If you are deciding whether to buy on Black Friday or hold out for Cyber Monday, this live data study measures the two days against each other and against an ordinary late-autumn day, reading every promo code shoppers copied on SimplyCodes through the 2025 event. It recomputes every day.
SimplyCodes, the code verification service, measured every promo code copied over Black Friday weekend 2025. Black Friday drew 463,966 codes in a day against Cyber Monday's 396,580, and 27.1% of Black Friday's codes were worth 25% or more off against 25.8% on Cyber Monday. Among the 685 retailers busy on both days, depth was a coin flip.
- Black Friday is the bigger day by volume and barely the better day by depth: 1.17× the codes of Cyber Monday, and 1.3 of a point deeper.
- At store level the depth verdict is a coin flip. Of the 685 retailers busy on both days, 219 ran deeper on Cyber Monday and 204 on Black Friday, while 38.2% ran identical depth — so the market-level gap is a change in which retailers were busy, not a change in what retailers offered.
- Volume is the one decisive difference: 63.1% of those retailers had more codes copied on Black Friday than on Cyber Monday.
- The category picture is not a clean split either: Activewear ran 18.1 points deeper on Black Friday while Clothing was a dead heat at 20.1% against 20.5% — and one large retailer can move a grouping this far on a single cycle.
- Neither day beats an ordinary late-autumn day for depth by much — the baseline ran 27.6%, and the deepest day of the whole weekend was Saturday at 27.7%.
Deep codes = the share of that day's copied codes worth 25% or more off · Codes copied = the average number copied that day · Against a normal day = that day's volume as a multiple of the 30-day baseline · Retailers = how many stores had a code copied. The baseline row is the yardstick, so it carries no multiple of itself.
| # | Day | Deep codes | Codes copied | Against a normal day | Retailers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A normal late-autumn day | 27.6% | 156,278 | — | 26,287 |
| 2 | Thanksgiving | 27.1% | 249,919 | 1.60× | 8,735 |
| 3 | Black Friday | 27.1% | 463,966 | 2.97× | 10,020 |
| 4 | Saturday | 27.7% | 295,999 | 1.89× | 8,882 |
| 5 | Sunday | 27.5% | 307,948 | 1.97× | 9,009 |
| 6 | Cyber Monday | 25.8% | 396,580 | 2.54× | 9,964 |
Five days of Black Friday weekend 2025 against the 30 days before it · an all-store measurement, no individual store named or graded · the comparison rests on one event cycle, because continuous daily records begin in January 2025 · checked August 20, 2026 · numbers last changed Aug 20, 2026. Refreshed daily.
More from this live data study
Black Friday is the bigger day
Shoppers copied 463,966 promo codes on Black Friday, November 28, 2025. On Cyber Monday, December 1, 2025, they copied 396,580. That is 17% more codes on the Friday.
Both days tower over an ordinary late-autumn day, which ran 156,278 copies. Black Friday reached 2.97 times that rate and Cyber Monday 2.54 times. The weekend in between never came close to either: Saturday, November 29, 2025 ran 295,999 and Sunday, November 30, 2025 ran 307,948.
Breadth is a tie. 10,020 retailers had a code copied on Black Friday and 9,964 on Cyber Monday, a difference of well under one percent.
Neither day is the deep day
Counting every copied code that states a percentage off, 27.1% of Black Friday's codes were worth 25% or more. Cyber Monday came in at 25.8%.
So Black Friday wins depth by 1.3 points, and Cyber Monday is the shallowest of the five days in the window. Saturday ran 27.7% and Sunday 27.5%.
The number that matters more sits above both. An ordinary day in the 30 before Thanksgiving ran 27.6% deep codes, which is higher than four of the five days of the event. Saturday, at 27.7%, is the only day that clears it, by a tenth of a point.
