Tracking Black Friday 2025: How Many Deals Are Actually Real?

With opaque retailer pricing strategies and an overwhelming volume of promotions, it’s often difficult for shoppers to know if the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend is really the best time to buy their wishlist items, or if they're even getting a legitimate deal.

However, not all advertised discounts live up to the hype. A new analysis conducted using Visualping, the leading website change detection tool, found that a significant share of products were actually cheaper before Black Friday.

Visualping monitored the daily prices of over 1,500 retail products from the beginning of October through Black Friday (Nov. 28, 2025). The analysis found that one-third of Black Friday deals offered no real savings, or were more expensive than their lowest prices in October and early November.

Here's a breakdown of the findings below, and some examples of "real" and "fake deals."

Key Findings

• Over a third (33%) of products monitored were “fake deals,” meaning they were cheaper earlier in the season compared to their Black Friday price. Two-thirds (67%) of Black Friday deals were genuine, meaning they were the lowest observed price, or matched the lowest price, during the monitoring period.

• On average, "fake" Black Friday deals were still 37% higher than the product's lowest observed price.

• Certain categories were more prone to fake discounts: Travel and Games & Hobbies had the highest share of misleading deals (43%), while Home & Appliances and Tech & Electronics had the lowest (33%).

• At the product level, luggages had the highest share of fake deals (61%), followed by microwaves (50%). Backpacks (4%) and video game consoles (14%) had the lowest incidence of fake deals.

Black Friday 2025 Deals That Were Cheaper Earlier

Black Friday prices didn’t always represent the lowest price of the season for some products. Each example below includes a price chart showing the product’s price history as detected by Visualping.

1. Apple 2025 MacBook Air 15-inch Laptop with M4 chip on Amazon

Currently listed at $1,439.99 (down from the “list price” of $1,699), this MacBook with 16GB of memory, 256GB SSD Storage, and Touch ID was actually cheapest in early November at $1,337.46.

Notably, the MacBook was listed at its current sale price of $1,449 on Nov. 26 and briefly dropped by $10 on Nov. 27 to $1,439, as tracked by Visualping here: https://visualping.io/diff/917327491?disableId=uc9ZuqKth2P7Rrh

As of Nov. 28, it's back to $1,449 for Black Friday, highlighting how frequently prices fluctuate during the holiday shoping season.

2. Dyson V15s Detect Submarine Wet & Dry Cordless Vacuum on Canadian Tire

On sale for just under $1,000, this Dyson cordless vacuum has been cheaper multiple times before Black Friday, including at $949 on Oct. 17.

Check out its price change on Oct. 20 on Visualping: https://visualping.io/diff/888435405?disableId=FJJXlCBcIFQU23v

3. Acer V226HQL 22in LCD Monitor on Amazon

Currently $101.38, this monitor has fluctuated significantly since early October, peaking at $155 before returning to around $100 for Black Friday. It's lowest recorded price was $79.99 in mid-November just before Black Friday.

Real Bargains of Black Friday 2025

While some deals fell short, many products offered genuine savings, with Black Friday prices matching or beating their lowest observed pre-Black Friday price.

1. Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones on Best Buy

These popular Sony headphones are currently priced at $278, matching the lowest price of the season and representing a big discount off their baseline price of $429.99.

If shoppers miss out on this deal for Black Friday, there may be a chance to snag them again: these headphones were also discounted to $278 multiple times before Black Friday, including in early November as seen here: https://visualping.io/diff/893009776?disableId=gi02047vHUyZZhh

2. Ninja Crispi™ 6-Cup Air Fryer on Canadian Tire

The viral Ninja Crispi air fryer, known for its compact size and versatile cooking functions, is on sale for $149.99 at Canadian Tire, the lowest price detected by Visualping this season.

3. Fujifilm INSTAX PAL Digital Camera on Staples

This compact, pocket‑sized digital camera is on sale for $64.99, its lowest price detected. This product's previous lowest price was $79.99 on Oct. 10, as seen in this Visualping change alert: https://visualping.io/diff/883763607?disableId=WqxUaPEgoixSsCn

Conclusion

While Black Friday sales often do offer real savings for many products, shoppers should be aware that not all discounts live up to the hype, and some items had been available at lower prices earlier in the season.

Visualping is the perfect tool to monitor product prices ahead of big sales like Black Friday, and can help shoppers track deals in real time and ensure they’re getting the best price before making a purchase.

Instead of keeping twenty tabs open and refreshing them every day, you can set up a Visualping alert for any product you want to buy. Shoppers can even set a specific condition, like "Alert me when this product drops below $20," and Visualping will monitor the page for you.

The moment a discount goes live that matches your criteria, you'll get an instant email notification. This "set it and forget it" strategy means you never miss a price drop on your wishlist, saving you the stress of constant monitoring. Plus, by setting up price alerts, shoppers will get a comprehensive price history of the product so they can avoid getting duped by misleading deals.

Methodology

Visualping monitored 2,620 products from nine major retailers from October 1 through Black Friday, November 28, 2025, on a daily basis. All price changes for each product during that period were recorded, if a change occurred. During this period, 1,659 products experienced at least one price change.

For these 1,659 products, the Black Friday price is defined as the last observed price on or before Black Friday (November 28, 2025). We compared the Black Friday price to the lowest price observed for each product since October 1 to assess whether Black Friday represented the best time to buy. Products were considered a “real deal” if the Black Friday price was the same as or lower than the lowest observed price, and a “fake deal” if it was higher. All data was collected directly from retailer websites using Visualping's data extraction feature. Retailers included Amazon, Best Buy, Staples, Canadian Tire, and others.