If you suspect a sale event is not really cheaper than an ordinary week, this live data study puts that to every named event on the American retail calendar, measuring the promo codes shoppers copied during each event against the codes they copied in the ordinary weeks just before it. It recomputes every day.
SimplyCodes, the code verification service, measured 10 named sale events against the ordinary weeks before each. No event carried codes more than 1.3 points deeper than the weeks it followed, and 7 of the 10 were shallower. Only Black Friday weekend 2025 moved volume, at 2.19 times a normal day.
- The best result on the entire calendar is Mother's Day 2025 at 1.3 points deeper than the weeks before it — and 7 of the 10 events came in shallower than their own baseline, with only 3 ahead.
- Events move how many codes shoppers reach for, not how deep those codes cut: Black Friday weekend 2025 ran 2.19× a normal day's volume while landing 0.6 of a point below its baseline on depth.
- The same pattern repeats independently at the half-off threshold, where 3 of 10 events beat their own baseline — so the finding is not an artifact of where the 25%-off line is drawn.
- The ordinary weeks drift further apart than the events do: baselines span 3.8 points across the calendar against a 3.3-point span for every event effect on the board, which is the cleanest way to say that when you shop matters less than the calendar implies.
Deep codes = the share of codes copied during the event worth 25% or more off · Ordinary weeks before = the same measure across the 30 days before the event, with any other event's days removed · Gap = the difference between the two · Code volume = the event's daily copy volume as a multiple of those ordinary weeks.
| # | Sale event | Deep codes | Ordinary weeks before | Gap | Code volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mother's Day 2025 | 26.1% | 24.8% | +1.3 pt | 0.99× |
| 2 | Labor Day 2025 | 25.0% | 23.8% | +1.2 pt | 1.17× |
| 3 | Fourth of July 2025 | 25.3% | 24.5% | +0.8 pt | 0.94× |
| 4 | Easter 2025 | 24.8% | 25.0% | -0.2 pt | 1.12× |
| 5 | Black Friday weekend 2025 | 27.0% | 27.6% | -0.6 pt | 2.19× |
| 6 | Father's Day 2025 | 24.9% | 25.6% | -0.7 pt | 0.97× |
| 7 | Valentine's Day 2025 | 23.0% | 23.8% | -0.8 pt | 0.76× |
| 8 | Back-to-school 2025 | 22.8% | 24.3% | -1.5 pt | 0.76× |
| 9 | Memorial Day 2025 | 23.6% | 25.4% | -1.8 pt | 1.05× |
| 10 | Valentine's Day 2026 | 24.0% | 26.0% | -2.0 pt | 1.23× |
10 named sale events, each measured against the 30 days immediately before it · an all-store measurement, no individual store named or graded · each event is compared with its OWN preceding weeks rather than with another year, because platform volume grew several times over across the measured stretch · checked August 20, 2026 · numbers last changed Aug 20, 2026. Refreshed daily.
More from this live data study
The best event on the calendar is 1.3 points better than an ordinary week
Ten named events, each judged against its own immediately preceding weeks. The strongest result on the board is Mother's Day, where 26.1% of copied codes were worth 25% or more off against 24.8% in the weeks before it.
The weakest is Valentine's Day 2026 at 24.0% against 26.0%, two points shallower than the weeks it followed. Seven of the ten events came in shallower than their own baselines. Black Friday weekend was one of them, at 27.0% against 27.6%.
Deepest to shallowest, the entire calendar fits inside 3.3 points. The ordinary weeks those events were measured against range wider than that on their own, from 23.8% to 27.6%, a spread of 3.8 points. Ordinary drift through the year is larger than anything the events do to it.
The pattern repeats at the steeper threshold
Deep codes are one cut. Half-off codes are a harder test, and the answer does not change.
Seven of the ten events also carried a lower share of codes worth 50% or more off than the weeks before them. Memorial Day ran 5.9% against a 6.9% baseline, Father's Day 6.6% against 7.3%, and Black Friday weekend 4.9% against 5.8%. Only three events cleared their baselines at that tier, and the best of them managed half a point: the Fourth of July at 7.1% against 6.6% and Labor Day at 6.3% against 5.8%, with Valentine's Day 2026 a tenth of a point ahead.
