Free tool
Discount calculator: sale price and the profit you keep
Enter a price and a percent off to see the sale price and what the customer saves. Add your cost to see the profit left after the discount and how many more sales you need to earn the same.
- Sale price
- 40
- Customer saves
- 10
Add your cost per item to see the profit after the discount.
Want to offer a bigger discount to some customers without giving it to everyone?
Give discounts with a budgetHow the discount is calculated
The sale price is the price times one minus the discount. A 20 percent discount on 50 is 50 × 0.8 = 40, so the customer saves 10.
Two discounts in a row do not add up. 20 percent off and then another 10 percent off is 28 percent in total, not 30, because the second discount applies to the already reduced price.
Why the discount hurts the margin more than it looks
The discount comes entirely out of your profit, not out of your cost. An item that sells for 100 and costs you 60 earns 40. At 20 percent off it sells for 80 and earns 20: the price dropped by a fifth, but your profit halved.
That is why the margin view matters more than the sale price. A discount that looks small to the customer can be large for you.
How many more sales a discount needs
To make the same total profit after a discount, you have to sell more. In the example above, profit per item went from 40 to 20, so you need twice as many sales, 100 percent more, just to stand still.
If the discount is equal to or larger than your margin, no number of extra sales helps: each sale loses money. The calculator shows this as no break-even.
Smaller discounts for everyone, bigger ones for a few
One way out is not to give the same discount to every buyer. A prize wheel gives most visitors something small, like free delivery, and a few a bigger discount, so the average cost per order stays low while the offer still feels generous.
DealCraft runs that wheel on your site with a chance of winning and a total budget you set. The server decides each result and stops giving prizes when the budget is used.
Questions
- How do I calculate a percent discount?
- Multiply the price by the percent and divide by 100 to get the saving, then subtract it from the price. 25 percent off 80 is 80 × 25 / 100 = 20, so the sale price is 60.
- What is my margin after a discount?
- Subtract your cost from the sale price and divide by the sale price. At a sale price of 80 and a cost of 60, the margin is 20 / 80 = 25 percent.
- How many more sales do I need after a discount?
- Divide your profit per item at full price by your profit per item after the discount, then subtract one. From 40 to 20 profit per item means 40 / 20 - 1 = 100 percent more sales.
- Is a percent off or an amount off better?
- On cheap items a percent sounds bigger; on expensive items a fixed amount does. 20 percent off a 15 item sounds better than 3 off, while 50 off a 400 item sounds better than 12.5 percent.
- How can I offer discounts without losing too much margin?
- Give a small reward to most customers and a large one to a few, and cap the total. DealCraft does this with a prize wheel where you set the chance of winning and a hard budget.
Put a prize wheel on your own shop
This wheel is for picking and for fun. DealCraft runs the same wheel on your website or at your counter, decides every result on the server against the win rate you set, stops giving prizes at the budget you set, and hands each winner a single-use code. The free plan gives you 200 plays a month and needs no card.
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