Your Amazon Black Friday Deal Is Measured Against Your October
TL;DR: Every Amazon Black Friday deal is a percentage off a reference price. For most brands that reference is the Typical Price: the median price customers paid over the last 90 days. Since May 18, 2026, if your product sat below its normal price for more than 45 of those 90 days, Amazon counts your promo sales too, and the Typical Price drops. A lower Typical Price means a deeper cut just to qualify. Deal sourcing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday closes November 13, 2026, so this week is the time to count your discount days.
What is Amazon's Typical Price?
Amazon's Typical Price is the median non-promotional price customers paid for a product over the last 90 days. It is one of two reference prices Amazon uses to show a discount. The other is the List Price you submit, which Amazon now has to validate (PPC Land).
The reference price is what shoppers see crossed out in the "Was: $X, Now: $Y" strikethrough on search results and product pages. No valid reference price, no strikethrough and no savings badge.
Reference price | Where it comes from | What changed in 2026 |
List Price | You submit it in Seller Central | From April 23, 2026 it must match a price another retailer recently charged, or a price customers paid on Amazon for the Featured Offer. Otherwise Amazon won't display it. |
Typical Price | Amazon calculates it: median price paid over 90 days | From May 18, 2026, promo sales count when the product was discounted on more than half of the 90 days. |
If you're cleaning up List Prices on the same ASINs, check the rest of the page too. A wrong unit count or pack size distorts the price per unit shoppers compare, and our 2026 playbook for fixing your Amazon product listing covers the fields to check. For what AI assistants read on the page, see how to write product pages AI actually understands.
Why does the Typical Price decide whether your Black Friday deal qualifies?
Because every Amazon deal, coupon and peak-event discount needs a minimum percentage off the reference price. A lower reference price shrinks the highest deal price you're allowed to set.
For Price Discounts, the rule is at least 5% below three numbers at once: the lowest non-promotional price across all sellers in the last 30 days, the current price, and the validated reference price if there is one (PPC Land). Your Manage Deals page shows the maximum deal price per ASIN, so you don't have to calculate it yourself.
Here's why it matters in November. Many brands run small weekend promos through October to keep sales moving. Each one adds sale days to the 90-day window. Cross 45 of them and the yardstick for your Black Friday deal moves down, right before the event you saved the big discount for.
The dates that matter this season:
• Nov 13, 2026: Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal sourcing closes (extended from Oct 20) (Amazon Brand Guide No. 013)
• Nov 27, 2026: Black Friday
• Nov 30, 2026: Cyber Monday
The ad side needs the same lead time. Amazon Ads suggests raising daily budgets 20% to 30% three to five days before each event. If your campaigns already leak spend, fix that first: stop wasting money on ads, here's what to do instead. For the full holiday ad plan, see the TACoS-first Amazon PPC playbook for Q4.
What is the 45-day rule, and what does it do to your price?
If your Featured Offer price sat below its usual non-promotional price on more than 45 of the last 90 days, Amazon includes every sale in the Typical Price, promos too. The rule took effect May 18, 2026. Before that, promotional sales were always left out (PPC Land).
Amazon Reference pricing and promotions FAQ example, via PPC Land and Amazon Brand Guide No. 012
In the second example the sneakers didn't get cheaper. They just spent too long on sale, so the sale price became the "normal" price. A Black Friday deal on them now has to go 5% below $74.99, not $89.99.
Three details worth knowing:
• Some promos never count. Buy X Get Y, Subscribe & Save, tailored coupons and peak event pricing (including Prime Day) stay out of the calculation, however often you run them.
• Unlabeled price cuts do count. If you lower the price without setting it up as a promotion, Amazon treats it as a regular sale.
• Recovery takes about 90 days. Once you stop discounting, the window has to roll forward before the Typical Price climbs back.
That Subscribe & Save exclusion matters for replenishment brands: you can reward repeat buyers without touching your deal baseline. More on that in building customer loyalty through retention marketing.
What does Amazon price history show shoppers, and what does Alexa for Shopping say about your deal?
Shoppers can now see 30, 90 and 365 days of Amazon price history on any product page in the US, using a price history link right next to the price. They can also tap Alexa for Shopping and ask "Has this item been on sale in the past 30 days?" or "Is this the lowest price recently?" More than 50 million customers have used price history since it launched in 2024, and the average one checks it three times a month (About Amazon).
Amazon told sellers that the Price History graph shows the lowest Featured Offer price each day, and that reference pricing is being aligned with it (PPC Land). So the price chart a shopper sees and the yardstick Amazon uses for your deal now tell the same story.
