Calculate profit, markup percentage, and profit margin percentage.
Enter your cost price and sale price. The calculator subtracts cost from sale price to find profit, then shows two different percentages: margin (profit as a percentage of the sale price) and markup (profit as a percentage of the cost price).
These two percentages are easy to mix up but answer different questions. Margin tells you what share of each sale is profit, which is what matters for overall profitability. Markup tells you how much you added on top of cost, which is what matters when you're pricing a product starting from what it cost you to make or buy. The same sale can have a 37.5% margin and a 60% markup at once — both are correct, they're just measuring against a different base.
The two levers aren't equivalent, even at the same percentage. With this page's default €50 cost and €80 sale price, margin starts at 37.5%. Raise the price by 10% to €88, and margin climbs to 43.18%. Cut the cost by 10% instead, to €45, and margin climbs slightly further, to 43.75%. The reason: a price increase grows both profit and the sale price it's divided by, while a cost cut only grows profit against an unchanged sale price. Which lever helps more depends on your specific cost-to-price ratio, so it's worth testing both directions with your own numbers rather than assuming either one always wins.
Margin divides profit by sale price; markup divides profit by cost price. Since sale price is always higher than cost price when there's a profit, margin will always be a smaller percentage than markup.
Whatever it actually cost you to acquire or produce the item — purchase price, materials, and direct production costs. Overhead like rent or salaries is usually tracked separately, not folded into cost price here.
Enter a cost price, then adjust the sale price up or down until the margin figure reads 30%. As a shortcut, markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin), so a 30% margin corresponds to roughly a 42.9% markup.
It depends on your specific numbers, and the two are rarely equal. With this page's default €50 cost and €80 sale price (37.5% margin), a 10% price increase raises margin to 43.18%, while a 10% cost cut raises it slightly further, to 43.75% — because a price increase grows the sale price (the denominator) at the same time it grows profit, while a cost cut only grows profit. Try both directions with your own numbers rather than assuming one always wins.