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Steam doesn't discount at random: it repeats the same five campaigns year after year, almost on the same dates. Knowing which ones they are changes the decision to buy today or wait a fortnight. Here is the full calendar, how long each sale runs, and — the part nobody spells out — when waiting is not worth it because the price outside Steam is already better.
How many big sales does Steam run each year?
Five. Two are the heavyweights (Summer and Winter, running two and three weeks) and three are short one-week events: Spring, Autumn and the Halloween one, which Valve calls Scream Fest. In between there are themed festivals and publisher weeks, but those only touch small catalogues.
| Sale | Usual dates | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Spring Sale | 19 – 26 March | 1 week |
| Summer Sale | 25 June – 9 July | 2 weeks |
| Autumn Sale | 1 – 8 October | 1 week |
| Scream Fest (Halloween) | 26 October – 2 November | 1 week |
| Winter Sale | 17 December – 4 January | almost 3 weeks |
Dates shift by a day or two from one year to the next, but the pattern has held for well over five years: plan by week rather than by exact day and you'll be right.
Is it worth waiting for a Steam sale?
It depends on three things, and none of them is the discount percentage Valve advertises:
- How long the game has been out. A three-month-old release rarely drops more than 20 % in its first campaign. A three-year-old one usually hits its all-time low in any of the five.
- Whether it already hit that price. Steam repeats its floors: if a game bottomed out at £9.99 in summer, it will very likely stop at £9.99 again in winter and go no lower. Waiting a whole season to save a pound is a bad trade.
- What it costs outside Steam. This is the one that actually decides it, and it's right below.
Is Steam the cheapest place during its own sale?
Often it isn't. Key stores don't wait for Valve's calendar: they cut prices whenever the distributor moves them, so an ordinary week in February can beat what you'll see inside Steam in June. That comparison is exactly what we do — both sides, the same day. Before you circle a date on the calendar, look at what's live right now.
How do I know whether a game is cheaper outside Steam?
Checking by hand, game by game and shop by shop, is unworkable mid-campaign. That is what the comparator is for: it gathers on a single page what every shop we track is asking for the same game, with its edition and format beside it, so you can see at a glance whether Steam's price is genuinely the best or merely the most convenient.
And if it is not at the price you want today, there is no need to scribble it on a note:
- Add it to your wishlist. With a Gocdkeys account you can save the games you are following and keep them together, with their current price alongside, instead of repeating the same search every week.
- Set the price you consider fair. On each saved game you can mark the figure you would actually buy at. It is stored next to today's price, so when you open your list you can tell in one look which ones have reached your number and which are still far off.
- Bring your Steam list across in one go. If you have spent years piling up wishlisted games on Steam, you do not have to move them one by one: at import your Steam wishlist you paste your profile and we show you which games on that list currently have offers outside Steam, and for how much.
It is the difference between watching the calendar and waiting for a campaign, and having the figure in front of you on the day the price actually drops — whether that is in June or on an ordinary Tuesday in February.
What if I want to buy inside Steam but pay less?
That's what wallet credit is for. A discounted Steam gift card is redeemed into your account, and then you pay for the sale price with that balance: the purchase still happens on Steam, with Steam's terms and Steam's refunds, but you put less money in. It's the cleanest route if you care about keeping the purchase on the platform. You can buy Steam Gift Card key and hold it until the campaign you care about.
One detail that does matter: cards are region-locked. A European-zone card redeems on European-zone accounts; grabbing the cheapest one from another continent usually ends in a code your account refuses. Filter by your region and skip the headache. The European version is currently at .
What happens to refunds during a sale?
Steam's terms don't change because a campaign is running: two weeks from purchase and under two hours played. What changes is the rush. If you buy on the last day so as not to lose the discount and the game won't launch, you get the same window as always — there is no sale-time exception.
So: buy now or wait?
A short rule that works: if the next campaign is less than a month away and the game is over a year old, wait. If it's more than a month away, or the game is brand new, compare outside Steam today, because the campaign discount is unlikely to beat what the key market is already doing.
Next campaign
The next big sale on the calendar is the Autumn Sale, 1 – 8 October, followed by Scream Fest, 26 October – 2 November. Both dates confirmed by Valve.
Updated on 1 August.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember, and for the last 14 years I have been making life easier for other gamers. CEO and co-founder of Gocdkeys.
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