Black Friday sale? See if it pays.
A sale brings in new members, and gives the discount to everyone who'd have joined anyway. See how many extra signups your sale needs to come out ahead.
A sale pays for new people only.
Every Black Friday sale has two kinds of buyer. One is the reason to run it. The other is what it costs.
Buyers you'd never have had
What you gain
People who only join because of the deal. They pay the sale price, then full price if they stay. Discount hunters tend to leave sooner than your average member, so each one is worth less than a normal signup, but more than nothing.
Buyers you'd have had anyway
What it costs
Everyone who'd have joined that week, plus the ones the sale pulls forward from December. They'd have paid full price. Now they pay the sale price for as long as the discount lasts, and some leave when it ends.
The rule of thumb
Take a sale that doubles your signups for four days. At least half the buyers would have joined anyway, more if some of the extras were coming soon regardless, so at least half of what the discount gives away goes to people you’d have had at full price. The sale pays when:
what the new buyers pay > the discount on everyone else
The deeper and longer the discount, the more each would-have-joined-anyway buyer costs, and the more new ones you need to cover them. That's why the simulator leads with the signup lift you need: it's the one number you can count on the day.
+13%
New signups on Cyber Monday 2024 against a typical November day, across subscription businesses, sale or not. It was +38.5% in 2022.
Recurly, 2,000+ businesses40%
The average Black Friday discount among software sellers, for a 3.5% lift in sales value.
Paddle, 2,000+ sellers, 202157%
Of subscription apps made less in Black Friday week 2025 than in a normal October week.
Adapty, 2026Those are software and app numbers, not membership ones, and they average over businesses that ran a sale and ones that didn't. Nobody publishes the lift a membership sale gets, so the simulator asks for your guess and shows the lift you'd need.
Run a sale that pays.
Aim the discount at people who weren't going to join, and keep it from leaking to the ones who were. Here's how to set that up on your Webflow site.
See how coupons work in Memberstack. Thinking about a discounted annual plan instead? Try the annual plan simulator. Wondering how many members a jump to full price costs? The price change simulator works through the same kind of shock.
What this model leaves out.
It's built to answer one question clearly. Here's where that clarity costs accuracy.
The lift is a guess
How many more people sign up decides everything, and you only find out on the day. Treat the break-even as the real output: it's the lift your sale has to beat, and you can count signups against it as they come in.
Pulled forward, at the same time
Buyers who'd have joined a few weeks later are counted as joining in the sale month either way. In reality you'd have had their full price a little later, so the sale looks very slightly better than shown.
Anyway buyers churn as usual
People who'd have joined anyway are assumed to cancel at your average rate, and only the new buyers as discount hunters. If your regulars also behave differently on a discount, change the guesses to match.
No costs, fees or refunds
The cost of running the sale, payment fees and refunds aren't counted, and nor are sale buyers who leave and come back later at full price. Each one can move the answer, so leave room.
Questions about Black Friday sales
How the simulator works, where the numbers come from, and what happens to the numbers you type in.
Only if it brings in enough people who'd never have joined at full price. Everyone who'd have joined that week anyway, or a few weeks later, gets the discount too, and that's the cost you can't see on the day. The free Black Friday Discount Simulator works out the signup lift your sale needs to pay, from your price, churn and normal signups. At the simulator's starting guesses, a 40% discount for a year on a $20 membership with 7% monthly churn needs a bit over twice its normal signups in the sale window to come out ahead over two years.
Most subscription businesses go deep. Paddle's 2,000+ software sellers averaged 40% off on Black Friday 2021, and Adapty reports 50% off the first year as the most common subscription app offer in 2025, in a range of 20% to 90%. Deeper isn't automatically better: every point off goes to the people who'd have paid full price too, and a bigger jump back to full price loses more members when it comes. Pick the discount from the lift you can realistically get, not from what everyone else runs, and keep it under the biggest discount that still pays at that lift.
The longer it lasts, the more it costs on the members who'd have paid full price anyway, because they pay the sale price for longer. A forever discount never steps up, so nobody leaves over a price jump, but it gives up the full price for good. A first-month discount is cheap, but the step-up comes almost at once. A first year is the common middle. The simulator shows the trade at each length for your own numbers.
Somewhat, by the published numbers, though not as dramatically as the reputation suggests. In Recharge's data on about 29.8 million subscriptions to physical products, 65% of full-price subscribers renewed past their first rebill against 61% of those who got 40–60% off their first order, and 53.4% of those who got 90% off or more. Paddle (ProfitWell) found lifetime value about 32% lower at software companies that discount aggressively than at ones that don't. Neither is membership data, so the simulator takes how fast sale buyers cancel as a guess you can change, starting at one and a half times your average.
Less than you might expect across subscription businesses as a whole. Recurly, which bills more than 2,000 subscription businesses, reported new signups on Cyber Monday 38.5% above a typical November day in 2022, 19% in 2023 and 13% in 2024. That's every merchant, sale or not, on one day, so a business that runs a strong sale should see more. Adapty found 57% of subscription apps made less in Black Friday week 2025 than in a normal October week. The lift is the number your sale depends on, so measure it against an ordinary week of your own.
Someone who buys in the sale but would have joined at full price a few weeks later anyway. The sale doesn't win them; it just moves them earlier and gives them the discount. They show up as extra signups on the day, which makes a sale look better than it is, and you often see the gap as a quieter December. The simulator counts them with the people who'd have joined that week anyway.
They answer different questions. A sale is a one-off push that discounts everyone who buys in a short window. A free trial runs all year and lowers the barrier to trying. An annual plan trades a discount for a year's commitment. If the goal is cash up front from members who already like you, a Black Friday discount on the annual plan rewards commitment rather than just arrival. Memberstack has free simulators for free trials and annual plans too.
Built by the team at Memberstack, where over 10,000 businesses run their memberships.