Calculate your selling price from cost and markup, work out your markup on any sale, and convert between markup and margin — three tools in one.
Want your markup calculated automatically? Craftybase tracks your material costs and shows you real profit per product — no spreadsheets required.
Try free for 14 daysMarkup is the amount added to your cost to arrive at a selling price. The formula is: Selling Price = Cost × (1 + Markup% ÷ 100). To find the markup on a product you already sell: Markup% = ((Selling Price − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100. Markup and margin are different: a 50% markup gives you a 33% margin, not a 50% margin.
Enter your cost and the markup percentage you want to apply. The calculator will show you the selling price and how much profit you make.
Selling Price
$18.70
per unit
Margin is different from markup — see the Markup vs. Margin section below.
This calculator has three modes. Use whichever fits your situation — they all update live as you type.
Use this when you know what a product costs to make and want to figure out what to charge. Enter your cost and the markup percentage you want to apply. The calculator shows you the resulting selling price, your profit in dollar terms, and what margin that works out to.
If you're not sure what markup to use, the markup benchmarks section below gives you typical ranges by product type.
Use this to check the markup you're already applying. Enter your cost and your current selling price. The calculator tells you your markup percentage and how much profit you're making per unit. If the number looks lower than you expected, it's often because labor wasn't fully included in the cost.
This one trips up makers regularly. If a wholesale buyer says they need "40% margin", they don't mean 40% markup — they mean that 40% of the selling price should be profit. To achieve a 40% margin, you need to apply a 66.67% markup. Enter any margin percentage to see the equivalent markup, or any markup to see the equivalent margin.
Tired of manually tracking your costs?Craftybase calculates your exact cost per product from your ingredients and labor automatically. No more guessing what to put in the cost field.
Try free for 14 days →Markup is the amount added to the cost of a product to arrive at its selling price, expressed as a percentage of the cost.
If it costs you $10 to make a candle and you sell it for $20, your markup is 100%. You've added 100% of the cost to get your price. The formula is:
Markup % = ((Selling Price − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100
Selling Price = Cost × (1 + Markup% ÷ 100)
Markup starts from cost. That's the key thing to remember.
Markup and margin both measure profitability, but they use different bases — and this trips up makers more than almost any other pricing concept.
Markup is profit as a percentage of cost. Margin is profit as a percentage of selling price. Same dollar profit, different denominators, different numbers.
| Cost | Selling Price | Profit | Markup % | Margin % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10.00 | $12.50 | $2.50 | 25% | 20% |
| $10.00 | $15.00 | $5.00 | 50% | 33.3% |
| $10.00 | $20.00 | $10.00 | 100% | 50% |
| $10.00 | $25.00 | $15.00 | 150% | 60% |
The practical reason this matters: if a boutique buyer tells you they need 40% margin, and you think "ok, I'll use 40% markup" — you've undercut yourself. They'll end up with a 40% margin only if you use a 66.67% markup. Use the converter in Mode 3 any time a buyer quotes in margin terms.
For a deeper look at how margin fits into your overall pricing, our guide on how to price handmade items walks through the full pricing framework.
Here are the four formulas this calculator uses, with worked examples so you can check the math yourself.
You make a bar of soap for $4.25 and want a 150% markup:
Selling Price = $4.25 × (1 + 150 ÷ 100) = $4.25 × 2.5 = $10.63
Profit = $10.63 − $4.25 = $6.38
Margin = $6.38 ÷ $10.63 × 100 = 60%
A candle costs $6.00 to make and sells for $18.00:
Markup % = (($18.00 − $6.00) ÷ $6.00) × 100 = ($12.00 ÷ $6.00) × 100 = 200%
Margin = $12.00 ÷ $18.00 × 100 = 66.7%
Markup % = Margin % ÷ (100 − Margin %) × 100
Example: 40% margin → Markup = 40 ÷ 60 × 100 = 66.67%
Margin % = Markup % ÷ (100 + Markup %) × 100
Example: 66.67% markup → Margin = 66.67 ÷ 166.67 × 100 = 40%
These are the markup ranges you'll commonly see for handmade and small-batch maker products. Use them as a starting point, not a ceiling — your actual markup should come from your real costs, not from copying industry averages.
| Product Type | Typical Retail Markup | Equivalent Margin |
|---|---|---|
| Handmade soap & bath products | 100–200% | 50–67% |
| Candles & wax melts | 150–300% | 60–75% |
| Handmade jewelry | 200–400% | 67–80% |
| Skincare & cosmetics | 150–300% | 60–75% |
| Baked goods & packaged food | 100–150% | 50–60% |
| Wholesale to retailers (all types) | 50–100% | 33–50% |
Wholesale markup is lower because you're selling in volume to a buyer who will apply their own markup when selling to customers.
