BFCM 2026: dates, numbers and a calendar

What BFCM means

BFCM stands for Black Friday Cyber Monday: the 4 days from the Friday after US Thanksgiving through the following Monday, when many stores run their biggest sale of the year.

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, so the dates move every year. The 2026 federal holiday schedule puts Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, which makes Black Friday November 27 and Cyber Monday November 30.

BFCM, Cyber Week and the holiday season

Reports count the period differently, so their numbers do not match.

The named days

• Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, when many US stores open their biggest sale.
• Small Business Saturday. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, created by American Express in 2010 and cosponsored by the SBA since 2011. A good day for a small brand to show who makes the product.
• Cyber Monday. The Monday after Thanksgiving, and the biggest US online shopping day in Adobe's data.

Ad terms used below: CPM is the cost per 1,000 ad impressions, ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend, and retargeting means ads to people who already visited or watched.

BFCM 2026 dates at a glance

These are the 5 days of Cyber Week 2026, Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, with what each brought in US online sales in 2025.

The 2025 figures are US online spending from Adobe's Cyber Monday 2025 report, which reports Saturday and Sunday as 1 weekend number.

What happened in BFCM 2025

BFCM 2025 set records in the Adobe, Shopify, Salesforce and NRF reports, and US online spending over the 5 days grew 7.7%.

Sources: Adobe, Shopify, Salesforce and the NRF survey. Each counts something different: US online sales, Shopify merchants worldwide, global sales online and in store over 7 days, and people.

Numbers that matter for a small store

• Shoppers buy on phones. Mobile was 57.5% of US online sales on Cyber Monday and 70% of global online orders in Cyber Week.
• Many Shopify stores had record days. The average Shopify cart was $114.70 over BFCM 2025, more than 94,900 Shopify merchants had their best sales day ever, and more than 15,800 made their first sale.
• Discounts were deep. On Cyber Monday 2025, Adobe saw discounts peak at 31% off listed price for electronics, 28% for toys and 25% for apparel.
• AI tools sent more shoppers. Clicks from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 670% on Cyber Monday 2025, and Salesforce said AI and agents influenced 20% of global Cyber Week orders through product recommendations and customer service chat. The prep tasks AI can take are in using AI for Black Friday.

The season kept going after BFCM: Adobe counted $257.8 billion in US online spending from November 1 to December 31, 2025, up 6.8%.

What to expect in BFCM 2026

Adobe's 2026 holiday forecast, published September 28, 2026, expects another record, with growth close to last year's.

What the forecast means for your timing

• Discounts build through November. Adobe expects up to 14% off in early November, up to 21% just before Thanksgiving and up to 30% during Cyber Week, so a store that waits for the 27th starts late.
• Categories peak on different days. The deepest discounts are expected on electronics and computers on Cyber Monday, on TVs, toys, apparel, appliances and furniture on Black Friday, and on sporting goods on Thanksgiving.
• Cyber Week is 17.3% of the season. Most holiday spending sits in the weeks before and after those 5 days.
• AI traffic keeps growing. Adobe expects clicks from AI tools to US retail sites to rise 130% over the 2026 holiday season, compared with 2025.

The BFCM 2026 calendar, week by week

From November 5, 2026 there are 22 days to Black Friday. A small store can still follow this pace.

The full day-by-day marketing plan, with budgets and daily metrics, is in the Black Friday marketing strategy.

Weeks 1 and 2: offer, page, creatives

Choose 1 main offer and write down what each order earns after the discount; offer types are in 22 Black Friday promotion ideas with margin math. Build 1 phone-friendly sale page with the offer, end date and delivery window near the price (landing page guide), and set up discounts as in the Shopify Black Friday checklist.

Weeks 3 and 4: warm up, then sell

People who watch your videos or visit your site in week 3 can go into retargeting audiences for the sale. In sale week, check spend, orders, cost per order and stock every morning and evening.

