Markup Calculator
Enter cost and selling price to find the markup percentage — and the gross margin it works out to, side by side.
On £100.00 of revenue with £60.00 of cost, the profit is £40.00. That's a markup of 66.67% — and an equivalent gross margin of 40.00%.
Results update as you type.
Formula
Markup is profit as a percentage of cost:
markup% = (revenue − cost) / cost × 100.
To go the other way — set a price from a target markup —
price = cost × (1 + markup%/100).
The equivalent gross margin is always smaller because it divides by the larger number:
margin% = markup% / (1 + markup%/100).
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Frequently asked questions
What is markup?▾
Markup is the percentage you've added on top of your cost to set the selling price. If you buy something for £60 and sell it for £100, you've marked it up by £40 / £60 = 66.67%. It's how retailers price intuitively: 'cost plus 50%' or 'keystone' (which is double cost — a 100% markup, equivalent to a 50% margin).
Markup or margin — which one should I use?▾
Both, for different jobs. Markup is the input you control: 'I'll mark this up by 50% to set the price.' Margin is what the result actually means at the headline level: 'this product runs a 33.33% gross margin.' Internally you might price by markup; reporting and benchmarking happen in margin terms. The two diverge: 25% markup is only 20% margin, 50% markup is 33.33% margin, 100% markup is 50% margin.
How do I price for a target markup?▾
price = cost × (1 + markup%/100). For 50% markup on £70 cost: 70 × 1.50 = £105 selling price. This calculator works the inverse — given cost and price, what's the markup — but the formula is rearrangeable.
Why is my markup higher than my margin for the same product?▾
Always — except at zero. Markup divides by cost (the smaller number); margin divides by revenue (the larger number). So markup is always the bigger percentage on a profitable product. The conversion is margin% = markup% / (1 + markup%/100). It's what trips up newcomers most often.
Does VAT affect markup?▾
Use net-of-VAT figures for both cost and price for the calculation to be meaningful. If you're VAT-registered, the 20% you collect is the tax authority's, not your markup. If you mistakenly include VAT in the revenue but not the cost, you'll show an inflated markup of roughly 20 percentage points.