Free calculator · BFCM 2026

What will your BFCM offer cost, and how many more orders does it need?

Pick the offer you're planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday: a percent off, free shipping, a gift with purchase or a spend-and-save tier. Add your AOV and gross margin. It shows what the offer costs you per order and across the weekend, the lift in orders it needs to break even, what's left once you pay peak-season ad prices, and how a non-price incentive stacks up against it.

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By Taylor Sicard · fifteen years scaling consumer brands · a record weekend can still lose money
WHAT A BFCM OFFER COSTS, AND THE LIFT IT NEEDS

Every offer gives away part of the gross profit on each order. To come out even, you need enough extra orders to replace it: the order lift required is your gross profit per order divided by what's left after the offer, minus one. At an $80 AOV and 60% margin, 20% off needs 50% more orders just to stand still.

  • Gross profit per order = AOV x gross margin. Cost of goods doesn't move when the price does, so the whole discount comes out of profit.
  • Cost per order by offer: percent off = AOV x discount. Free shipping = the shipping you'd have charged x the share of orders that paid it. Gift with purchase = the gift's landed cost. Spend-and-save = the reward x the share of orders that qualify.
  • Break-even order lift = gross profit per order / (gross profit per order - offer cost) - 1. If the offer costs as much as the order earns, no lift pays for it.
  • Peak ad prices: subtract ad cost per order from both sides and run the same formula. The thinner the margin after ads, the steeper the lift.
  • Store credit for the next order costs only the product cost of what gets redeemed: credit x redemption rate x (1 - gross margin).
  • A spend-and-save tier pays for itself when a qualifying basket grows by the reward divided by your margin.
  • Common mistake: judging the weekend on revenue. A sale can set a revenue record and still leave less gross profit than a normal week at full price.
Worked example. $80 AOV, 60% gross margin, so $48 of gross profit per order. 20% off costs $16 an order and leaves $32, so orders have to rise 48 / 32 = 1.5x, a 50% lift. Add $25 of ad cost per order and the margin after ads drops from $23 to $7: now orders have to rise about 229%. A $10 gift with purchase needs a 26% lift on gross profit, and $20 of next-order credit redeemed by 30% of buyers costs $2.40 an order and needs about 5%.
Source: Taylor Sicard, Taylor Sicard Consulting · Benchmarks reviewed October 2026 · Method and evidence: Should you discount on Black Friday? and What to offer instead of a discount
The method behind the number
Why the deepest discount of the year meets the priciest ads of the year.
Consumer Commerce
Should you discount on Black Friday?
Peak ad prices, what Black Friday buyers do afterwards, and the cohort test to run before you match last year's offer.
Read post →
Consumer Commerce
What to offer instead of a discount
Store credit, second-order rewards, spend thresholds and gifts, mapped to the customer behaviour each one changes.
Read post →
The Index
BFCM Discount Tracker 2026
Which DTC brands are discounting this BFCM, how deep, measured against each brand's own October.
See the tracker →
Consumer Commerce
The BFCM operating playbook
The rest of peak season: inventory, fulfilment, site load and the team, so the offer isn't the only thing you planned.
Read post →
Method

How the offer cost and the break-even lift are calculated

Each order earns AOV times gross margin in gross profit. An offer takes a fixed amount out of that, and your cost of goods stays where it was. Percent off removes the discount share of the price. Free shipping costs the shipping you would have charged, but only on the orders that were paying it. A gift costs its landed cost. A spend-and-save tier costs the reward on the orders that reach the threshold. Whatever is left is what each order earns during the sale, and the order lift you need is the ratio of the two, minus one. Multiply the per-order cost by the orders you'd expect over the weekend and you get the gross profit the offer gives away if it brings in nothing extra.

My view: BFCM pairs the most expensive week of the year to acquire a customer with the biggest discount of the year, and the buyers it brings in are mostly shopping for the number. Ads cost the most that week. Lebesgue's 2025 Meta data put CPMs 59% above September in Black Friday week, though conversion rose enough that cost per purchase fell 20%. Then look at what the order turns into: across Ometria's retail clients, only 4% of Black Friday 2024 new customers bought again within a year. That's why the tool subtracts ad cost per order and runs the break-even again. Some brands still have to play, because their category trained shoppers to wait. For them the job is a small, structured offer, and a gift or credit toward the next order usually costs far less per order than a cut to the price.

Lift needed under 15%Realistic for a well-timed offer to a list that already knows you. Still judge it on gross profit, not revenue.
15 to 40% lift neededA stretch. Revenue can grow this much over the weekend and still fall short on gross profit. Try a non-price incentive first.
Over 40%, or margin goneThe offer eats most of what an order earns. You'd need a much bigger weekend just to stand still.

Before you set the offer, see how deep other DTC brands are going in the BFCM Discount Tracker. If you'd rather not lead with price at all, the free-shipping threshold calculator finds a threshold that raises cart size, and the conversion vs margin calculator runs the same math on a permanent price change. Your inputs carry from tool to tool across the full set of free DTC calculators.

Questions

Common questions

How do I calculate the cost of a Black Friday discount?
Multiply your AOV by the discount to get the gross profit each order gives up, then multiply by the orders you expect over the weekend. Cost of goods stays the same when the price drops, so every dollar of discount comes straight out of gross profit. At an $80 AOV, 20% off costs $16 an order, which is a third of the $48 a 60% margin order earns.
How many more orders does a BFCM discount need to break even?
Divide gross profit per order by what's left after the offer, then subtract one. At a 60% margin, 20% off leaves 40 points of margin, so you need 60 / 40 = 1.5 times the orders, a 50% lift. At a 40% margin the same 20% off needs twice the orders, and at 20% off on a 20% margin no lift pays for it.
Is free shipping cheaper than a percent-off discount?
Usually, because it only costs the shipping you would have charged, and only on the orders that were paying it. If you normally charge $8 and 60% of orders pay it, free shipping costs about $4.80 an order. On an $80 order that's the same as a 6% discount.
Does ad spend change the break-even?
Yes. Ad cost per order comes off the profit before and after the offer, so the margin the discount eats into is smaller. A $48 order with $25 of ad cost keeps $23. Take $16 off the price and it keeps $7, so you need over three times the orders to come out even.
What can I offer for Black Friday instead of a discount?
A gift with purchase, early access for your list, a spend threshold set above your AOV, or credit toward the next order with an expiry date. Credit is the cheapest per order, because you give it at retail value but it costs you only the product cost, and only when it's redeemed. It also gives the customer a reason to place a second order.
Should every brand skip BFCM discounts?
No. If your category has trained shoppers to wait for Black Friday, sitting it out can cost you the biggest traffic week of the year. For those brands a discount is a necessary evil: keep it small, structured, and pointed at the second order, and check last year's Black Friday buyers to see how many have bought at full price since.