{"id":215,"date":"2026-07-09T21:53:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/?p=215"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:06:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:06:28","slug":"markup-vs-margin-percentage-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/retail-markup\/markup-vs-margin-percentage-comparison\/","title":{"rendered":"Markup vs. Margin Percentage: How to Calculate and Compare Both"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Markup and margin use the same two numbers \u2014 cost and selling price \u2014 but divide differently, producing different percentages that are easy to mix up when pricing.<\/p>\n<h2>The two formulas side by side<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Markup % = (Selling price \u2212 Cost) \u00f7 Cost<\/li>\n<li>Margin % = (Selling price \u2212 Cost) \u00f7 Selling price<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why the gap between them grows at higher percentages<\/h2>\n<p>At low percentages, markup and margin are close \u2014 a 10% markup is roughly a 9% margin. At higher percentages the gap widens substantially: a 100% markup is only a 50% margin, and a 300% markup is only a 75% margin. Assuming markup and margin are interchangeable gets more costly the higher your markup runs.<\/p>\n<h2>A practical rule<\/h2>\n<p>If a target is quoted as a percentage without specifying which formula, ask before pricing off it \u2014 the two numbers diverge enough that a misunderstanding here directly affects your actual profit, not just your reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Markup and margin use the same two numbers \u2014 cost and selling price \u2014 but divide differently, producing different percentages that are easy to mix up when pricing. The two formulas side by side Markup % = (Selling price \u2212 Cost) \u00f7 Cost Margin % = (Selling price \u2212 Cost) \u00f7 Selling price Why the &#8230; <a title=\"Markup vs. Margin Percentage: How to Calculate and Compare Both\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/retail-markup\/markup-vs-margin-percentage-comparison\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Markup vs. Margin Percentage: How to Calculate and Compare Both\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25,10],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retail-markup","tag-margin-vs-markup","tag-markup-percentage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizmargin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}