Markup Calculator
Selling price and profit from cost and markup percentage.
About the Markup Calculator
The Markup Calculator gives you an instant answer from just a few inputs — cost, markup. It runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay private and never touch a server, and the result recalculates the moment you change a value. It's free to use with no sign-up, no limits, and nothing to install.
Worth Knowing
Markup and margin describe the same profit through different denominators, and confusing them is one of the most expensive routine errors in small business. Markup is profit as a percentage of cost; margin is profit as a percentage of the selling price. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin. A 100% markup, traditionally called keystone pricing in retail, is a 50% margin. The conversions are worth memorising: margin equals markup divided by one plus markup, and to price for a target margin you divide cost by one minus the margin rather than multiplying cost by one plus it. Apply a 40% markup when you needed a 40% margin and you are roughly 12 percentage points short on every single sale. Get the cost basis right or the percentage is meaningless. The number that belongs in the cost field is landed cost — the unit price plus inbound freight, duties, packaging, and any per-unit fulfilment or payment-processing charge, which for US card transactions typically runs around 2.9% plus 30 cents. Marketplace commissions belong there too if you sell through one. Pricing off the invoice price alone systematically overstates what you make. Finally, note how badly discounting cuts into this. On a 33% margin, a 20% discount does not remove 20% of your profit — it removes about 60% of it, because the discount comes entirely out of the margin rather than out of the cost. That asymmetry is why volume rarely rescues a discounted price.
How to Use
- Enter Cost into the first field of the Markup Calculator.
- Fill in the rest: Markup.
- Your result appears instantly as you type — there's no submit button or page reload.