// WIRED US/UK — GAMING
A Deal Hunter’s Guide to Amazon Prime Big Deal Days (2026)
Amazon Prime Day events are some of the most confusing shopping occasions in existence: It’s not even a single “day" anymore. Amazon promises “millions of deals”—but the displayed discounts are often misleading, and while it’s advertised as a members-only event, some deals are available to people who don’t subscribe to Prime. Add in the frenzy of limited-time Lightning Deals and you’ve got a perfect recipe for spending too much money on stuff you don't even really want.
Fear not! I've been covering deals for over a decade and am here to help. WIRED’s Reviews team is familiar with common shopping pitfalls, and we closely track the best Prime Big Deal Days prices. What time do sales start and end? How do you tell whether a deal is actually a deal? We pooled our collective expertise to get you prepared for the latest Amazon Prime Day Event, which is technically dubbed “Amazon Prime Big Deal Days” and will be on October 6 and October 7 this year.
Amazon Prime Day has a main sale in the summer and a secondary sale—called Prime Big Deal Days—in the fall. This year, Prime Big Deal Days will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 6 and October 7.
The event kicks off at 3:01 am Eastern time (midnight Pacific) and runs for 48 hours. New deals will drop three times each day of the event, at 3 am, 11 am, and 4 pm ET, with Lightning Deals going live sporadically as well. WIRED will cover the best deals from both Amazon and retailers that have competing sales.
That's the official line: You need to be an Amazon Prime member to shop Amazon Prime Day deals. There is a free 30-day trial available for eligible new accounts. (Prime membership comes with a lot of perks, and we've rounded up all of them here.) The trial will let you get in on the sale—just remember to cancel your membership to avoid any subsequent $15 monthly renewal charges.
However, there are usually plenty of discounts available if you're not a subscriber. Other major retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart typically hold competing sales during Prime Days. The prices are often close to what Amazon is offering on the same products, and sometimes the competing sales match the Prime Day price exactly. This is a good way to save even if you object to shopping on Amazon.
It depends. For some items, Prime-exclusive event prices tend to be among the lowest we see all year. That's especially true for Amazon hardware, like Kindles, Fire tablets, Fire TV sticks, and Echo devices. The kicker is that prices on nearly everything fluctuate throughout the year, and some products are discounted on a frequent basis. Even if the price is good, a deal on a product that goes on sale all the time diminishes the overall quality of that offer.
The sheer volume of deals promoted by Amazon during sales like Prime Day is a blessing and a curse. The truly standout discounts can be difficult to pinpoint—there's so much stuff on sale that just browsing the site can feel overwhelming. But if you're in the market for something specific, there's a good chance the item you want will be discounted. We've seen some fantastic Prime-exclusive discounts in the past, ranging from dirt-cheap Kindles and video doorbells to elusive price drops on gaming consoles and office furniture. The tricky part is finding the diamonds in the rough.
WIRED covers legitimately good deals all year long, including during Prime Day. Our policy is to only cover deals on products someone from our team has personally used and would buy or has bought themselves, to avoid promoting cheap junk. Maybe it'll be a product we've reviewed or an item we use in our day-to-day lives. We also only cover actual deals—if the price isn't lower than it normally is, we don't include it. We aim to provide pricing context as well. Our tips below will help you find those great discounts on your own—in the same ways that we would. No gatekeeping here.
ABC: Always be checking (prices, that is). Researching an item's price is the most importan