Margin Calculator — Markup
The cost-plus view, for pricing the way distributors and trades actually work: start from what an item costs and apply a markup percentage to it. A 50% markup on a $60 cost gives a $90 price — which is only a 33.33% margin, a gap the page surfaces on every calculation so a markup habit never gets mistaken for a margin promise.
Margin & markup
Selling price
$90.00
$30.00 profit · 33.33% margin · 50% markup
Breakdown
Margin is profit ÷ price; markup is profit ÷ cost — the same sale, two different percentages. Plain arithmetic on the numbers you enter; not pricing, tax, or accounting advice.
Cost-plus pricing without the spreadsheet error
Keystone pricing — a 100% markup, doubling cost — is the retail classic, and standard multipliers are everywhere in wholesale and food service. The trap is reporting: a buyer who doubles cost and writes "50% margin" in the plan is correct, but one who writes "100% margin" is not, and budgets built on the mix-up overstate profit. This page keeps the pair visible: 100% markup = 50% margin, 50% markup = 33.33% margin.
Cost-plus is simple but blind to what customers would pay; its best use is as a floor. Price at the standard markup, then check the implied margin covers your operating costs — if it doesn't, the markup convention, not the customer, is what needs to move.
Questions
- What price is a 50% markup on a $60 cost?
- $90 — $30 of profit, which is a 33.33% gross margin. The same $90 price read as margin and as markup gives two different percentages by design.
- What is keystone pricing?
- Doubling the cost — a 100% markup, equal to a 50% margin. It is a traditional retail default rather than a rule; thin-margin and luxury categories both deviate from it routinely.