Black Friday in the 3D-printing market no longer means one Friday. Prusa Research opened its Black Friday 2026 promotion on October 22, and it runs until November 30 at 11:59 p.m. PST, a window of nearly six weeks. Nine days into it, Tom's Hardware published a Halloween-weekend roundup that puts current street prices on machines from Bambu Lab, Elegoo and Creality, with entry-level printers starting at $199. Read side by side, the two lists show two different ways of selling hardware in the holiday season: Prusa mostly adds things to the box, while much of the rest of the market cuts the sticker price.
That difference matters more than any single headline number. Below is what each approach offers, and how to compare them without being misled by the "value" figures that come with every holiday promotion.
Prusa: Bundles, Not Price Cuts
Prusa's promotion is built on bundled extras attached to its current printers rather than a lower base price. The company frames each bundle in terms of its total dollar value.
The CORE One+ (Gen 2) ships with a free OpenPrintTag Upgrade (listed at $21.99), a 1 kg spool of Prusament PLA in Chalky Blue, an extra year of warranty valued at up to $154, four 3D models, a $50 voucher toward an INDX upgrade, and two Prusa Academy courses. Prusa puts the total at up to $450 in gifts.
The larger CORE One L+ gets the OpenPrintTag Upgrade, a USS Drybox ($24.99), a 1 kg spool of PETG in Chalky Blue and the extended warranty, which Prusa values at about $550 in extras. The flagship XL+ comes with up to $960 in what the company calls goodies.
Beyond the printers, Prusa is discounting its own filament: Prusament is up to 40 percent off during the promotion. Orders over $200 qualify for free worldwide shipping, with one notable exception. Assembled INDX printers and INDX conversion kits are excluded from the free-shipping offer.
The Halloween Weekend Price List
The Tom's Hardware roundup, published October 31 by Ben Stockton, follows the more familiar pattern of straight discounts. The listed prices include:
- Bambu Lab A1 Mini: $199
- Creality Ender 3 V3: $239
- Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra 9K (resin): $259, down from $338
- Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2: $319, down from $359; the combo with 1 kg of filament is $369, down from $449, and the machine has a 256 x 256 x 256 mm build volume
- Bambu Lab P1S with original AMS: $479 at Amazon, down from $549
- Bambu Lab P1S with AMS 2 Pro: $509, down from $579
- Bambu Lab H2D: $1,599 in the roundup's deal listing, down from $2,299 (the article's intro cites $1,399)
The roundup notes that these sales are expected to run for weeks into Black Friday, but that stock may not last. It also carries affiliate links, which is standard for deal coverage and worth keeping in mind when reading any curated list of "best" prices.
Comparing a Bundle to a Discount
The two kinds of offer are not directly comparable, and the honest way to evaluate them is to ask what you would actually buy anyway.
A price cut is simple: the P1S with AMS 2 Pro costs $70 less than its listed regular price, and the Centauri Carbon 2 combo is $80 below its previous figure. That money stays in your pocket whatever you do with it.
A bundle's value depends entirely on whether you would have paid for its contents. In Prusa's CORE One+ package, the parts with clear retail prices are the OpenPrintTag Upgrade at $21.99 and the extended warranty at up to $154. The PLA spool is useful to nearly anyone who owns the machine. The $50 INDX voucher only matters if you plan to move toward that upgrade path, and the 3D models and Academy courses will be worth a great deal to some buyers and close to nothing to others. The "up to $450" figure is a ceiling, not a guaranteed saving.
The same logic applies to the CORE One L+. A drybox and a spool of PETG are practical accessories that many owners of a larger-format machine would end up buying, so the $550 figure there may be closer to real value for a buyer already planning to print engineering materials. The XL+'s up-to-$960 package should be read the same way: as an upper bound to check against your own shopping list.
The 40 percent Prusament discount is arguably the cleanest part of Prusa's offer, since filament is a consumable every owner buys repeatedly, regardless of which printer they run.
What It Means for Makers
Don't rush on timing alone. Prusa's promotion lasts until November 30, and Tom's Hardware expects the Halloween discounts to continue toward Black Friday. A long window removes most of the pressure to buy in the first weekend. The real risk is availability: the roundup explicitly warns that stock may not last, so if a specific configuration such as the P1S with AMS 2 Pro is the one you want, waiting is a bet on inventory rather than on price.
Price the whole system, not the printer. Several of the listed deals hinge on multi-material units and bundles. The gap between the P1S with original AMS ($479) and with AMS 2 Pro ($509) is $30 at these prices, which is a meaningful point of comparison if multi-material printing is on your roadmap. The Centauri Carbon 2 combo costs $50 more than the bare machine, a gap worth weighing against what the included filament and extras would cost you separately.
Treat "was" prices and "value" totals as marketing inputs. Both list prices and bundle valuations are set by the seller. They give a sense of scale, but the useful number is what leaves your account and what you receive in return.
Watch the fine print on shipping. Prusa's free worldwide shipping applies to orders over $200 and excludes assembled INDX printers and INDX conversion kits. Anyone planning a large INDX order should account for shipping separately.
Know whether you want FDM or resin. The Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra 9K at $259 is a resin machine, and resin printing brings its own consumables and post-processing workflow. A low price on the wrong technology is not a bargain.
Bottom Line
This season's deals split into two camps. Bambu Lab, Elegoo and Creality are competing mostly on price, with entry-level machines at $199 to $239 and mid-range printers from roughly $320 to $510. Prusa's promotion, by contrast, is built around loading the box rather than advertising lower printer prices, which rewards buyers who would have bought filament, a warranty extension or a drybox anyway. Decide what you would buy without a promotion, then pick the offer that covers the most of that list for the least money. With both sales running for weeks, there is time to do the math.
