Free Markup Calculator
Start from your cost and the markup you want to apply, and get the selling price it produces, the profit in money, and what that markup works out to as a profit margin. A 50% markup is not a 50% margin, and this shows you the difference.
What the item costs you.
The percentage added on top of the cost.
Fill in the fields and the result appears here as you type.
How markup pricing works
A markup adds a percentage of the cost on top of the cost: price = cost × (1 + markup ÷ 100). It is the quickest way to price up a catalogue, because the same percentage can be applied to every item without thinking about each one.
The trap is that the resulting margin is always smaller than the markup, and the gap widens as the markup grows. This calculator shows the margin the markup produces, so the price can be set on the number the business actually keeps.
A worked example
An item costs you 60 and you apply a 50% markup.
- Selling price
- 60 × (1 + 50 ÷ 100) = 90
- Profit
- 90 − 60 = 30
- Profit margin
- 30 ÷ 90 × 100 = 33.33%
A 50% markup is a 33.33% margin. If you needed to keep half of every sale, this price does not do it — that would take a 100% markup.
Questions about markup
How do I convert a markup into a margin?
Margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup) × 100. A 50% markup is 50 ÷ 150 = 33.33%. Going the other way, markup = margin ÷ (100 − margin) × 100, so a 50% margin needs a 100% markup.
What markup should I use?
Work backwards from the margin you need rather than picking a round percentage. Decide what the business has to keep from each sale to cover overheads and still make money, convert that margin into the markup that produces it, and check the resulting price against what the market will actually pay.
Can I apply a markup to a cost that includes tax?
You can, but the answer will not mean what you expect — you would be marking up the tax as well as the goods. Mark up the net cost, then add tax to the selling price afterwards.