Markup Strategy Calculator

Markup and margin sound like the same thing but aren't, and this calculator computes both so you can see the gap. Wholesale Price and Retail Price are straightforward markups on cost: price = cost × (1 + markup% / 100), so a 100% wholesale markup doubles cost and a 300% retail markup quadruples it — the fashion industry's traditional 2x/4x pricing ladder. But Wholesale Margin and Retail Margin are calculated the margin way, as (price − cost) / price, not (price − cost) / cost — which is why a 300% markup does not produce a 300% margin. At 4x cost, margin actually comes out to 75%, because margin measures profit as a share of the selling price, while markup measures it as a share of cost; the two converge only at very small percentages and diverge sharply as markup grows.

Profit per Unit is the plain dollar difference between retail price and cost. Target Margin is captured as an input for your own reference — a number to compare your calculated margins against — but it does not feed into or adjust any of the calculated prices; you have to manually raise or lower your markup percentages until the resulting margin lines up with your target. The most common mistake in fashion pricing is assuming a markup percentage and a margin percentage are interchangeable; use this calculator's side-by-side margin figures to catch that before pricing a whole collection off the wrong number.