Etsy Markup Calculator

Margin ↔ Markup Converter

Markup and margin describe the same profit with different denominators, so one always implies the other. Type either number to see its counterpart — no cost or price needed.

What Is Markup?

Markup is the profit on a sale expressed as a percentage of what the item cost you. If an item costs $10 and you keep $5 of profit on it, your markup is 50% — profit ($5) divided by cost ($10). It answers "how much am I adding on top of my cost?"

That is a different question from margin, which divides the same $5 of profit by the $15 selling price and gives 33.3%. The dollars are identical; only the denominator changes. Confusing the two is the most common pricing error in handmade selling: a seller who wants a "50% margin" but prices at 50% markup ends up with a 33.3% margin, well short of the goal.

When to use each: use markup when you are building a price up from a known cost (the job this calculator does, and the job wholesale pricing does — see the Wholesale Pricing Calculator). Use margin when you are checking what share of a sale you actually keep — that is the Profit Margin Calculator, which starts from a price and reports margin as its headline result. This page reports both so you never have to guess which one a number is.

How to Use the Calculator

1. Product cost — what one unit costs you to make or buy. If you also have per-unit packaging or other costs, put them in Advanced options; they join the cost base.
2. Price → markup mode — enter your selling price. The headline result is your markup, with profit and margin beside it.
3. Target markup → price mode — enter the markup you want to keep. The headline result is the price that delivers it. With fees on, that price is fee-aware; the breakdown also shows the naive price so you can see what fees add.
4. Include Etsy fees — on by default. Uncheck it only if you want the pre-fee textbook numbers.
5. Advanced options — shipping charged to the buyer (counts toward revenue and toward the transaction-fee base), actual shipping cost (counts toward your costs), and the Offsite Ads toggles (15%, or 12% once your shop passes $10,000 in a trailing 12-month period, capped at $100 per order).
6. Converter — below the calculator, convert any markup to its margin (or the reverse) without entering a cost or price.

Results update as you type. The markup ladder in the breakdown shows the required price at 50%, 100%, 150%, and 200% markup for your cost, so you can pick a markup with eyes open.

The Markup Formula

Forward (price known):

1. Profit = revenue − fees − costs, where revenue is selling price + shipping charged, and costs are product cost + other costs + actual shipping cost.
2. Markup = profit ÷ costs and margin = profit ÷ revenue.

Reverse (target markup known, fee-aware): the calculator does not guess. It sets target profit = target markup × costs, then solves the price that leaves exactly that profit after itemised Etsy fees, using the same exact fee-engine solve as the Pricing Calculator — listing $0.20, transaction 6.5% of the order total, processing 3% + $0.25, plus the Offsite Ads fee (with its $100 cap handled exactly) when toggled. Feeding the solved price back into the forward calculation reproduces the target profit to the cent, which is how the worked examples below were verified.

The naive price, shown for comparison, is simply cost × (1 + markup) — the price that would deliver the markup if Etsy charged nothing. The gap between the naive and fee-aware prices is the cost of ignoring fees, and it is the gap this page exists to close: a well-known free pricing tool applies markup to costs first and subtracts fees afterward, so a seller asking for 100% markup on a $20 cost gets a $40 price and keeps $15.75, not $20 (see Example 1).

Converter identities: margin = markup ÷ (1 + markup) and markup = margin ÷ (1 − margin). That is why 50% markup is 33.3% margin, and 50% margin is 100% markup.

Fee assumptions

Worked Examples

Every number below was computed by running the site's own calculation engine on the stated inputs — the same engine the calculator itself uses. Shipping charged, shipping cost, and other costs are $0 in all three examples unless stated.

Example 1 — The 100% markup that isn't: $20 cost, naive $40 vs fee-aware $44.70

Unit cost $20.00, target markup 100%, fees on, no Offsite Ads.

The naive $40 price is the textbook answer — and it keeps only $15.75, a 78.8% markup, because $4.25 of fees ($0.20 listing + $2.60 transaction + $1.45 processing) come out of the $20 the seller expected to keep. The fee-aware price of $44.70 (exactly $44.696 before rounding) leaves $20.00 of profit after $4.70 of fees. This reconciles exactly with the published example from another free pricing tool, which reports the same $15.75 kept profit at a $40 price for a $20 cost — the difference is that this calculator solves for the price that fixes it.

Example 2 — Forward check: $10 cost, $15 price

Unit cost $10.00, selling price $15.00, fees on, no Offsite Ads.

The textbook identity — $10 to $15 is 50% markup and 33.3% margin — holds only before fees. After $1.88 of fees ($0.20 + $0.98 transaction + $0.70 processing), profit is $3.13 (rounded from $3.125), markup is 31.3%, and margin is 20.8%. Toggle fees off in the calculator to see the textbook numbers; toggle them on to see what you actually keep.

Example 3 — Reverse solve with a decimal cost: $12.50 cost, 60% target markup

Unit cost $12.50, target markup 60%, fees on, no Offsite Ads.

At the naive $20.00 price, fees of $2.35 leave $5.15 — a 41.2% markup, not 60%. The fee-aware price of $22.60 (exactly $22.597 before rounding) leaves $7.50 after $2.60 of fees, which is exactly 60% of the $12.50 cost, and a 33.2% margin.

Common Markup Mistakes

• Pricing on markup while ignoring fees. The naive price always overstates what you keep — Example 1 shows a 21.2-point markup shortfall on a $20 cost.
• Confusing markup with margin. A 50% markup is a 33.3% margin. If your goal is a margin, solve for the margin (see the Profit Margin Calculator or the Pricing Calculator's target-margin mode) instead of pricing at the same number as a markup.
• Using one blanket markup across products. A 100% markup on a $5 item leaves very different dollars from 100% on a $100 item, and fixed per-order fees ($0.20 + $0.25) bite hardest at low prices.
• Leaving labour and packaging out of cost. Markup is only honest if the cost base is complete — an understated cost flatters the markup and hides a thin price.
• Treating the fee-aware price as a recommendation. It is the price that delivers the markup you asked for, not advice that the markup is right for your market.

Limitations and Assumptions

• One unit per calculation (quantity = 1). Multi-unit orders change the listing-fee line only; run each unit price separately.
• US Etsy Payments fee profile only: $0.20 / 6.5% / 3% + $0.25, plus optional Offsite Ads. Non-US processing rates, currency conversion, regulatory fees, sales tax, refunds, and Etsy Ads budgets are not modelled.
• Discounts are not modelled on this page — for a discounted price, use the Discount Profit Calculator.
• Results are estimates from the inputs you enter; they are not a pricing recommendation and do not predict sales volume.