Contractor pricing
Markup vs Margin Calculator
Understand the difference and price your jobs correctly.
Enter your pricing assumptions
Enter your job cost and intended markup to see the selling price, gross profit, and actual margin side by side.
Outputs
- Selling price
- $1,200.00
- Gross profit
- $200.00
- Margin %
- 16.7%
A 20.0% markup results in a 16.7% margin - not the same thing.
Common mistake
Adding 20% markup does NOT mean 20% profit margin. Margin is always lower than markup.
Education
What is Markup?
Markup is how much you add on top of cost to arrive at your selling price. If a job costs $1,000 and you add 20% markup, the price becomes $1,200.
What is Margin?
Margin is the share of the final price that remains after covering cost. On a $1,200 sale with $1,000 in cost, the gross profit is $200, which is a 16.67% margin.
Why contractors get this wrong
Contractors often use markup when they mean margin. That leads to bids that look profitable on paper but do not leave enough room for overhead, callbacks, taxes, or actual net profit.
Most contractors lose money not because of bad work, but because of bad math.
See how to track this on every job