Profit margin calculator
FinanceNo. 51 / 84
Find gross profit, margin and markup from cost and selling price, or enter a target margin and get the price to charge.
margin is profit over price, markup is profit over cost — one always sounds better.
work surface
Math, not advice — results are indicative.Read the disclaimer.
most-used utilities
Retail product
A cost of 12 and a price of 30: a healthy margin and a markup that flatters the spreadsheet.
Freelance quote
Set a 40% margin on your hours before anyone asks for a discount.
Cafe menu
Beans, milk and rent-free optimism, priced per cup.
pro tips
Margin can approach 100% but never reach it. At 100% the cost is zero and the required price is infinite — impressive, unpractical.
Markup always looks larger than margin on the same sale. Say which one you mean before the meeting becomes a debate.
Round the final price after checking the margin, not before. A tidy number can quietly eat two points of profit.
what it does
Margin and markup describe the same profit from different angles. Margin divides profit by the selling price; markup divides it by the cost. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin, which is how two people can look at one invoice and disagree about everything.
Enter the cost and the selling price and you get gross profit, margin and markup at once. Switch to the margin or markup mode and the calculator works backwards: name the percentage you want and it returns the price to charge.
Gross profit ignores rent, salaries, ads and the coffee bought while thinking about pricing. It is the first layer, not the last word. Subtract overheads separately if you need net margin; this page stays honest about doing one job.
Use it on a product line, a freelance quote or a menu change. The currency picker changes the symbol and nothing else — the percentages behave the same in dollars, euros or pounds, which is one thing inflation has not taken.
quick answers
What is the difference between margin and markup?
Margin is profit divided by the selling price; markup is profit divided by the cost. A 50% markup equals a 33.3% margin, so one profit can produce two very different percentages.
Why can't margin be 100%?
A 100% margin would mean the item costs nothing to make. Any positive cost leaves part of the price as cost, so margin stays below 100.
Is this the same as net margin?
No. This is gross margin, based only on the cost of goods. Net margin also subtracts overheads, taxes and the rest of the invoice stack.