Prime Big Deal Days: The Numbers to Beat

Amazon has not announced the dates. Here is what our top pick in each category costs today, so you have a baseline.

Mira ChandraAI analystSep 5, 2026Updated Sep 21, 20263 min · 805 words · no filler

A laptop and a red gift box on a dark surface, shot from above. — Photo: Kaboompics.com / Pexels

Reading mode

If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. It never affects our verdicts or scores — how that works. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Update, 21 September 2026. The robot vacuum and TV shortlists were re-read on 21 September. The Roborock Saros 20’s average fell from 9.0 to 8.5, so the highest-scoring priced robot vacuum is now the Roborock Qrevo Curv, at 8.6 and $849.99, and that row has changed. The Samsung S90F’s average rose from 9.3 to 9.7; it stays the TV row. The Hisense U8N now averages above the U8QG that replaced it, so newer models scored higher in one of four comparable cases, not two.

Amazon has not said when this year’s autumn sale runs. Every October date circulating on retail sites traces back to unsourced reports rather than to Amazon, so this page carries none. What it carries instead is the price of our top pick in each category today, before anything is discounted.

That is the only number a percentage can honestly be measured against, and it has to be written down before the event rather than during it.

The list, priced today

Category	Our highest-scoring pick	Score	Price today	Read from
Ereaders	Kobo Clara Colour	8.7	$179.99	kobo.com
Gaming Handhelds	Valve Steam Deck OLED	8.7	$789	store.steampowered.com
Headphones	Sony WH-1000XM6	9.0	$449.99	soundguys.com
Laptops	Apple MacBook Neo	9.0	$699	apple.com
Portable Speakers	JBL Charge 6	9.3	$199.95	jbl.com
Robot Vacuums	Roborock Qrevo Curv	8.6	$849.99	us.roborock.com
Smartwatches	Apple Watch Ultra 3	9.0	$799	apple.com
Soundbars	Sonos Arc Ultra	9.3	$1,099	sonos.com
Tablets	OnePlus Pad Go 2	8.3	$399.99	techradar.com
TVs	Samsung S90F OLED	9.7	$2,499.99	samsung.com
Wireless Earbuds	Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen)	9.7	$249	bose.com

Scores are averaged published outlet scores normalised to ten. Prices were read on the dates recorded against each product and come from the seller’s own page, except two marked as coming from a review because no first-party figure could be cited. No Amazon price appears anywhere on this page — the Associates programme permits showing them only through Amazon’s own API, so we do not.

What actually moves in October, and what does not

The autumn event is a membership sale whose main purpose is to shift Amazon’s own inventory ahead of November. That framing predicts the discount pattern better than any category list.

Amazon’s own devices and its own labels are the things that genuinely bottom out in the autumn. Amazon controls the margin on those, so it can go as deep as it likes. Third-party hardware participates at the seller’s discretion, and televisions, laptops and large appliances discount harder in late November because manufacturers fund those promotions.

Which means the useful thing to do with this table is not to wait for all of it to fall. It is to know which single number would make each row worth buying, so that when one of them does move you can tell in a second whether it moved enough.

Three checks that outlast any sale

Check the price against this table, not against the banner. A percentage is calculated from whatever the current list price happens to be, and our ereader shortlist found every device on it now listing above its own launch price. The baseline drifts upward; the discount is measured from the drift.

Check whether it is last year’s model. Sometimes that is the bargain and sometimes it is not: we audited every superseded pick on this site and found the newer model scored higher in only one of four comparable cases, while four of six cost more.

Check the return window before you check out. A gift bought in the sale and opened at Christmas is outside Apple’s window and Best Buy’s, and the dates are not close.

What to actually do with the four weeks before it

Decide now, buy later. Pick the row you want while nothing is discounted. Deciding in a sale is the sequence retailers design for.
Write the number down. The price column above is the whole point of this page. A deal is a number below it.
Ignore any countdown clock to a date Amazon has not announced. A retailer inventing a deadline is running the pattern our guide to spotting a fake discount describes.
Come back when the dates are real. This page will carry them the day Amazon publishes them, and not before.

How we researched this

No one at bitcritiq has handled this product. Everything here comes from published sources, listed below.

What this cannot tell you: This is not a deal list and it does not predict a single discount. It cannot tell you whether any of these will be reduced in October, and several of them almost certainly will not — our reading of the autumn event is that it moves Amazon's own devices and its own labels, not third-party hardware. Two prices in the table come from a review rather than a seller because no first-party figure could be cited, and they are marked. Prices move; each carries the date it was read, and a figure more than a few weeks old should be re-checked rather than trusted.

How we chose this, and what we did

Why this subject: Amazon runs a members-only sale in October, and by early September every retail site is already printing dates for it. The dates are a guess. What is not a guess is what things cost right now, before any of it starts, which is the only baseline a discount can be measured against. Building that list in September and checking it in October is the sequence that works; browsing a sale and deciding afterwards is the sequence the sale is designed for.
How we looked at it: One row per shortlist we hold: the highest-scoring pick that carries three or more published outlet scores and a price we can cite. Every price is read from the seller's own page, and where the only citable figure came from a review rather than a seller the table says so in its source column. No Amazon price appears anywhere on this page, deliberately. Scores are averaged published outlet scores normalised to ten, set out in full on each shortlist.

What this rests on

4 claims, 2 official and 2 corroborated. Nothing here was measured by bitcritiq — see how we test for why. Open a claim to read the source it came from.

As of 5 September 2026 Amazon had not announced dates for this year's autumn sale.Official
Amazon's own newsroom page covering the event carries the summer Prime Day and no confirmed autumn dates. Every October window circulating on retail sites traces to unsourced reports rather than to Amazon.
This page quotes no Amazon price for any product, by policy.Official
The Amazon Associates Program Policies permit showing prices only where Amazon serves them or they come through its API, so every figure here is read from the seller's own page instead.
Eleven of our shortlists carry a top pick with three published outlet scores and a citable price.Corroborated
One row per shortlist, computed from the consensus blocks and product records published on this site on 5 September 2026.
A discount is only meaningful against a price recorded before the sale began.Corroborated
Our audit of superseded picks found four of six successors cost more than the model they replace, and our ereader shortlist found every device on it listing above its own launch price. A percentage is measured against whatever the current list happens to be.