As the 2026 holiday shopping season approaches, shoppers will once again face a familiar question: is Black Friday or Cyber Monday the better time to look for deals? The answer depends on more than the name of the shopping event. The volume of available promotions, the timing of offers, and the terms attached to individual coupons all matter.

Historical data from HotDeals provides one way to examine these differences. In its 2025 U.S. holiday-tagged offer records, Black Friday had a larger pool of promotions and coupon codes than Cyber Monday. The data also shows that Black Friday-tagged offer counts rose before the event and fell considerably in the following week.

HotDeals is a verified coupon platform where real users test promo codes so shoppers don’t have to. Its historical offer data helps illustrate how the recorded pool of holiday promotions can change around major shopping dates.

Key Findings

• Black Friday had nearly 1.9 times as many holiday-tagged promotionsas Cyber Monday in the 2025 U.S. snapshot.
• Black Friday had approximately 1.4 times as many holiday-tagged coupon codes, with 50,838 compared with 36,077.
• Black Friday-tagged coupon codes rose by 80.9%between November 14 and November 28, 2025.
• The Black Friday-tagged coupon code count fell by 64.4%in the following week, reaching 18,113 on December 5, 2025.
• These historical figures describe recorded offer availability, not newly created codes, actual redemptions, or guaranteed savings in 2026.

Black Friday Had a Larger Pool of Recorded Offers

The 2025 U.S. snapshot showed a substantial difference between offers associated with the two holiday labels.

Metric	Black Friday, Nov. 28, 2025	Cyber Monday, Dec. 1, 2025
Holiday-tagged promotions	94,381	49,050
Holiday-tagged coupon codes	50,838	36,077
Displayed coupon codes	41,720	32,492
Merchants covered	28,482	12,604
Merchants with coupon codes	22,086	11,467

Black Friday had approximately 93% more holiday-tagged promotions and 41% more holiday-tagged coupon codes than Cyber Monday. The number of merchants covered was also higher: 28,482 compared with 12,604.

These figures indicate that the recorded Black Friday offer pool was larger in this particular snapshot. They do not prove that every shopper had access to every listed promotion, or that Black Friday discounts were deeper than Cyber Monday discounts.

For shoppers preparing for the 2026 holiday season, the distinction matters. A larger number of recorded offers does not automatically mean a better price on a specific item. Product availability, coupon restrictions, minimum spending requirements, and final checkout prices still need to be checked individually.

How Black Friday Offer Counts Changed Before and After the Event

The historical records also show that the number of Black Friday-tagged offers changed significantly over a short period.

Date	Coupon codes	Change vs. Nov. 28
Nov. 14, 2025	28,102	+80.9%
Nov. 21, 2025	36,409	+39.6%
Nov. 28, 2025	50,838	Baseline
Dec. 5, 2025	18,113	-64.4%

Between November 14 and Black Friday, the number of recorded coupon codes increased by 80.9%. Promotion records rose from 46,835 to 94,381 over the same period, an increase of approximately 101.5%.

The Black Friday-tagged pool peaked on November 29, 2025, with 53,053 coupon codes and 96,282 promotions. By December 5, the recorded coupon code count had fallen to 18,113, while promotion records had declined to 35,421.

This pattern shows that the size of a holiday-tagged offer pool can shift quickly around a major shopping event. However, the dataset records the number of offers associated with a holiday label on each date. It does not identify how many codes were newly created or establish why the counts changed.

What This Means for the 2026 Holiday Shopping Season

The 2025 findings offer useful historical context, but they should not be treated as a forecast for 2026. This year’s Black Friday falls on November 27, and Cyber Monday falls on November 30. Actual offer counts and discount terms for those dates have not been established by the historical figures presented here.

Shoppers can still use the historical pattern to plan more carefully:

• Compare prices across both events.Do not assume one shopping day will always offer the lowest price.
• Check coupon conditions before checkout.Minimum order values, product exclusions, and expiration dates can affect whether a code applies.
• Compare the final price, not just the advertised discount.A larger percentage does not necessarily mean a lower total cost.
• Recheck offers as the event approaches.Historical records show that holiday-tagged offer counts can change substantially over time.

These steps are especially useful when a purchase is not tied to a single deadline. Comparing the final price across retailers and checking whether a coupon applies to the intended product can be more informative than relying on the shopping event’s label alone.

Methodology

This analysis uses HotDeals’ 2025 U.S. holiday-tagged offer snapshots, with Grade set to all. The event-day comparison uses the Black Friday label on November 28, 2025, and the Cyber Monday label on December 1, 2025. The Black Friday time-series comparison uses November 14, November 21, November 28, and December 5, 2025.

The records include holiday-tagged promotion counts, coupon code counts, displayed coupon codes, and merchant coverage. Percentage changes are calculated relative to the specified comparison date.

These figures represent recorded offers associated with holiday labels, not newly created codes, completed purchases, or codes successfully redeemed by shoppers. Black Friday and Cyber Monday labels may coexist on the same date, so their records should not be added together as mutually exclusive totals. The dataset also does not provide discount-depth distributions, so it cannot establish which event offered larger discounts overall.

Final Takeaway

Historical data from HotDeals shows that Black Friday had a larger pool of recorded holiday-tagged promotions and coupon codes than Cyber Monday in the 2025 U.S. snapshot. It also reveals a substantial rise in Black Friday-tagged offer counts before the event and a sharp decline in the following week.

For the 2026 holiday shopping season, these findings provide context rather than a prediction. The most reliable approach is to compare actual prices, verify coupon conditions, and evaluate the final checkout cost instead of assuming that either Black Friday or Cyber Monday will always deliver the better deal.