Calculate the selling price from a cost and markup percentage — and see the profit and profit margin. Essential for retail, e-commerce, and any business pricing products or services.
Cost → price, profit & margin
Markup is how much you add to the cost of a product to set its selling price, expressed as a percentage of cost. Selling price = cost × (1 + markup%). A $50 item with a 40% markup sells for $70, giving a $20 profit. Markup and margin are often confused: markup is profit as a percentage of cost, while margin is profit as a percentage of the selling price. The same $20 profit on a $70 sale is a 40% markup but a 28.6% margin.
Understanding both is essential for pricing. Retailers typically think in markup when setting prices from supplier cost, but report profitability in margin. This calculator shows both so you can price confidently and compare to industry benchmarks — grocery markups run low (10–15%), while restaurants, jewelry, and apparel often use 50–300% markups to cover overhead.
Price = Cost × (1 + Markup%). Profit = Price − Cost. A 40% markup on $50 = $70 price, $20 profit.
Markup is % of cost; margin is % of selling price. 40% markup equals a 28.6% margin — never the same number.
Grocery 10–15%, apparel 100%+, restaurants 200–300% on food cost, jewelry up to 300%. Set yours to cover overhead and profit.
Markup is the amount added to cost to arrive at a selling price, expressed as a percentage of that cost. It is how pricing decisions are actually made — you know what an item cost you and need a price — whereas margin is how the result is reported. Because the two use different denominators they are never equal, and the divergence widens as profitability rises: a 20% markup is a 16.7% margin, but a 100% markup is a 50% margin. Retailers that set prices by markup and budget by margin need both numbers in front of them.
Selling price = Cost × (1 + markup%)Markup % = ((Price − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100Margin % = ((Price − Cost) ÷ Price) × 100where:
Assumptions: Assumes cost is fully landed — including freight, duty and any per-unit handling. Marking up an ex-works price and forgetting shipping is the most common way a nominally profitable line loses money.
An item costs $24 ex-works with $4 of freight and duty, and the target markup is 65%.
ResultPrice $46.20 — 65% markup, 39.39% margin
Working backwards from a target margin instead: for a 50% margin on $28 of cost, price = $28 ÷ (1 − 0.50) = $56, which is a 100% markup. Deciding which of the two numbers your target refers to is the whole exercise.