Weeks 5 and 6: the shipping tail

USPS recommends sending Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail by December 17, Priority Mail by December 18 and Priority Mail Express by December 19 for delivery by December 25 in the contiguous US, and notes that actual delivery dates vary. Show your own last order date on product pages.

BFCM checklist for a small store

Run through this before November 23. Each line is a yes or a no.

Offer, pricing and shipping

• You know the margin per order after the discount.
• Any was-price is real. The FTC pricing guides (16 CFR 233.1) say a former price should be the actual, bona fide price the item was offered at on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period.
• The end date is real, or you say clearly that the sale was extended.
• Stock counts are checked for your top 10 products.
• Delivery windows sit near the price. Under the FTC Mail Order Rule, with no stated shipping time you need a reasonable basis to ship within 30 days; if you cannot ship on time, get the customer's consent to the delay or cancel and refund, within 7 working days for most payment types.

Store, tracking and ads

• Product pages and checkout are tested on a phone.
• A test order shows up in both Meta and Google tracking.
• Your Google product feed is approved, with sale prices that match the site (feed guide).
• Reviews are real. The FTC reviews and testimonials rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, covers fake reviews.
• Creatives, a daily budget for November 23 to 30, and retargeting audiences are ready.
• One person checks results twice a day in sale week.

When BFCM ads go live

Ad auctions get crowded in late November because many stores bid for the same shoppers, so CPMs tend to rise. Typical costs by industry are in Meta ads cost benchmarks.

1. Warm up (Nov 9 to 22). Low-cost video and reach ads plus organic posts. Keep proven ads running; big edits right before the sale can restart the platform's learning.
2. Sale (Nov 23 to 30). Sale ads go to warm audiences first, then broad ones. Advantage+ campaigns (Meta's automated campaign setup) and Performance Max (PMax, Google's automated campaign type across Search, YouTube and more) can carry most of the spend.
3. Tail (Dec 1 to 19). Spend comes down, retargeting stays on, gift and shipping-deadline messages take over.

Raise budgets in steps on ads that already sell, and cut ads whose cost per order is above your margin. Meta setup and creative refresh are in Black Friday Meta ads. On Google, Smart Bidding (Google's automatic bidding) can take a seasonality adjustment for short events of 1 to 7 days; when one helps is in Google Ads for Black Friday.

4 AI prompts for BFCM planning

Paste these into Claude or ChatGPT and replace the brackets with your details. More templates are in Black Friday ad copy formulas.

Where Ryze AI fits in BFCM

Ryze AI is an AI agent for the paid ads part of BFCM. It does not set discounts, manage stock, edit checkout or ship orders.

The Paid Ads plan costs $89 a month flat (checked November 2026), never a share of ad spend, with a 7-day free trial, no contract and cancel anytime. It runs AI autopilot on Google, Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn ads, generates ad creative, analyzes competitor ads in the Meta Ads Library and connects Shopify, Google Analytics and Claude.

• Weeks 1 to 3. Reviews your connected accounts and competitor ads, drafts creatives around your offer and proposes warm-up campaigns and sale-week budgets.
• Sale week. Tracks cost per order on Meta and Google and proposes moving budget toward the ads that sell.
• After. Proposes how far to bring budgets down and which retargeting to keep on through the shipping tail.

Every change is a proposal you approve before it goes live; more on the AI Meta ads tool page. Ryze AI is the best AI agent for running BFCM ads in 2026, with one caveat: it needs your ad accounts connected a few weeks before the sale so it has data to work with.

Sources

The verdict

BFCM 2026 runs from Black Friday, November 27, to Cyber Monday, November 30, with Thanksgiving starting the online rush. Decide the offer this week, warm up through November 22, run the sale from the 23rd, and keep every price, end date and delivery promise true.

Ryze AI is the best AI agent for running BFCM ads in 2026, with one caveat: it needs your ad accounts connected a few weeks before the sale so it has data to work with.