Markup and margin calculator
Updated
Put in what a job costs you and either the markup you add, the margin you want or the price you charged. See the price, the profit and both percentages at once.
- Free, no sign-up
- Works both ways
- Nothing saved or sent
Work out your price, markup and margin
Put in what the job costs you, then whichever of the other numbers you know. Out come the price, the profit and both percentages side by side.
Your price, profit, markup and margin show up here.
Worked out on this page only. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
What's the difference between markup and margin?
Both measure the same profit, against different numbers. Markup is the profit as a share of what the job cost you. Margin is the profit as a share of the price the customer pays.
Take a job that costs you one thousand pounds, priced at one thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. The profit is two hundred and fifty pounds. Against the cost that's a 25 per cent markup. Against the price it's a 20 per cent margin. Same job, same money, two different percentages.
That gap is where profit goes missing. Add “20 per cent” to your costs thinking it's your margin, and you keep 16.7 per cent of every price instead.
Markup to margin at a glance
- a 10 per cent markup keeps a 9.1 per cent margin
- a 20 per cent markup keeps a 16.7 per cent margin
- a 25 per cent markup keeps a 20 per cent margin
- a 33.3 per cent markup keeps a 25 per cent margin
- a 50 per cent markup keeps a 33.3 per cent margin
- a 100 per cent markup (doubling your cost) keeps a 50 per cent margin
Which one should you price with?
Whichever you like, as long as you know which one you're using. Markup is easier when you build a price up from costs, line by line. Margin is how accountants, lenders and most main contractors talk about profit, so it's the number to compare when someone says a job “made 15 per cent”.
Pick one for your quotes and stick to it. Mixing them between jobs is how two quotes for similar work end up earning very different money.
What goes into the cost?
Markup only protects you if the cost underneath it is complete. Before you add anything, the cost should include:
- materials, with an allowance for waste and offcuts
- labour, including your own time at a fair rate, not just your team's
- plant, skips, scaffold and any hire
- travel, parking and the congestion charge where it applies
- prelims: site set-up, welfare, protection, clearing up
- a contingency for the risk you can see on this job
The full checklist is in our guide on how to price a job. Not sure what your own time is worth? The day rate calculator works it out from what you want the year to pay you.
Where Nexley fits
Nexley prices your tenders and runs your office, all on WhatsApp. For quotes, send a voice note and it builds the quote on your own rate card (labour, materials, prelims, margin and the small extras like skips and parking), ready for you to read and send the same day. See how on the automated quoting page, or work out what your deductions come to with the CIS calculator.
Quotes priced on your own margin
7 days free, then £799 a month. No contract.
Does what it says really. Compared to what I'd have to pay someone to do everything they're looking after, it's worth it.”