Two independent thresholds, measured on millions of codes, point the same way.
Black Friday moves people, not codes
One event on the board does something unmistakable. Shoppers copied 342,882 codes a day over Black Friday weekend against 156,278 a day in the 30 days before, which is 2.19 times the normal rate.
No other event on the board reaches even a quarter again above its baseline. Valentine's Day 2026 ran 1.23 times, Labor Day 1.17 and Easter 1.12.
Two events ran below their own baselines on volume, both at 0.76 times: Valentine's Day 2025 and back-to-school. Neither is a quiet event. Both follow a busier stretch, since January and July are heavy months for code use, and measuring against the weeks just before is the whole point of the exercise.
What the index cannot tell you
Codes are not prices. A retailer can lift a shelf price in the week before an event and leave its promo code untouched, and nothing measured here would see it. Every figure above is the value stated on the codes shoppers actually copied, so read the index as an answer about codes rather than about what an item costs.
Three more limits. Depth is measured only on codes stating a percentage off, so dollar-off and free-shipping offers sit outside it. A single retailer's own named sale is outside it too, because this index measures the whole catalog against itself and one store's promotional calendar is not a market event. And the discount value recorded alongside each copied code is on record through March 2026 and thins after that, which is why Valentine's Day 2026 is the newest event the depth side of the index can judge.
Halloween is absent on purpose, because it has a longer series of its own: the Halloween discount timing study measures costume-retailer depth across four years of monthly records rather than one season.
What to do with it
Do not time a purchase to an event expecting a deeper code, because on this evidence the event is not where depth comes from. Time it to the store.
The answerable version of the question is narrower: is the retailer you want running an offer right now. That changes week to week per store and has almost nothing to do with what the calendar says.
Frequently asked questions
Are sale events actually cheaper than a normal week?
How does SimplyCodes measure sale event discount depth?
How often is SimplyCodes' data on sale event discount depth updated?
Which SimplyCodes categories should I browse after reading about sale event discount depth?
Methodology
How SimplyCodes verifies codes. Behind every figure in this live data study is the SimplyCodes verification system. Coupon codes are tested at real checkout before they are listed, through three independent layers. Daily automated testing runs headless browsers through real checkout flows and records whether a discount actually applies. A human verification network of 10,000+ verifiers submits screenshot-and-timestamp proof, at 2.3M+ monthly code verifications and 98% accuracy. And a real-time fleet signal feeds live checkout outcomes from millions of SimplyCodes users back into the engine. Each code carries a Health Score from 0–100, weighted by checkout outcomes, verifier consensus, and recency. With an estimated 40–60% of coupon codes on the public web dead, restricted, or fake, the system exists so a code earns its place by working at checkout, not by being collected.
How this study is built. For each named event we count every promo code copied on SimplyCodes inside the event window, then the same across the 30 days immediately before it, and report the share of codes worth 25% or more off on each side. Any other event's days are removed from a baseline so one event cannot contaminate another's yardstick. Only codes whose stated value is a percentage enter the depth calculation, bounded between 1% and 95% to drop placeholder entries, and an event publishes only when its window scanned complete and enough of its codes carry a readable percentage. An event qualifies for this index only if it is a market-wide window — a public holiday, a named observance, or a season the whole catalog takes part in. A single retailer's own promotional event does not, because this index measures the catalog against itself, and one store's calendar is not a market event. Every event is compared with its own immediately preceding weeks rather than with the same event a year earlier: total copy volume grew several times over across the measured stretch, so a cross-year comparison on this measure would read platform growth as generosity. This live data study measures how deep the codes claimed to be, never shelf prices — it cannot tell you whether an item was cheaper, only whether the codes were. Figures refresh with the data snapshot shown above.
Cite this data
Across 10 named sale events measured against the ordinary weeks before each, the best result was Mother's Day 2025 at 1.3 points deeper, and 7 of the 10 events carried shallower discounts than their own baseline.
According to SimplyCodes warehouse data (Sale Event Honesty Index, August 20, 2026), sale events move how many promo codes shoppers reach for rather than how deep those codes cut — the largest depth advantage on the whole calendar is 1.3 points.
