When Does iTunes Have Sales?

Looking for a deal on movies? Here’s when to check iTunes.

Wondering when does iTunes have sales? That’s a very good question and the answer isn’t always straightforward.

The iTunes Store has been around for almost 20 years now. It started off selling music ala cart, but that’s mainly been superseded by the Apple Music subscription service now. Instead, what many people still use iTunes for nowadays is for its Movies and TV Shows store.

While Apple does have its own video streaming service called Apple TV Plus, that service only offers Apple Original content. It does not offer third-party content like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu. But the iTunes Store itself is packed with third-party movies and TV shows.

As a matter of fact, the iTunes Store is probably the best place to buy digital copies of the movies and TV shows you love. When it comes to movies, generally speaking, a new release will cost you $19.99. However, this price can vary and about a month after its release, a new release will see its price drop to around $14.99 and will go lower as time goes on.

Before we get into when iTunes has movie sales, it’s worth noting that movies themselves usually go on sale on iTunes a month before the movie comes out on physical media (Blur-ray and DVD). This is the studios’ doing. Movie studios release digital downloads first because their costs are less (no physical media to print or ship) so they want to spur fans to buy the film digitally.

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The Benefit Of Buying Your Movies On iTunes

Of course, buying movies digital has become the norm in recent year anyway. The benefits are obviously – especially when you buy the movie from iTunes, because iTunes will automatically upgrade the movie’s resolution for you when a new version comes out. For example, if you bought the 1080p version of Your Favorite Movie Ever on iTunes in 2016, if you stream it from iTunes now, you’ll automatically get the 4K version for free.

iTunes always gives you the highest version possible, even when a new format comes out. This sure beats physical media, as with physical media you need to buy a new version of the movie if you want the upgraded resolution.

iTunes also allows you to download all your movies to your computer, so you can keep them locally. Plus iTunes works with digital lockers like Movies Anywhere, so you can transfer your movies to another service (whether you can transfer every movie depends on whether the studio that released the movie supports digital lockers–most, but not all, do).

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When Does iTunes Have Movie Sales?

OK, so you want to know when iTunes has sales on movies. The good news is: every single week. 

But the best days to check iTunes for sales on movies are Tuesday and Friday. These are the days movie studios discount many films. Tuesdays by far see the biggest number of discounts, but Fridays also is a close second.

That being said, on the other days of the week, movies can see price reductions, however Tuesday followed by Friday are the best days as you see many more movies go on sale those days.

When a movie goes on sale on iTunes, it’s best to buy it right away if you like the sale price. That’s because most movies only stay on sale for a week or less before they return to their normal retail price. And the savings can be massive. For example, a movie can ordinarily be $14.99 on iTunes, but if it goes on sale, it can drop to as low as $4.99.

One other thing to keep in mind: Apple doesn’t control the sales or the movie prices on iTunes. Prices are controlled by the studios that own the movies, and they can change the prices any time they want.

And check out How To View Your Netflix History (And Hide It). Also, take a look at How To Hide Your Amazon Browsing History!

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Michael Grothaus

Apple expert and novelist, Michael Grothaus has been covering tech on KnowYourMobile for the best part of 10 years. Prior to this, he worked at Apple. And before that, he was a film journalist. Michael is a published author; his book Epiphany Jones was voted as one of the best novels about Hollywood by Entertainment Weekly. Michael is also a writer at other publications including VICE and Fast Company.