The Markup Calculator links the four key numbers in a sale — the cost, the markup percentage, the revenue (selling price), and the profit. Fill in any two fields and click Calculate; the calculator finds the rest, plus your profit margin.
The markup calculator is a flexible pricing tool that connects the four numbers behind every sale: the cost of an item, the markup percentage you add on top, the revenue (the price you sell it for), and the profit you make. Enter any two of these and the calculator instantly works out the other two — and it shows your profit margin as well. Whether you are setting a price for a new product, checking a supplier's quote, or reverse-engineering a competitor's costs, this tool does the arithmetic for you.
Markup is the everyday language of pricing in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, and the trades. It tells you how much you are adding to the cost of an item to arrive at its selling price. Getting markup right is the difference between a healthy, sustainable business and one that quietly loses money on every sale, so it pays to understand exactly what it means and how to calculate it.
Markup is the amount you add to the cost of a product to set its selling price, expressed as a percentage of the cost. If you buy an item for $80 and sell it for $100, you have added $20 on top of the cost. That $20 is your profit, and because it is $20 on a cost of $80, the markup is $20 ÷ $80 = 25%.
In other words, markup answers the question, "How much more than my cost am I charging?" It is calculated relative to the cost, which is what makes it the natural way for buyers and sellers to think about pricing: you start with what you paid and add a percentage to reach the price you charge.
The four quantities are tied together by a small set of relationships, and the calculator rearranges them depending on which two values you provide:
markup = 100 × (revenue − cost) ÷ cost
revenue = cost + cost × markup ÷ 100
profit = revenue − cost
profit margin = 100 × profit ÷ revenue
The key idea is that markup measures profit as a percentage of cost. Multiply the cost by the markup (as a decimal) to find the dollar profit you are adding, then add that to the cost to get the selling price. Because these equations are linked, knowing any two of cost, markup, revenue, and profit is enough to determine the other two exactly.
Suppose you buy an item for $80 and want to apply a 25% markup. Enter the cost ($80) and the markup (25%). The calculator computes:
So a 25% markup on an $80 cost gives a $100 selling price, a $20 profit, and a 20% margin. Notice that the markup (25%) and the margin (20%) are different numbers describing the same sale — more on that crucial distinction below.
Fill in exactly two of the four fields and click Calculate. The most common combinations are:
The calculator reports cost, revenue, profit, markup, and margin together, so you always get the full picture from whichever two numbers you happen to know.
The single most common — and most expensive — pricing mistake is confusing markup with margin. They both describe the gap between cost and selling price, but they measure it against different bases:
For the same sale, markup is always the larger number. In our example — cost $80, revenue $100, profit $20 — the markup is $20 ÷ $80 = 25%, but the margin is $20 ÷ $100 = 20%. The gap grows quickly at higher percentages: a 100% markup is only a 50% margin, and a 50% markup is only a 33.3% margin. A business owner who wants a 40% margin but mistakenly applies a 40% markup will fall well short of the intended profit on every sale. This is why the calculator always shows both figures side by side, so you can price deliberately and never mix them up.
Because markup and margin describe the same profit against different bases, it is often necessary to convert one to the other — especially when a supplier quotes a markup but you think in margins, or vice versa. The conversions are simple once you write them down. To turn a markup into a margin, use margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup). To go the other way, from a margin into a markup, use markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin). In both cases the percentages are written as decimals. For example, a 25% markup (0.25) becomes a margin of 0.25 ÷ 1.25 = 0.20, or 20%; and a 40% margin (0.40) becomes a markup of 0.40 ÷ 0.60 = 0.667, or 66.7%. Keeping these two conversions handy prevents the costliest error in retail pricing.
