Quick discount and markup calculation
The word "percent" comes from the Latin "per centum" — "by the hundred" — and the concept has been used to express proportions, taxes and interest since Roman times. Today it is the everyday language of retail pricing: a store advertises a sale as "30% off," while a wholesaler marks up a product's cost by a percentage to arrive at the price it charges customers.
Discount and markup are two sides of the same arithmetic but move in opposite directions. A discount is subtracted from an existing price to find what a shopper actually pays, while a markup is added on top of a cost price to set a selling price that covers expenses and leaves a profit — retailers, wholesalers and freelancers all rely on markup pricing to turn a cost into a price.
Working these out by hand is easy to get wrong, especially with odd percentages or when comparing several offers at once. This calculator handles both directions instantly, so shoppers can check whether a sale is really worth it and sellers can see the exact profit a given markup produces.