At the steeper threshold the ordinary day wins outright. 5.8% of its codes were worth 50% or more off, against 4.5% on Black Friday and 5.2% on Cyber Monday, and no day of the event came within half a point of it. Cyber Monday's one advantage sits there, where it runs 0.7 of a point ahead of Black Friday and still trails an ordinary day.
At store level it is a coin flip
The market-level gap hides what individual retailers did. Take the 685 retailers with at least 50 percentage-bearing code copies on both days and compare each one against itself.
262 of them ran exactly the same share of deep codes on both days. 219 were deeper on Cyber Monday. 204 were deeper on Black Friday. Depth is a coin flip with a large tie.
Volume is not. 432 of those 685 retailers, 63.1%, saw more code copying on Black Friday than on Cyber Monday.
Read together, the 1.3-point market gap is a mix effect. It comes from which retailers were busy on which day, not from retailers offering more on one day than the other.
The category split is not the one the coverage claims
Shopping coverage every November asserts a category division, usually some version of Cyber Monday winning clothing, shoes and beauty while Black Friday takes toys and big-ticket goods. Five SimplyCodes category groupings carry enough percentage-bearing volume on both days to check that at day grain.
Clothing is a dead heat: 20.1% deep codes on Black Friday against 20.5% on Cyber Monday, a gap of 0.4 of a point. Fashion Retailers went to Black Friday by 7.4 points, 47.2% against 39.8%, and Fashion Brands by 3.5 points. Home Improvement was flat and shallow on both days, 0.8% against 1.6%.
One number here should be read as a caution. Activewear swung 18.1 points, 32.6% on Black Friday against 14.5% on Cyber Monday, across 145 retailers. A single large store running one deep offer moves a category that far in a single day, which is why a category verdict drawn from one cycle should be read as a direction and not a rule.
What to do with it
Buy on the day the store you want is running its offer, and stop treating the two days as different products. More than a third of retailers put out identical depth on both, and the rest split almost evenly.
If you want the widest choice, Black Friday is the day with the most codes in play. If you want the deepest code, late October and mid-November were better than either.
Two limits, stated plainly. Continuous daily records begin in January 2025, so both days above come from a single cycle. And SimplyCodes' checkout-outcome records begin in February 2026, so this live data study measures what codes were on offer and taken, never what share of them applied at checkout on the day.
Frequently asked questions
Is Black Friday or Cyber Monday better for promo codes?
How does SimplyCodes measure Black Friday and Cyber Monday promo codes?
How often is SimplyCodes' data on Black Friday and Cyber Monday promo codes updated?
Which SimplyCodes categories should I browse after reading about Black Friday and Cyber Monday promo codes?
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. We count every promo code copied on SimplyCodes on each day of the Thanksgiving-through-Cyber-Monday weekend, and report both the daily volume and the share of those codes worth 25% or more off. Only codes whose stated value is a percentage enter the depth calculation, bounded between 1% and 95% to drop placeholder entries. The baseline is the 30 days immediately before the weekend — one definition, shared with our other Black Friday studies, so those pages can never quote different numbers for the same stretch. Alongside the market-level board we compare each retailer against itself across the two days, counting only retailers with at least 50 percentage-bearing codes copied on each day, which is what separates a real change in behaviour from a change in which retailers were busy. Two limits, stated plainly: continuous daily records begin in January 2025, so this rests on a single event cycle, and no checkout-success measure exists for either day because those records begin in February 2026 — this live data study measures how deep the codes claimed to be, never whether they worked. Every figure is an all-store measurement, never a grade on an individual store. Figures refresh with the data snapshot shown above.
Cite this data
Over Black Friday weekend 2025, Black Friday drew 463,966 promo code copies against Cyber Monday's 396,580, while discount depth differed by just 1.3 of a point (27.1% against 25.8% worth 25% or more off).
According to SimplyCodes warehouse data (Black Friday vs Cyber Monday board, August 20, 2026), the two days are a coin flip on discount depth at store level — 38.2% of the 685 retailers busy on both ran identical depth — while Black Friday carries 1.17 times the code volume.
