Markup Calculator
Cost plus your markup percentage gives the selling price — and the page also shows the margin that markup produces, so the two never get confused at the till.
Cost-plus pricing, with the margin shown before it surprises you
Markup is how most prices are actually set: take the cost, add your percentage, print the tag. The risk is invisible until someone asks what margin the business is running — this page answers both questions from the same two inputs, so the tag and the truth arrive together.
Price = cost × (1 + markup%) · Resulting margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup)
Example: cost $14 with a 60% markup prices at $22.40 — an $8.40 profit, which is a margin of 37.5%, not 60%. If the business plan promised a 60% margin, the price needed to be $35. The two numbers differ by a factor the formula above makes permanent.
Keystone and its descendants
Traditional retail 'keystone' is a 100% markup — double the cost — producing a 50% margin before discounts. Modern categories run from near-zero (consumer electronics) to several hundred percent (fashion, cosmetics). Your markup is a market fact before it is an ambition.
How this is calculated
Price = cost × (1 + markup ÷ 100). Resulting margin = (price − cost) ÷ price. No taxes are included in the price (add your jurisdiction's treatment yourself — in much of the world shelf prices are tax-inclusive, which changes what 'cost' must include for the margin to be real).
Frequently asked questions
Markup on cost or on price?
By definition, on cost. A percentage 'on price' is a margin (or a discount). The page shows the margin your markup produces so the two stop being confused downstream.
What markup do I need for a 40% margin?
66.7% — from the identity markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin). The conversion surprises everyone the first time; it is why this calculator exists next to its sibling.
Should shipping and fees be in 'cost'?
For the margin to mean anything, yes: landed cost (product + inbound shipping + unavoidable per-unit fees) is the honest base. Markup on the bare product price manufactures fictitious margin.
Can markup be too high?
The market administers that lesson itself: markup is constrained by what substitutes cost. The arithmetic here cannot judge your market — it guarantees only that you know your own numbers inside it.
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