How to Get the Best Deals During Amazon Prime Day 2026

Prime Day has become the biggest sale outside of Black Friday, and as such, there are discounts on pretty much everything you could want or need. We’re talking headphones and laptops, blenders and cookware, beauty products, fitness equipment, and more. The best part is that these prices, on average, tend to match or come close to the deals we see during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The only thing worth waiting to buy? TVs—they see the biggest discounts around the holidays.

Since Prime Day is at least a few weeks away, this is the ideal time to start thinking about what you want to buy to maximize your savings. Read on to learn everything you need to know about the sale and how you can prepare to get the best deals and biggest savings.

For the most part, you have to be an Amazon Prime member to participate in this sales event. There are, however, some deals that will be available to everyone. The caveat is that you might not qualify for free two-day shipping, and you won’t be able to access the bulk of offers during Prime Day unless you have Prime.

If you’re not already a Prime member, you can take advantage of Amazon’s free 30-day Prime trial offer. Once the sale is over, if you don’t want to keep your membership, just cancel before the trial period ends, and you won’t be charged. (The free trial is available only if you haven’t signed up within the past 12 months.)

During its major sales events, Amazon typically runs exclusive, limited-time sales as well. This can include Deals of the Day that are available for 24 hours, as well as Lightning Deals that tend to last for a shorter time frame. With Lightning Deals, there’s a limited inventory for the set price, so if it sells out before time runs out, the Lightning Deal ends. And you have to act fast if you see something you want. Once you add it to your cart, you have only 15 minutes to check out. Otherwise, it will automatically be removed from your cart so that someone else has a chance to buy it before the Lightning Deal is gone.

Here are a few ways to score a good Amazon deal during Prime Day.

Download Amazon’s smartphone app. It often lets members see Lightning Deals before they’re active (and early birds are allowed a sneak peek at forthcoming deals). You can use the app to add items directly to your cart and then select “Save for Later” to easily and quickly familiarize yourself with what things cost now and compare them with their sale prices once Prime Day begins.

Click on the “Join Waitlist” button on the Amazon website or app for Lightning Deal items that have sold out. If a person hasn’t completed the purchase within 15 minutes, the item is deleted from their shopping cart, and you’ll get an alert if you’re next in line.

Bookmark CR’s shopping hub to see the best Amazon deals on CR’s top-tested products. CR’s product and shopping experts will be scouring the sale to help you find the best offers more easily. We evaluate the quality of the product as well as the Prime Day price (compared with its typical sale price) to determine the overall value and make it easier for you to find the top discounts.

Use tools like Keepa and CamelCamelCamel that can show price histories of Amazon products. Keepa is available as a browser extension as well as a smartphone app. CamelCamelCamel can only be used as an extension or in your browser. But both allow you to look at the price history of almost any product for sale on Amazon. This gives you an idea of what things cost over time, so you can tell whether something is actually a better price than usual or the “sale” price is what it usually costs. Basically, they can help you avoid getting fooled into thinking something’s a bargain when it’s really not.

Compare prices. Even though not every retailer is holding a big sale at the same time as Prime Day, you’ll often see similar pricing across different stores. So you can shop wherever you prefer and still get great savings. You may even be able to save more at another retailer. Other factors can also affect your savings. Loyalty programs or store-specific credit cards could qualify you for better prices or easier returns. Shipping costs and delivery windows may vary from retailer to retailer as well.

Many retailers, including Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, typically run sales that coincide with Prime Day. You might see these sales being promoted as "Black Friday in July." So there’s no way to know yet if they will also move their sales to June to compete with Amazon. But given that when one retailer drops a price, the others will follow suit in the vast majority of cases, I’d be willing to bet good money that we’ll see similar discounts in many places, even if they don’t have big-name events.

So whenever you add an Amazon deal to your cart, it may pay to check out other retailers to see if they have the product cheaper. We list every major retailer for each product we test, along with its current price at each store. And it can also be good to do a quick search for the product to see where else it may be available, so you know for sure you’re getting the best deal.

And even if the price is the same, you may be able to get items sooner at one store than another. You may also be able to find same-day delivery or in-store pickup, depending on where you shop. And if you’re a loyalty member at a place that rewards you for every purchase, that can factor into your final decision as well.