The price afterthe percentage.
Two everyday calculations, one tool. Discount mode takes a price and a percentage off and gives you the sale price and the savings. Markup mode takes your cost and a markup percentage and gives you the selling price, plus the gross margin it actually produces, because markup and margin are never the same number. Switch between them with the toggle.
Discount a price
The price before the discount.
Percentage off the price.
Sale price
Sale price
$90
You save
$30
Original vs sale
Sensitivity · the cost of a discount
Sale price at each discount
| Discount | Sale price | You give up |
|---|---|---|
| 10% | $108 | $12 |
| 20% | $96 | $24 |
| 30% | $84 | $36 |
| 40% | $72 | $48 |
| 50% | $60 | $60 |
| 60% | $48 | $72 |
Every percent off comes straight out of margin, not revenue. A discount that looks small on the sticker can wipe out most of the profit on the sale — discount deliberately.
Your move
Pricing math is easy. Pricing power is earned.
25% off $120 = $90 (save $30).
The reason you can hold a higher price, or never need to discount, is positioning: being the obvious choice, not the cheap one. That's what I build. If you're competing on price and want to stop, book the call and I'll show you, free, how I'd reposition you to charge what you're worth.
Plain English
Percentages are simple. Their effect on profit isn't.
Discount and markup are the two directions of the same idea: markup goes up from cost to set a price, discount comes down from price to set a sale. Both look like trivial arithmetic, and both quietly cause expensive mistakes, because the percentage you apply and the profit you keep move differently. This tool does the arithmetic instantly and, more usefully, shows you what the percentage really does to your bottom line.
Markup mode answers 'what do I sell this for?' You add a markup percentage to your cost to reach a price. The trap: a markup is not a margin. Add 50% to a $40 cost and you get a $60 price, but your margin is only 33%, because the $20 profit is a third of the price, not half. Pricing on markup while thinking in margin is one of the most common ways small businesses leave money on the table. The tool shows the resulting margin so you always know the real number.
Discount mode answers 'what's it after X% off, and can I afford that?' It gives the sale price and the savings, but the figure that matters is what the discount does to profit. A discount comes entirely out of your margin, so a 20% price cut on a product with a 40% margin doesn't trim profit by 20%, it halves it. Knowing that before you run the promotion is the difference between a sale that builds the business and one that quietly drains it.
The formula
Sale price = price × (1 − discount%) · Selling price = cost × (1 + markup%)
Discount: a $120 item at 25% off → savings $30, sale price $90. Markup: a $40 cost at 50% markup → $60 price, which is a 33% margin (not 50%). Same percentages people use every day, but only one of those two numbers is the profit you actually keep.
Markup → margin, at a glance
Because the two get confused constantly, here's how common markups translate into the margin you actually earn. Notice how the gap widens as the markup climbs:
| Markup | Equals a margin of |
|---|---|
| 10% | 9% |
| 25% | 20% |
| 50% | 33% |
| 100% | 50% |
| 200% | 67% |
Source: Markup to margin conversion (arithmetic identity) · 2025
Read the result
You set price by markup but report margin.
You're targeting the wrong number. A 40% markup is only a ~29% margin. Decide which you mean and price in margin. That's the money you keep.
A discount looks affordable but isn't.
Discounts come out of margin, not revenue. Check your product margin first: a discount bigger than half your margin can erase the entire profit on the sale.
Deep discounts as a default tactic.
Chronic discounting trains customers to wait for sales and resets your perceived price. Use it sparingly and with a clear margin floor.
Thin markup on a low cost item.
Small markups on cheap items leave almost nothing after fees and shipping. Either bundle, raise the markup, or drop the product.
Markup high but sales stall.
Price may be past what the market will bear. Test the price elasticity rather than assuming a high markup always sticks.
How to use discounts and markups well
01Always price in margin
Convert any markup to its margin before you commit. The number you keep is the margin, make decisions on that, not the bigger markup figure.
02Set a discount floor
Decide the lowest margin you'll accept and never discount past it. A discount that breaches your floor is a sale you're better off not making.
03Discount to acquire, not to survive
A first order discount that wins a profitable repeat customer is smart; blanket markdowns to hit a revenue number erode the brand and the margin.
04Prefer added value to price cuts
A bonus, a bundle, or free shipping often converts as well as a discount while protecting your headline price and your margin.
05Model the promotion before you run it
Multiply the discount against your real margin and expected volume. If the extra units don't cover the margin you give up, the sale loses money.
06Use markup as a floor, value as the ceiling
Cost plus markup tells you the minimum to charge. What the outcome is worth to the customer tells you the maximum, price toward the value.
The vocabulary
- Discount
- A reduction off the selling price, expressed as a percentage. Comes directly out of your margin.
- Markup
- The amount added to cost to set a price, as a percentage of the cost.
- Margin
- Profit as a percentage of the selling price, the share of each sale you keep. Always lower than the equivalent markup.
- Sale price
- The price after a discount is applied.
- Price elasticity
- How much demand changes when price changes, what determines whether a higher markup will actually sell.
Discount & markup questions, straight answers
Multiply the original price by the discount percentage to get the savings, then subtract it. A $120 item at 25% off saves $30 for a $90 sale price. This tool's discount mode does it instantly, and the real thing to watch is what that discount does to your profit margin, not just the headline price.
Keep going
A calculator tells you what. A call tells you what to do about it.
Send me the account behind these numbers. I'll tell you straight where the money's leaking and what I'd fix first — free, and you keep it whether you hire me or not.