On Black Friday most inboxes get the same email many times over: a big percentage, a countdown timer and a subject line in capitals. Most of it gets deleted unread. The Black Friday newsletters people remember did something different. They had a point of view, and they sounded like whoever sent them.
This guide covers the three kinds of Black Friday newsletter worth sending, real examples, 20 subject lines, a schedule for the week and a template you can fill in. In 2026, Black Friday falls on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30.
Three kinds of Black Friday newsletter
Decide which one you’re sending before you write a word, because each needs a different subject line and a different amount of selling.
The first is the offer. You sell something, whether that’s a product, a service or a discount on your own paid newsletter, and the issue exists to make that sale.
The second is the roundup, where you pick other people’s deals for your readers. They’re reading for your judgment, so ten picks with a reason each will do better than fifty pasted links.
The third is the opt-out: you skip the sale and say why. It only works if it matches how you already run things. Readers can tell when a newsletter discovers its principles on the one day of the year they’re good for business.
Black Friday newsletter examples worth learning from
1. REI: an opt-out that became a tradition
Black Friday had been one of REI’s ten biggest sales days of the year. In 2015 the co-op closed its stores that day anyway and asked people to spend it outside, under the hashtag #OptOutside. The campaign still has its own page on REI’s site.
What to borrow: a stance your readers already link with you. If your newsletter pushes back on hype every other week, a quiet Black Friday issue will read as you being yourself.
2. Patagonia: giving the day’s revenue away
In 2016 Patagonia said it would give 100% of its global Black Friday sales to grassroots environmental groups. It expected about $2 million and took $10 million, as the company reported in a follow-up post a few days later.
What to borrow: a reason to buy that has nothing to do with the discount. The follow-up mattered as much as the announcement, because it told customers what their purchase had done.
3. Cards Against Humanity: the anti-sale
Cards Against Humanity has run a satirical Black Friday promotion most years since 2013. The first one raised the game’s price by $5. In 2015 the store sold nothing at all for $5, and 11,248 people paid a combined $71,145 for it, according to Wikipedia’s summary of the stunts.
What to borrow: a joke your readers will get. You don’t need a stunt. A subject line that pokes fun at the usual Black Friday email can earn the open on its own.
4. A few hundred more, for layout ideas
Really Good Emails keeps a collection of several hundred Black Friday emails. It’s useful for layout and design. Read the copy with some suspicion, though: scroll for a minute and you’ll see how many of them could have come from any brand.
If your newsletter is the thing you’re selling
Paid newsletters can run a Black Friday offer too, and the same rules apply with a couple of extras.
Discount the annual plan rather than the monthly one. A cheap month brings in readers who leave in January. A discounted year gives you twelve months to earn the renewal.
Show what paid readers actually got lately by naming the last three or four paid issues. A list of real titles does more than any description of the tier.
Mention the gift option. Black Friday is the start of gift season, and Substack, for one, supports both discount offers and gift subscriptions, so check what your platform allows.
And keep the end date. Extend a sale once and readers learn to wait for the extension next year.
20 Black Friday newsletter subject lines
Swap in your own details where you see brackets. Write the preview text as well: it’s the second line people read, and the best place for the deadline.
For an offer
- Our one sale this year: [X]% off a full year
- [Newsletter] for [price] a year, until Monday
- The price goes back up Monday night
- A year of [topic] for less than one [comparable purchase]
- Give [Newsletter] to the friend you keep forwarding it to
For a roundup
- [Number] deals I’d buy myself (and [number] I wouldn’t)
- The Black Friday deals worth your time, checked by hand
- Only the [niche] tools that are actually cheaper today
- I read 200 Black Friday emails so you don’t have to
- Deals for [audience], minus the fake countdown timers
For an opt-out
- No sale today. Here’s what we’re doing instead
- This is not a Black Friday email
- The best deal today is the one you skip
- Nothing to buy here today
- We’re not discounting, and here’s why
For the last call
- Last day for [X]% off
- Ends at midnight (your time zone, not ours)
- Cyber Monday: same offer, last chance
- If you meant to, today’s the day
- The sale ends tonight. No extension
When to send: a schedule for Black Friday week
| Day (2026) | Send | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Mon, Nov 23 or Tue, Nov 24 | Heads-up | Say an offer is coming, and when |
| Fri, Nov 27 (Black Friday) | Main issue | The full offer or roundup |
| Sun, Nov 29 | Reminder | Only to people who haven’t clicked or bought |
| Mon, Nov 30 (Cyber Monday) | Last call | Ends tonight, with the exact time |
Skip Thanksgiving Thursday if most of your readers are in the US. Four emails in one week is a lot for a newsletter that normally sends once. If that’s you, send the main issue and the last call, and mention the offer at the top of your regular issue instead of sending a separate heads-up.
A Black Friday newsletter template
Copy this structure and replace the brackets. Each part has one job, and if a part isn’t doing its job, cut it.
- Subject line: [one line from the list above]
- Preview text: [what the subject left out: the deadline, the price or how many picks there are]
- Opening: [two or three sentences on why you’re sending this, in your usual voice. Mention something from a recent issue so it reads like you.]
- The offer or the picks: [for an offer: what they get, the price and the deadline in their time zone. For a roundup: one line per pick with the deal, the normal price and a sentence on why it made the list.]
- Who should skip it: [one honest line. It makes everything above it more believable.]
- Call to action: [one button that promises exactly what the subject line did]
- Sign-off: [your normal sign-off. Don’t switch to a corporate one for the sale.]
- P.S.: [the deadline again, or the gift option]
The template filled in
Here’s the template used by a made-up paid newsletter about B2B pricing, called Field Notes on Pricing.
Subject: Our one sale this year: 30% off a full year
Preview: Ends Monday at midnight ET. Works as a gift, too.
Hi,
A short one today, then back to normal on Tuesday.
Once a year we discount the paid edition, and this is it. Until Monday at midnight ET, a year of Field Notes costs $84 instead of $120.
Here’s what paid readers got this month: teardowns of three usage-based pricing pages, the discount-approval template, and the live session where we reviewed your pricing pages one by one.
If the free Tuesday issue is all you need, keep reading that. It isn’t going anywhere.
[Get a year for $84]
If someone on your team reads every issue you forward, the same price works for a gift subscription.
Talk Tuesday,
Maya
P.S. The price goes back to $120 on Tuesday morning. We’ve never extended a sale, and we won’t start now.
Keeping your own voice in a rushed week
The template is the easy part. The hard part is the week it lands in. Black Friday comes straight after a holiday, and the special issue still has to sound like the person your readers subscribed to. A rushed sale email is usually where a newsletter starts to sound like a store.
We built HeyNews for that problem. It trains an AI Writer on your past issues, so the first draft of your Black Friday issue already opens and signs off the way you do. You edit it and you send it. HeyNews never sends anything on its own. To try it on this year’s issue, start the 14-day free trial. That’s enough time to draft the main issue, the reminder and the last call.
Black Friday newsletter FAQ
When is Black Friday 2026?
Friday, November 27, 2026. Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30.
How many Black Friday emails should a newsletter send?
Big retailers often email every day from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. A newsletter that usually sends once a week should send far fewer: the main issue on Friday and a last call on Monday are enough.
Should a paid newsletter run a Black Friday discount?
If you’ve never discounted, one sale a year is a reasonable test. Discount the annual plan rather than the monthly one, set an end date and keep it.
Do I have to send a Black Friday newsletter at all?
No. If you have nothing to sell and no deals your readers would care about, skip it, or say in your regular issue that you’re skipping it. A newsletter that stays calm while every other email shouts gets noticed too.