That changes the Black Friday question. It used to be "Is my discount big enough?" Now it's also "What will Amazon's AI assistant say when a shopper asks whether this is a good deal?" If your product was on sale most of October, the honest answer is "not really," and Alexa for Shopping has the data to say it.
Alexa for Shopping is the assistant Amazon wants shoppers to use. It reached 400 million+ users over the last 12 months, and interactions grew 570% year over year (Amazon Q3 2026 results). It replaced Rufus in May 2026. We broke down how Amazon's assistant reads your listings in how to reverse engineer Amazon's Rufus AI assistant, and how shoppers already use AI to hunt for the lowest price in let the machines fight.
Amazon's assistant isn't the only one judging your price. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews pull price and "value" language from your listings, reviews and retailer pages. A free Searchpanel audit shows how those AI engines describe one of your products today, price included.
What we'd do before Amazon's Nov 13 deal deadline
Do this for every ASIN you plan to put in a Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal. Start with your top sellers.
1. Pick your deal ASINs. List the products going into Lightning Deals, Best Deals, Prime Exclusive Discounts, coupons or peak event price discounts.
2. Count your discount days. Open Price History on each product page and count how many of the last 90 days sat below your usual price. Count unlabeled price drops too.
3. Check the 45-day line. Under 45 days, your Typical Price should hold. Over 45, expect it to drift toward your sale price.
4. Read the maximum deal price. Your Manage Deals page shows the highest price you can set for each ASIN while still meeting the minimum discount. If it's lower than you planned, decide now whether the margin still works.
5. Hold the small promos. Pause weekend markdowns on those ASINs until the event, so the Typical Price stays where you want it for the week that matters.
Two add-ons for CPG brands:
• Check multipacks. Amazon's virtual multipacks default to unit price times pack size, which affects how a pack deal looks next to the single unit. Keep pack sizes clean with our variation family playbook for Amazon.
• Check stock. A deal on a product that runs out early wastes the slot. Grocery and essentials are now about half of Amazon's units (Amazon Q3 2026 results), so holiday demand on everyday items can spike. Our seller's guide to BFCM and win December on Amazon cover inventory through the season.
IMAGE 4 · DEADLINE CHECKLIST · 1200x1200 square (reuse on LinkedIn) · insert here |
Prompt: A clipboard with five checkbox rows, three ticked, beside a desk calendar with one date circled in orange and a small hourglass. A small stack of shipping boxes in the background. Flat editorial vector illustration, soft off-white background, navy and muted blue, orange accent only on the circled date. No text, no numbers, no logos. |
Alt text: Checklist and a circled deadline on a calendar, for the pre-Black Friday deal review |
Black Friday Typical Price readiness checklist (0 of 6)
• ☐ Deal ASINs listed
• ☐ Discount days counted for each ASIN (last 90 days)
• ☐ ASINs over 45 discount days flagged
• ☐ Maximum deal price checked in Manage Deals
• ☐ Weekend promos paused until the event
• ☐ Deals submitted before Nov 13, 2026
Frequently asked questions
What is the Typical Price on Amazon? The median non-promotional price customers paid for a product over the last 90 days. Amazon uses it as the "Was" price in the strikethrough and as the baseline for deal discounts.
What's the difference between Typical Price and List Price on Amazon? List Price is the price you submit. Since April 23, 2026, Amazon only displays it if another retailer recently charged that price or customers paid it on Amazon. Typical Price is calculated by Amazon from actual sales.
Do coupons lower my Typical Price? Tailored coupons, Buy X Get Y, Subscribe & Save and peak event pricing are excluded from the calculation. Regular price cuts and most other promotions count once you cross 45 discount days in 90.
My product is already past 45 discount days. What now? Check the maximum deal price in Manage Deals and decide whether the deeper cut still works for your margin. If it doesn't, skip the deal on that ASIN and stop discounting it. The Typical Price recovers as the 90-day window rolls forward.
Can shoppers see my Amazon price history? Yes. US shoppers can see 30, 90 and 365 days of price history on the product page, or ask Alexa for Shopping whether the current price is the lowest recently.
When is the Amazon Black Friday 2026 deal deadline? Deal sourcing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday closes November 13, 2026. Black Friday is November 27 and Cyber Monday is November 30.
NEXT STEP: Find out how AI shopping assistants describe your products. Alexa for Shopping, ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews all answer "Is this a good deal?" from the data you give them. Run a free Searchpanel audit for a SKU-level AI Visibility Score, or book a 30-minute call with XENA. To keep tracking it after the holidays, see what to track now that Google Merchant Center shows AI visibility.
