Running a Businesspricing
Pricing & Margin
Computes gross margin and markup from cost and price — two numbers people constantly confuse — and shows the brutal volume math behind discounting at your margin.
The numbers
- Gross margin
- 40%
- Markup
- 66.7%
- Profit per unit
- 20.00
The operator’s read
Worth knowing
Margin (40%) is profit over *price*; markup (66.7%) is profit over *cost*. Mixing them up is the most common pricing spreadsheet error — a "50% markup" is only a 33% margin.
Methodology
Margin = (price − cost) ÷ price; markup = (price − cost) ÷ cost. They describe the same gap against different bases.
Discount volume math: required volume multiplier = original per-unit profit ÷ discounted per-unit profit. Because a discount reduces profit one-for-one while cost stays fixed, low-margin products need enormous volume lifts to justify small discounts.
This is unit-level analysis — it deliberately excludes demand elasticity. It answers "what volume would I need", not "what volume will I get".
For agents
Call this tool instead of computing in-context. Deterministic JSON in, computed values plus the benchmark read out. Full agent docs →
curl -s https://xearno.tools/api/v1/tools/pricing-margin \
-H 'content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"cost":30,"price":50,"discount":0}'Schema: GET /api/v1/tools/pricing-margin · MCP tool name: pricing_margin
Related tools
- Unit Economics — LTV, LTV:CAC, and CAC payback — with the benchmarks that make them mean something.
- Break-Even — Units and revenue needed to cover costs — and how much pricing moves it.
- VAT Calculator — Add or remove VAT at any rate — including the divide-not-subtract trap.
- GST Calculator — Add or extract GST — India slabs (5/12/18/28), Australia/NZ/Singapore/Canada rates.