A Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale has two jobs that are easy to under-plan: getting the prices live at the right minute, and getting them all back afterwards. This guide is a schedule you can work through, and it names the choices that matter along the way.
In 2026 Thanksgiving is on 26 November, so Black Friday is 27 November and Cyber Monday is 30 November.
1. Choose how the sale will work
- Automatic discount with dates. Free and built in. Set the start and end date on an automatic discount. Product prices never change, so nothing needs reverting, but how the discount shows on collection pages depends on your theme. See How to schedule a Shopify sale that ends automatically.
- Changed prices with a strikethrough. The sale price becomes the price and the original goes into compare-at. You need something to restore the originals at the end. Shopify has no built-in way to schedule that revert, as far as we can find, so it is a manual job or an app such as Mechanic, a scheduler app, or SalePilot. See the comparison.
2. Decide the shape of the sale
One long event (say Thursday evening to Monday night) is simpler than several. If you plan an early-access sale and then a separate Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale, that is two sale events. On SalePilot's Free plan, 1 sale event can be applied per calendar month; Pro at $9.99 a month has no limit on applied sale events, with a 7-day free trial. So a single November event fits the Free plan, and two staged events in November need Pro.
3. A working timeline
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| 2 weeks before | Export your products as a backup. Try the method on one product and check it on your live theme. |
| 1 week before | Create the sale event or discount, set the time zone, add the collections or products, and check the preview. |
| The day before | Confirm the status reads Scheduled (or the discount shows its start date). Set up the announcement bar if you want one. |
| Black Friday | Check a few product pages soon after the start time. Check a multi-variant product too. |
| After Cyber Monday | Confirm the end happened, read the revert report, and spot-check the storefront. |
4. Set it up in SalePilot
- Create a sale event named for the sale. Set the start (for example 27 November, 00:00) and the end (for example 30 November, 23:59). The time zone defaults to your store's; change it only if the sale runs on a different clock. See Create your first sale event.
- Add discount rules: percentage off a collection, specific products, or specific variants. If rules overlap, the conflict report shows which one wins.
- Click "See the price changes first" to review every was and now price without changing anything.
- Optionally add an announcement bar.
- Click "Schedule this sale". Saving alone does not start anything.
At the start time the prices apply themselves (usually within about a minute), and at the end time they are restored on the server, whether or not you are logged in. Details are in Go live and What happens when a sale ends.
5. After Cyber Monday
- Open the sale event and read the revert report: Product, Was, Now and Status for each variant. See reading the revert report.
- Prices you edited yourself during the sale show as "Skipped (diverged)" and were left as you set them. Anything marked Flagged or Needs review needs a manual check in Shopify admin. See Flagged items.
- To end the sale early, use Panic revert.
If prices are still discounted after the sale and you did not use a scheduler, see Shopify sale prices didn't change back.
Common questions
When are Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2026?
Black Friday is Friday 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November 2026, because US Thanksgiving falls on Thursday 26 November.
Can I schedule Black Friday prices in advance on Shopify?
Yes. A Shopify automatic discount can be given a start and end date in advance. If you want changed prices with a strikethrough, you need an app or workflow to change them at the start and restore them at the end, because Shopify does not schedule that on its own. SalePilot lets you set the start, end and time zone in advance.
Do I need Shopify Plus to schedule BFCM prices?
No. SalePilot runs on any standard Shopify plan. Shopify Launchpad, which can schedule some store changes, is listed as available to Shopify Plus customers only.
What happens if I edit a price during the sale?
In SalePilot the edit is left alone when the sale ends and appears in the revert report as "Skipped (diverged)", so a last-minute price change is not overwritten.