Price needed to hit a target margin on your cost, and the markup that margin means
Estimates only, not financial advice. What you type stays on your device. Updated on 25 Oct 2026.To earn a given margin, divide the cost by one minus the margin. A $40 cost at a 30% margin needs a price of $40 / 0.70 = $57.14, not $52, which is what adding 30% to the cost gives.
The page opens with a $40 "Cost per unit" and a 30% "Margin" already entered.
Change the cost, and type the margin you want to earn into "Margin".
Read the worked-out "Selling price" and the "Markup (on cost)" that margin means.
Open the "Margin and markup table" for the price at other common margins on the same cost.
Margin is the share of the selling price you keep, so it can approach but never reach 100% while the item costs anything at all.
Margin and markup describe the same profit from two sides, and mixing them up is one of the commonest pricing mistakes in a small business. Both start from gross profit, the selling price less the cost of the item. Margin divides that profit by the selling price; markup divides it by the cost. A $40 item sold for $60 makes $20, which is a 50% markup but only a 33.33% margin.
Type into any two boxes. The calculator treats the two boxes you typed into last as known and works out the other two, so you can start from a cost and a target margin, a cost and a markup, a price and a margin, or a cost and a price. Margin and markup together are not enough, because they say the same thing in two ways and fix no price.
The conversions. Markup = margin / (1 − margin), and margin = markup / (1 + markup), with both as fractions. A 25% margin is a 33.33% markup; keystone pricing, a 100% markup, is a 50% margin. A price for a target margin is cost / (1 − margin), so a 30% margin on $40 needs $57.14, not the $52 that adding 30% to the cost gives.
The rest of the article, and all 6 questions about Profit Margin and Markup Calculator, are on the Profit Margin and Markup Calculator page.
Both use the same profit, the selling price minus the cost. Margin divides the profit by the selling price, while markup divides it by the cost. An item bought for $40 and sold for $60 has a $20 profit, which is a 50% markup but a 33.33% margin. Markup is always the larger figure when there is a profit.
Divide the cost by one minus the margin written as a decimal. For a 30% margin on a $40 cost, the price is 40 / 0.70 = $57.14. Adding 30% to the cost gives $52, which is only a 23.08% margin. The calculator does this when you type the cost and the margin.
Keystone pricing means doubling the wholesale cost, a 100% markup. The profit then equals the cost, so it is half the selling price: a 50% margin. A product bought at $12.50 and sold at $25 is keystone. Triple keystone, a 200% markup, gives a 66.67% margin.
A margin of exactly 100% is possible only when the item cost nothing, since the whole price would then be profit. With any cost above zero the margin can come close to 100% but never reach it, and the calculator refuses a 100% margin together with a cost. Markup has no such ceiling: 300% or 1,000% markups are possible.
Formula only: no rates or limits are read from an official source.
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