Business
Markup Calculator
Cost to selling price — and the margin that markup really earns.
A 50% markup is a 33% margin
That confusion is the reason this page exists, and it is expensive. Markup is measured against cost; margin is measured against price. Add 50% to a $40 item and you sell at $60 — of which $20 is profit, which is 33% of $60, not 50%.
Anyone pricing to a "50% margin" by adding 50% to cost is running a third less profit than they think, and it compounds across every line they sell.
The conversions
Margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup). Markup = margin ÷ (100 − margin). A few worth knowing by heart: 25% markup is a 20% margin, 50% is 33%, 100% is 50%, and 233% is 70%.
Why it matters beyond pricing
Break-even ROAS is 1 ÷ margin, so using markup in its place understates the target badly. At a 50% markup the real break-even is 3.0x, not the 2.0x that 50% suggests — and a campaign run to the wrong figure loses money while appearing to clear it.