These are the ones we see most often.
If you've promised a wholesale buyer a "40% margin" but calculated it as a 40% markup, you've given them a 28.6% margin instead. They'll notice. Use Mode 3 of this calculator before every wholesale quote to make sure you're speaking the same language.
A 200% markup on materials alone is very different from a 200% markup on your full cost (materials + labor + overhead + packaging). Most makers who feel they're making healthy margins are only marking up their material cost, leaving labor and overhead uncovered.
A heavily labor-intensive product (hand-stamped jewelry, decorated sugar cookies, cold process soap with detailed swirl work) may need a 300% markup to be profitable. A simple product with low labor might work at 150%. Blanket markups hide underperforming products and leave money on the table on your best ones.
If your cost is $12 and a competitor sells a similar product for $18, pricing at $18 gives you a 50% markup. That might be fine. Or their materials might be sourced differently, their labor might be priced differently, or they might be losing money on every sale. Price from your costs up, then check where the market sits.
This calculator handles the math for a single product. Once you're managing multiple products with different ingredients, labor times, and costs — and those costs are changing as supplier prices fluctuate — doing this manually becomes a real time drain.
That's what Craftybase is built for. It tracks your ingredient purchases and automatically calculates the true cost per product from your recipes. When your coconut oil goes up in price, your soap cost updates automatically. You can see your markup and margin on every product, and know immediately which ones are profitable and which need repricing.
If you're selling wholesale, Craftybase also tracks your wholesale orders separately so your margins are clear across each channel. And because it connects to Etsy, Shopify, and other platforms, your COGS is always calculated from real order data.
Try Craftybase free for 14 days →This calculator is useful for any maker who sells products and needs to understand the relationship between cost, selling price, markup, and margin. Specifically, it helps:
Markup is the amount added to the cost of a product to arrive at its selling price, expressed as a percentage of the cost. If a product costs $10 to make and you sell it for $15, your markup is 50% — you added 50% of the cost on top. The formula is: Markup% = ((Selling Price − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100. Markup tells you how much more than cost you're charging, which is useful for setting prices. It's different from margin, which measures profit as a percentage of revenue instead.
Markup is profit as a percentage of cost. Margin is profit as a percentage of selling price. They use different denominators, so the same dollar profit produces different percentage numbers. A product that costs $10 and sells for $20 has a 100% markup and a 50% margin. This matters most when wholesale buyers quote in margin terms — if a buyer says they need 40% margin, you need to charge a 66.67% markup (not 40%) to deliver that. Always clarify which number a buyer is using before you quote.
There's no universal answer — your markup needs to cover your full cost (materials, labor, overhead, packaging) and leave you with enough profit to sustain and grow your business. For retail sales, most handmade maker businesses target 100–300% markup depending on the product type. Candles and jewelry often carry higher markups than baked goods because margins need to accommodate higher labor time per unit. For wholesale, you're typically looking at 50–100% markup. The key is to start from your real cost, not from what competitors charge.
To calculate markup percentage: subtract your cost from your selling price to get the profit, then divide that profit by your cost and multiply by 100. The formula is: Markup % = ((Selling Price − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100. For example, if your cost is $8 and you sell for $20: ($20 − $8) ÷ $8 × 100 = 150% markup. You can use Mode 2 of this calculator to do this instantly — just enter your cost and selling price and it calculates your markup and margin automatically.
No. Markup and profit margin both measure how much money you make relative to cost — but they divide by different numbers. Markup divides profit by cost. Margin divides profit by selling price. Because selling price is always higher than cost, margin is always a lower percentage than markup for the same transaction. A 100% markup gives you a 50% margin. A 50% markup gives you a 33% margin. These are not interchangeable — using the wrong one in a wholesale negotiation can mean significantly undercharging.
To convert margin % to markup %: divide the margin % by (100 minus the margin %) and multiply by 100. The formula is: Markup% = Margin% ÷ (100 − Margin%) × 100. For example, a 40% margin: 40 ÷ (100 − 40) × 100 = 40 ÷ 60 × 100 = 66.67% markup. Going the other way (markup to margin): Margin% = Markup% ÷ (100 + Markup%) × 100. The Mode 3 converter in this calculator does both conversions instantly.