Money calculator
Markup Calculator
Compare markup and gross margin from a product's cost and selling price.
Cost and selling price must be greater than zero.
Markup amount
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What cost and selling price produce
Enter what an item cost you and what you sold it for. Both fields have to be greater than zero — a cost or price of exactly $0 is rejected, because markup divides by cost and margin divides by price, and dividing by zero has no answer.
There's no rule that price has to exceed cost: enter a selling price below cost and the calculator still returns a result, just a negative one. Profit, markup percentage, and margin percentage all flip sign together to show the loss.
The tool reports four numbers from those two inputs: the gross profit in dollars, the markup percentage, and the gross margin percentage, all computed at once rather than one at a time.
The markup and margin formulas
An $80 cost item sold for $100 has $20 profit. Markup is 20 ÷ 80 × 100 = 25%, measured against what you paid. Margin is 20 ÷ 100 × 100 = 20%, measured against what the customer paid — same $20, two different percentages because the denominators differ.
Markup and margin are not the same number
This is the single most common mix-up with these two figures, and the gap gets bigger as the percentage grows. Cost $100, sell for $150: profit is $50, markup is 50 ÷ 100 × 100 = 50%, but margin is 50 ÷ 150 × 100 = 33.33% — a 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, not 50%. Double the price instead (cost $100, sell $200) and markup hits 100% while margin only reaches 50%; markup can climb past 100%, but margin mathematically can never reach or exceed 100% as long as cost is positive.
You can convert between them without re-entering the numbers: margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup) × 100, and markup = margin ÷ (100 − margin) × 100. Checking the $80/$100 example above, 25% markup gives 25 ÷ 125 × 100 = 20% margin, which matches.
Everyday markup and margin scenarios
A few pricing situations and the exact figures the calculator returns:
- Retail resale – buying inventory at $80 and tagging it $100 gives $20 profit, 25% markup, 20% margin
- Restaurant plating – a dish costing $4.00 to make priced at $16.00 gives $12.00 profit, 300% markup, 75% margin
- Wholesale doubling – moving from $100 cost to $200 retail is a 100% markup but only a 50% margin
- Clearance loss – a $60 cost item marked down and sold for $45 gives a −$15.00 profit, a −25% markup, and a −33.33% margin
- Break-even check – cost and price both set to $50 give exactly $0 profit, 0% markup, and 0% margin
Frequently asked questions
What's the actual difference between markup and margin?
Markup divides profit by cost; margin divides the same profit by selling price. A 50% markup — selling something for 1.5× what it cost — only works out to a 33.3% margin, because the profit is a smaller slice of the higher selling price than it is of the lower cost.
How do I convert a markup percentage into a margin percentage?
Margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup) × 100. A 25% markup becomes 25 ÷ 125 × 100 = 20% margin. This works without knowing the actual dollar cost or price, just the markup percentage.
How do I convert margin back into markup?
Markup = margin ÷ (100 − margin) × 100. A 20% margin becomes 20 ÷ 80 × 100 = 25% markup, which reverses the previous example exactly.
Can the calculator show a loss instead of a profit?
Yes — as long as selling price is above $0, it can still be below cost. Selling a $60 item for $45 returns a −$15.00 profit, a −25% markup, and a −33.33% margin, all negative together.
Why does the calculator reject a cost or price of exactly zero?
Markup percentage is profit divided by cost, and margin percentage is profit divided by price; both formulas break down at zero, so both fields require a value greater than zero to produce a result.
Is gross margin here the same as net profit margin?
No. This gross margin only weighs the item's cost against its selling price. Net margin would also subtract overhead, labor, shipping, payment processing fees, and returns, so a healthy gross margin doesn't guarantee the business is profitable overall.