Is a Black Friday sale worth it for your Etsy shop?

A Black Friday sale is worth it only if it brings enough new orders to make up for what each order gives up. In the example gift shop below, 20% off needs about 156 orders for every 100 the shop would get anyway, and 30% off needs about 215, to keep the same profit. Etsy's fees fall a little with the price, but your materials, packaging and label don't.

When the holiday sales fall in 2026

Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, 2026, per the federal holiday list from the Office of Personnel Management. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving, as Britannica describes it, so it falls on November 27. Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving, per Britannica, so November 30.

Etsy runs its own event around those days. Its help page on sales events, as saved on October 8, 2026, lists Etsy's Cyber Specials as November 23 to December 1. Shops that want to be considered for Etsy's marketing features are asked to opt in by October 27 and offer at least 25% off. The page also says the discount amount is up to you, and that you don't need to be featured to take part.

Why a discount costs more than it looks

The discount comes off the item price, but almost every cost behind the order stays the same. Etsy's transaction fee is 6.5% of the total order amount, per its help page on fees, and the payment processing fee is charged on the gross order amount, per its Payments Policy: 3% plus $0.25 in the US. Those percentage parts get smaller when the order total does. The $0.20 listing fee, the $0.25, your materials, packaging and the shipping label do not.

The fee pages cited here don't say anything separate about sales or promo codes. The calculator works the fees out on what the buyer pays on sale, which is the order total those pages describe.

How many more orders a sale needs

The rule is one division: orders needed on sale = what an order keeps at full price ÷ what it keeps on sale. For the gift above that's $15.22 ÷ $9.79, so about 156 orders on sale for every 100 at full price. The deeper the discount, the faster the line climbs, because the costs that don't move take a bigger share of a smaller price.

Put in days instead of percentages: if the gift shop would usually get 10 orders over the days the sale runs, 20% off needs at least 16 orders (6 more) to come out even, and 30% off needs at least 22 (12 more). If orders don't rise at all, 20% off costs about $54.30 over those days and 30% off about $81.40, at these numbers.

A wider margin needs fewer extra orders

The same discount weighs less on an item that keeps more of its price. Take a $45 jewelry piece with $4.50 shipping, $6 of materials, $1 of packaging and a $5 label, which keeps $32.34 an order at full price. Both items use made-up numbers.

At 25% off, the smallest discount Etsy asks for to be considered for its features, the gift needs about 81 more orders for every 100 and the jewelry piece about 46 more.

Offsite Ads raise the line

Holiday orders that come through one of Etsy's Offsite Ads carry that fee too. Per Etsy's Fees & Payments Policy, it is 15% of the order total for shops under $10,000 in sales over the prior 365 days, 12% for shops past it, and never more than $100 an order. With the 15% fee on every order, the gift keeps $9.97 at full price and $4.30 at 25% off, so the sale needs about 232 orders for every 100. The jewelry piece needs about 152. The Offsite Ads calculator shows that fee on its own.

When a sale can make sense

• Stock that isn't moving. The math above compares profit at the same costs. For pieces already made that would otherwise sit, turning them into money can matter more than the margin on each one.
• Buyers who come back. A sale can bring first-time buyers, reviews and repeat orders later. The calculator doesn't count those, so weigh them yourself, and be honest about how often sale buyers return to your shop.
• A smaller or narrower discount. Etsy lets you put a sale on chosen listings rather than the whole shop when you don't set a minimum order, per its help page on sales and discounts. A discount on your highest-margin items costs less than one on everything.
• Coupons Etsy pays for. When Etsy runs its own funded coupon, Etsy pays the discount and you receive the full order amount, with the same fees as without it, per its help page on Etsy-funded coupons. That is not a cost to you.

What to check before you run one

1. What one order keeps at full price after Etsy's fees, materials, packaging and the label.
2. How many orders you would usually get over the same days without a sale. Last year's orders for the same week can be a guide, if you were open.
3. The orders the sale needs, from the sale calculator. Then ask whether that many new buyers is realistic. Buyers who would have paid full price get the discount too, so the extra orders have to be new ones.
4. Whether you can make, pack and ship that many orders in time, at the same costs.
5. Your prices before the sale. Etsy's sales events page says you can't raise a price and then lower it to look like a sale, and that the original price must be in place for a substantial amount of time.

If you'd like your own numbers, the sale calculator works out any discount for your item, and the check-up shows where the rest of your shop's money goes from seven answers.