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Yes, and it's one of the better windows of the year. Ancestry is running a Labor Day sale of up to 75% off with the standard AncestryDNA kit at $34 against $99 and the Traits bundle at $44, through September 8. MyHeritage has its kit at $29 against $89. Embark is $60 off its Breed and Health dog test at $139. These kits are loss leaders for subscription services, which is why the hardware gets this cheap.
Decide what happens to your sample before you spit in the tube, because that question turned real in 2025. 23andMe filed for bankruptcy in March, and in May a pharmaceutical company won the court auction with a $256 million bid for the company and its banks of customer DNA. Around 1.9 million people, roughly 15% of the customer base, asked for their genetic data to be deleted, and more than two dozen states sued to block the sale. Every major service lets you delete your data and request that your physical sample be destroyed. Know where those settings are before you buy, not after.
Shop Ancestry DNA Tests
The category everyone starts with, and the one where the kit price is only half the story. The test itself is cheap because the business is the subscription that lets you build a tree with the results, and those renew at full price after the trial. What actually differs between services is the size of the matching database, which is what determines whether you find relatives, and the regional detail of the ethnicity breakdown. Both improve as more people test, so the biggest database usually gives the most useful answer.
When DNA Test Kits Actually Go On Sale
These kits are marketing for a subscription, which means they get discounted whenever people are likely to be thinking about family.
| When | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Black Friday through Christmas | The annual low, by a distance. These are gift purchases, the services know it, and the kits routinely land near their floor for six straight weeks. |
| Right now, over Labor Day | Genuinely one of the best non-holiday windows. Ancestry is at up to 75% off through September 8 with the base kit at $34, and MyHeritage is at $29 against $89. |
| Mother's Day and Father's Day | Reliable and heavily promoted, because a family history kit is an easy gift. Usually a little shallower than the holiday pricing but wider on the bundles. |
| Prime Day, July and October | Good on the marketplace listings and on the pet kits, which sit outside the subscription model and behave more like normal products. |
| DNA Day, late April | A small but real event that the genealogy services all mark with a sale. Worth a look if you missed the spring gifting window. |
| January and February | The dead stretch. The gifting season is over, the promotions stop, and the kits sit at list price until the spring holidays arrive. |
What Actually Counts as a Good DNA Test Deal
Price the kit and the subscription that follows it as one number, because the second one renews.
- Ancestry kit under $40. It's at $34 against $99 right now. Below $50 is a real sale; the list price is essentially theoretical outside the dead months.
- MyHeritage kit under $35. Currently $29 against $89 with free shipping. Note the Complete subscription that follows the trial is $149 for the first year and $299 after.
- Health and ancestry bundle under $130. The combined services rarely go below this outside the holidays, and the health half is the part with the most caveats attached.
- Dog DNA test under $110. Embark has its standard test at $109 against $129 and Wisdom Panel Breed Discovery is $99.99. Breed-only tests sit lower than breed-plus-health ones.
- Cat DNA test under $100. The smallest and youngest corner of this category, so the discounts are shallower and the databases smaller than the dog equivalents.
Shop Health DNA Tests
Worth buying with clear eyes about what these do. A consumer health report is a screen, not a diagnosis. The FDA-authorized BRCA report from 23andMe, for example, covers three mutations out of more than a thousand known ones, and those three are most common in people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. A negative result there doesn't rule out inherited risk, and the FDA says as much. These reports are interesting and occasionally genuinely useful, and none of them replaces a conversation with a doctor or a genetic counselor.
Shop Dog DNA Tests
The most practical thing in this category, and the one with the clearest payoff. Breed identification is the fun part, but the health screening is the reason to buy: knowing about MDR1 drug sensitivity before your vet reaches for a common medication is the kind of result that actually changes an outcome. The tiers are simple. Breed-only tests run cheapest, breed plus a small health panel sits in the middle, and the premium versions add hundreds of health markers and relative matching.
Shop Cat DNA Tests
Younger and smaller than the dog side, with a shallower reference database behind it, so treat the breed results as indicative rather than definitive. Most domestic cats aren't pedigree animals and the answer often comes back as a regional lineage rather than a breed name. Where these earn their money is the health panel, particularly the screens for polycystic kidney disease and the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy variants, which are common enough in certain lines to be worth knowing about early.
Shop At-Home Paternity Tests
A different product with a legal footnote that matters. An at-home kit will tell you the answer accurately for your own peace of mind, but it isn't admissible in court, because there's no chain of custody proving whose cheek swab went into the envelope. If the result needs to stand up legally, for child support, immigration or a birth certificate, you need a legal test with witnessed collection at an approved site. The lab science is the same; the paperwork around it isn't.
Where to Shop DNA Tests
Worth checking beyond Amazon, because the services run their own holiday sales and the subscription terms are only spelled out properly at source.
How to Pick the Right DNA Test
Decide about your data before you order. The 23andMe bankruptcy in 2025 ended with a pharmaceutical company bidding $256 million for the business and its genetic databases, and about 1.9 million customers asked for deletion. Every service lets you delete results and ask for your sample to be destroyed. Find those controls first, read what happens to your data if the company is sold, and opt out of research sharing if that matters to you.
Price the subscription, not the kit. These tests are sold below cost because the money is in the membership that follows. Ancestry, MyHeritage and the rest all pair a cheap kit with a trial that renews at full price, and MyHeritage's Complete tier goes to $299 after the first year. The kit at $29 is genuine; the plan behind it is where the money goes.
Pick the service by database size if you want relatives. Ethnicity estimates are educated guesses that get revised as the reference panels improve. Relative matching is different: it either finds people or it doesn't, and that depends entirely on how many others tested with the same company. If finding family is the goal, the biggest database wins regardless of the price.
Treat health reports as a screen, not an answer. The FDA-authorized BRCA report covers three mutations out of more than a thousand, and those three are most common in people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, so a clear result isn't the same as a low risk. Anything worrying or reassuring in a consumer health report is worth taking to a doctor or a genetic counselor rather than acting on alone.
Buy the pet test for the health panel. Breed percentages are the fun part and the drug sensitivity screening is the useful part. Knowing your dog carries the MDR1 variant before a vet prescribes a common drug is worth more than the whole kit, and it's included even on the cheaper tiers.
DNA Test Sale FAQ
The Bottom Line
Settle the data question first, because a $34 kit is only cheap if you're comfortable with where the results end up, and 2025 showed those databases can change hands. Then price the subscription rather than the kit, since that's where the money actually goes. Choose the service by database size if you want to find relatives, treat any health report as a screen to take to a clinician rather than an answer in itself, and buy the pet tests for the drug sensitivity screening rather than the breed pie chart. Right now Ancestry is at $34 against $99 through September 8 and MyHeritage at $29, which is close to holiday pricing three months early.