There is no universal "right" markup — it depends heavily on your industry, your costs, and your competition. Grocery and other high-volume retailers often work on slim markups of 10–15%, relying on turnover to make their money. Clothing and apparel commonly use a "keystone" markup of 100% (doubling the cost). Restaurants mark food up substantially to cover labor and waste, and jewelry or specialty goods can carry markups of several hundred percent. The right markup is the one that covers your product cost, contributes to your fixed costs (rent, wages, marketing), leaves a genuine profit, and still produces a price your customers will pay. The calculator lets you test different markups in seconds so you can find that balance.
One markup convention you will hear about often is keystone pricing — simply doubling the cost to set the retail price, which is a 100% markup (and a 50% margin). It became popular because it is easy to calculate and generally leaves enough room to cover the costs of running a retail business. Many industries build their standard pricing around a keystone baseline and then adjust up or down: luxury and low-turnover items are often marked up well above keystone, while competitive, fast-moving goods may sit below it. Whatever convention your industry uses, the underlying math is the same, and this calculator lets you apply any markup percentage you like and instantly see the resulting price, profit, and margin.
It is worth remembering that a percentage markup and the actual dollars you earn are two different things, and both matter. A high markup on an inexpensive item can generate less real profit than a modest markup on an expensive one: a 100% markup on a $5 item yields $5 of profit, while a 20% markup on a $500 item yields $100. Smart pricing considers the markup percentage, the absolute gross profit per unit, and the volume you expect to sell, all together. The markup percentage tells you how efficient each sale is relative to its cost; the dollar profit tells you how much you actually pocket. This calculator shows the profit in dollars right alongside the markup and margin percentages so neither view gets lost.
Imagine you run a small shop and a supplier offers you a product at a cost of $80 per unit. You know from experience that you need roughly a 25% markup to cover your overhead and still make a profit, so you enter cost $80 and markup 25% into the calculator. It returns a selling price of $100, a profit of $20 per unit, and a 20% margin. That is your baseline price.
Now suppose a competitor is selling the same item for $95. You can test that scenario by entering cost $80 and revenue $95: the calculator shows a markup of 18.75% and a margin of about 15.8%. That tells you exactly how much profit you would give up by matching their price — the profit per unit drops from $20 to $15. Armed with those numbers, you can decide whether to compete on price, hold your margin, or add value elsewhere. Finally, if your supplier raises the cost to $88 but you want to keep the same $100 price, enter cost $88 and revenue $100 to see your markup shrink to 13.6% and your margin to about 12% — a clear signal that a price adjustment may be needed. Running these quick "what-if" comparisons is where a markup calculator earns its keep, turning guesswork into a few seconds of arithmetic.
Subtract the cost from the selling price to get the profit, divide that by the cost, and multiply by 100: markup = 100 × (revenue − cost) ÷ cost. For a cost of $80 and a price of $100, the markup is 100 × 20 ÷ 80 = 25%.
Markup is profit as a percentage of the cost; margin is profit as a percentage of the selling price. For the same sale, markup is always the higher figure — a 25% markup equals a 20% margin. Confusing the two leads to underpricing.
Multiply the cost by the markup (as a decimal) to get the profit, then add it to the cost: revenue = cost × (1 + markup ÷ 100). For an $80 cost and a 25% markup, the price is $80 × 1.25 = $100.
Yes. Markup can be any positive number, because the selling price can be more than double the cost. A 100% markup means the price is twice the cost; a 300% markup means it is four times the cost. Margin, by contrast, can never reach 100%.
Keystone pricing means doubling the cost to set the retail price — a 100% markup, which is the same as a 50% margin. It is a common rule of thumb in retail because it is simple and usually leaves enough room to cover operating costs.
No. It works with the direct cost of the item and the gross profit added on top. Operating expenses, overhead, and taxes reduce your net profit further, so use markup to price individual products and separate net-profit analysis to judge the whole business.
This Markup Calculator is provided for educational and general informational purposes. It computes markup, cost, revenue, profit, and margin, and does not account for operating expenses, overhead, or taxes. Consult a qualified accountant or financial professional for business and pricing decisions.