When are kamados cheapest?

From September demand falls away while the stock is still standing there, and that is when the real discounts land. Not one promotional week, but a few months where prices sit structurally below the spring.

Black Friday falls in the middle of that and matters less for this category than it looks — prices had often already dropped in October. It is, though, the moment the big brands join in, and they barely move the rest of the year.

The "was" price beside an offer is the shop’s own reference price. Sometimes that is the maker’s recommended price, sometimes what the shop once charged, and there is no fixed rule behind it.

So a kamado can sit permanently discounted without ever having been cheaper than last month. The only way to see that is to follow the price over time — which is what this site does, and why a verdict only appears here once enough days have been measured.

During promotions shops often shift towards the complete sets, because the margin is better there. Two hundred euros off a set is not the same as two hundred euros off the kamado.

So compare by barcode rather than by model name, and check whether the cheaper offer includes the stand you would have had to buy anyway. Sometimes the dearer offer is the cheaper purchase.

On the entry models of a few hundred euros the difference between an average week and a good one is small. Waiting then costs you a season of barbecuing to save thirty euros.

Waiting pays from the large class up, where the sums are big enough that ten per cent is real money — and where the prices actually move.