Home Depot Markdown Cycles: What the Price Data Actually Shows

The real pattern

Home Depot clearance prices do step down over time: an item that doesn’t sell gets cut again, often reaching 50–75%+ off before it’s pulled or pennied out. That part is real, and it’s the whole reason tracking clearance pays off.

What is not reliable is the widely-shared idea that the cents ending of the price (.06, .04, .03, .02) tells you which “stage” the item is in or how many weeks are left. We’ve tracked clearance prices across thousands of stores, and those “meaningful” endings show up in only a tiny share of prices — nowhere near the clean ladder the theory describes. The cents are mostly percentage-math and regional rounding, not an encoded stage. (More on that in Cents-ending price codes: do they mean anything?.)

The one real signal in the cents: a $0.01 price (“penny item”) means the item is being removed from the system.

What actually predicts the next drop

Instead of reading the cents, watch the things that genuinely move:

• Prior step-downs. An item that’s already been cut once tends to get cut again. The price history is the tell.
• Time on the shelf at the current price + remaining inventory. A deep discount that’s been sitting a while, with stock still on hand, is overdue for another cut.
• Cross-store spread. The same SKU is often priced very differently store to store — sometimes far below the norm at a single location. That gap is the real opportunity.

How to actually time it

1. Don’t buy on the first markdown if you can wait — clearance items that linger usually drop again.
2. Jump on deep, isolated prices — a unit priced far below other stores (or far below its own history) won’t last.
3. Track instead of guess. Endless records the full price timeline per store and compares the same item across stores, so you see real movement instead of inferring it from the last two digits.

FAQ

Does Home Depot follow a fixed markdown schedule?

Not a precise, store-wide one you can set a calendar by. Items are re-evaluated and cut when they don’t sell, so deeper discounts tend to come over a span of weeks — but the timing varies by item, store, and category. Tracking the actual price is far more reliable than assuming a fixed cycle.

What does a price ending in .06 mean at Home Depot?

Mostly nothing special — it’s usually just where the discount math landed. Despite the popular theory, the cents ending is a weak predictor of the markdown stage. Look at whether the item has dropped before and how it compares across stores instead.

What is a Home Depot penny item?

A clearance item whose price has been taken to $0.01 in the system, signaling it should be pulled from the floor. It’s the one cents value that genuinely means something — see our penny items guide.