Ochrequiet invoicing

Free tool

Cost, price, margin, markup — enter any two.

Fill in exactly two of the four fields below and this solves the other two, plus the profit amount — and shows you why margin and markup are never quite the same number.

Nothing you type here ever leaves your browser. There's no server behind this page — every figure is calculated locally, on your device, the same local-first idea behind the Ochre app.

Reviewed 2026-08-11

Exactly two of Cost, Sell price, Margin % and Markup % need a value — clear a field to solve for it instead. Margin and markup can't be the only two: they fix a ratio, not a price (see below).

Results

Margin and markup are not the same number

Both describe profit, but from different starting points, and mixing them up quietly costs money. Markup is profit as a percentage of your cost: add 50% markup to a $100 cost and you sell at $150. Margin is profit as a percentage of your selling price: that same $50 profit on a $150 sale is a 33% margin, not 50%.

Worked example: cost $60, sell $100, profit $40. Margin is $40 ÷ $100 = 40%. Markup is $40 ÷ $60 = 66.67%. Same sale, same $40 profit, two different percentages — because they're measured against two different numbers. Check which one a supplier or client actually means before quoting a number back to them.

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Questions

What is the difference between margin and markup?
Markup is profit as a percentage of your cost; margin is profit as a percentage of your sell price. A $50 profit on a $100 cost is 50% markup, but that same sale (selling at $150) is only a 33% margin, because the profit is being measured against a bigger number — the price, not the cost.
Why do margin and markup give different percentages for the same sale?
Because they divide the same profit figure by two different numbers. Markup divides by cost (the smaller number, so markup reads higher); margin divides by price (the bigger number, so margin reads lower). They only match at 0%, where there's no profit to divide either way.
Can I enter margin and markup together to get the price?
No — margin and markup alone only fix a ratio, not a scale, so there's no cost or price to solve for. Enter one of them together with either a cost or a sell price, and this calculator will work out the rest, including the other percentage.
Is a 100% margin possible?
Only if your cost is zero — a 100% margin means every cent of the sale price is profit. Anything above 100% margin is mathematically impossible with a positive cost, since profit can never exceed the sell price.
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What this page cannot do

One sale’s margin is not your margin.

This page answers a single question about a single line. The useful version reads every invoice you issued — and that needs the invoices. Ochre keeps them and reports across them in Insights, while the same per-item calculation lives on the product in your price book.