Discount Calculator
Sale price, savings and stacked discounts.
Sale price, savings and stacked discounts.
Sales signs are designed to be read quickly, and that makes it easy to misjudge what you will actually pay. A discount is simply a percentage taken off a price, but combined offers, coupons, taxes and bundle deals can turn a simple idea into a confusing one. This guide shows how the maths works, how to check an offer before you buy, and how to use the calculator above for fast and reliable answers.
To find a sale price, multiply the original price by one minus the discount as a decimal. A 15 percent discount on a price of 4,000 is 4,000 multiplied by 0.85, which gives 3,400. The amount you save is 600. Another way to see it is to calculate 15 percent of 4,000, which is 600, and subtract that from the price. Both methods give the same answer, and the calculator does either one instantly.
Suppose a shop offers 20 percent off and you also have a 10 percent coupon. It is tempting to think you get 30 percent off, but the second discount applies to the reduced price. On a price of 1,000 the first discount brings it to 800. Ten percent of 800 is 80, so the final price is 720. Your total saving is 280, which is 28 percent. The order of the two percentages does not change the result, but the base each one applies to does.
Sometimes you know the sale price and the discount and want to work backwards. Divide the sale price by one minus the discount. If an item costs 3,400 after a 15 percent discount, divide 3,400 by 0.85 to get 4,000. Many people try to add 15 percent back onto 3,400, which gives 3,910 and is wrong, because the discount was taken from the larger original number.
Offers such as buy one get one free sound very large, but you can turn them into a percentage. If you buy two items and pay for one, you pay for half, so the saving is 50 percent. Buy one get one at half price means you pay one and a half prices for two items, a saving of 25 percent. Buy two get one free means you pay for two out of three, a saving of about 33 percent. These offers are only a good deal if you actually need all the items.
Tax is normally calculated on the price after the discount, though rules and shop policies can differ. If an item is 1,000 with a 20 percent discount and 17 percent sales tax, the discounted price is 800 and the tax is 136, so you pay 936. Always check whether the shown price includes tax. If it does, divide by one plus the tax rate, for example 1.17, to find the pre-tax amount, instead of subtracting 17 percent.
If you sell products, a discount reduces your profit more than it seems. Suppose you buy an item for 600 and sell it for 1,000, which gives a profit of 400. A 20 percent discount lowers the price to 800 and your profit to 200, which is half of the original profit even though the discount was only 20 percent. Before you run a sale, calculate the lowest price at which you still make a profit after costs such as shipping, packaging and platform fees.
Enter the original price, the main discount percentage and, if you have one, an extra coupon percentage. The calculator shows the final price, the amount you save and your total effective discount. Try different combinations to see which offer is best. If a result looks odd, check that the percentages are entered as whole numbers, so 15 means 15 percent.
Is 20 percent plus 10 percent the same as 30 percent? No. Together they are 28 percent because the second applies to the reduced price.
Does the order of discounts matter? Not for the final price, as long as both are percentages.
How do I know if a deal is worth it? Compare the final price with other shops and with what you would normally pay.