growth reflects how much was researched each year, not how many sales the market ran, so only rates and medians are compared:
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median discount | 50% | 40% | 50% |
| Deals at 50% or more | 54% | 49% | 55% |
| Needed a coupon code | 24% | 32% | 22% |
6. Last year's offer is the best guide to this year's
- 87 tools have a recorded deal in both 2024 and 2025, and 61 in all three years.
- Of the 72 tools that stated a percentage in both 2024 and 2025, 36 (50%) repeated exactly the same number, 16 (22%) went deeper and 20 (28%) went shallower.
If a tool you rely on ran 40% off last year, a coin-flip says it'll run 40% again. That's useful for budgeting.
What this suggests for Black Friday 2026
Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30. The points below are patterns from past years, not announcements. When the report's data was last updated (2026-10-08), no vendor had confirmed a 2026 offer. The site marks a 2026 deal live only once it's actually on sale, and verifies them as they go live.
- Expect a late, crowded window. The 2025 pattern points to the weeks of Nov 16–22 and Nov 23 in 2026.
- Roughly half price is the norm. The median was 50% in 2023 and 2025, and 40% in 2024.
- Hosting & Infrastructure and VPN & Security are likely to lead on depth (75% medians in 2025).
- Many tools will run the same deal back.
- Sales should outlast Black Friday, with many likely to run into the first days of December.
- A few will start early. The 26 tools that opened before Nov 10 in 2025 are the ones to watch in October and early November.
A practical plan for founders and devs
- List your renewals now. Note the annual tools you'll need in the next 12 months.
- Look up each tool's 2025 offer. Half the tools that stated a percentage in both years repeated it exactly.
- Don't panic-buy on Friday. Most 2025 sales were still open on Cyber Monday and into the next week.
- Read the "up to." Check which plan and term the headline applies to.
- Watch the early birds if a tool opened early last year.
The full report, with week-by-week start-date charts and the ten deepest 2025 discounts, is here: State of Black Friday 2025, and what to expect in 2026. If you want each tool's usual start date in one place, the Black Friday SaaS sale calendar lists them.
Methodology note: the figures cover 392 deals recorded across 235 tools for 2023–2025. Offers without confirmation are left out. "Up to" offers are counted at their stated ceiling, and dates are counted only where recorded. Nothing here is a price promise.
Questions about a specific category or tool? Ask in the comments and I'll pull what the data has.
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