Amazon confirmed on September 15 that Prime Big Deal Days will run October 6–7, 2026. For U.S. sellers, the immediate decision comes sooner: Amazon has extended the deal submission deadline to September 22. You have another opportunity to submit eligible promotions, but you still need inventory and margins that can support them.

The official event announcement sets the U.S. start at 12:01 a.m. Pacific on October 6. Treat the confirmed dates as a reason to finish your SKU-level plan, not an instruction to discount your entire catalog.

The submission deadline changed, but check inventory separately

Amazon’s seller announcement extending the deal window names September 22 as the new cutoff. That replaces the September 8 deadline in our earlier breakdown of Amazon’s Q4 deal submissions and inventory cutoffs.

The extension notice still tells sellers to meet the relevant inventory arrival deadlines. It does not announce a corresponding extension for inbound inventory.

Before accepting a deal recommendation, check available units, receiving status, expected delivery dates and the current requirements in your account. A submitted shipment is not the same as inventory available for customers to buy.

If your proposed deal depends on stock that has not been received, model a smaller promotion using units already available. Avoid building your advertising budget around the most optimistic receiving estimate.

An October discount does not automatically lower your Black Friday ceiling

Amazon also confirms that Prime Big Deal Days promotional prices are excluded from the 30-day and 60-day lookback windows used to determine maximum deal prices for Black Friday Week and Cyber Monday.

That exclusion gives you more flexibility between the two events. It does not guarantee that an ASIN will qualify for November promotions, and the notice does not say that every ordinary price reduction receives the same treatment.

Keep a record of the promotion type, approved price and event dates. If your November pricing recommendation looks wrong, those records give you something specific to raise with support.

The commercial question remains separate: would selling those units in October leave you short of stock for a more profitable November offer?

Calculate the extra units you actually need

A higher sales total can conceal a weaker contribution margin. Run the calculation before deciding how much additional volume would make a deal worthwhile.

Consider a hypothetical $30 product with $9 in landed product cost, $5 in fulfillment charges, $3 in advertising cost per order and $1 in other variable costs. Assume a 15% referral fee for this example, rather than treating it as a universal Amazon rate.

At the regular price, the product contributes $7.50 per unit before fixed overhead. Discount it by 20% to $24, keep the other assumptions unchanged, and contribution falls to $2.40.

You would need to sell 3.125 times as many units to produce the same contribution dollars, before adding any deal-specific charges. If advertising becomes more expensive or returns increase, the required volume rises further.

For each proposed deal, calculate the result using your actual category fees, promotion charges and expected advertising spend. A promotion that needs three times normal unit sales deserves a different budget from one that needs only a modest lift.

Keep October and November costs separate

The October 6–7 event occurs before the October 15 start of Amazon’s holiday peak fulfillment fee period. Our analysis of the separate charges affecting Q4 fulfillment costs explains why one average surcharge is insufficient for planning.

Use the rates applicable to the actual fulfillment date, particularly if orders ship late. Do not automatically apply November economics to an early October promotion, or reuse October assumptions for Black Friday.

Inventory also has an opportunity cost. Discounting excess stock may be sensible when the alternative is months of storage. Discounting a scarce bestseller may simply bring forward orders you could have fulfilled later at a better margin.

Make the September 22 decision deliberately

Prepare a short approval sheet for each ASIN: available inventory, promotional price, contribution per order, required sales lift and maximum advertising spend.

Assign someone to check the live promotion and inventory status before the event begins. Decide in advance when to reduce advertising if contribution falls below your target.

Submit only the deals that survive those checks. For the others, keep the regular price or reserve inventory for November rather than treating the extended deadline as a reason to participate.