The number that tells you if the job was worth doing.
A free profit margin calculator from InvoiceSonic, the invoicing app for tradies and small businesses. Margin is your profit as a share of what the customer paid, and the percentages work in any currency. Enter your cost and your price to see the margin, the profit in dollars, and the markup that produces it — because pricing off the wrong one of those two is how a busy year ends with no money in it.
Markup is measured against your cost, margin against your selling price. They are never the same number, and confusing them always underprices the job.
| Markup | Margin | $1,000 cost sells for |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | 16.7% | 1,200.00 |
| 30% | 23.1% | 1,300.00 |
| 50% | 33.3% | 1,500.00 |
| 100% | 50.0% | 2,000.00 |
See the full markup-to-margin table →
Markup % = (price − cost) ÷ cost × 100. Margin % = (price − cost) ÷ price × 100. To convert: margin = markup ÷ (100 + markup) × 100.
Gross margin % = (selling price − cost) ÷ selling price × 100. A job that costs you $700 and sells for $1,000 has $300 profit and a 30% margin. Note the divisor is the price, not the cost — dividing by cost gives you markup instead, which is a bigger, flattering number.
Both measure the same profit against different bases. Margin divides by the selling price; markup divides by the cost. Margin can never exceed 100%; markup can be any number. A 33.3% margin is a 50% markup.
For trade and service businesses, 10–20% net is a commonly cited range once overheads and unbilled time are taken out, with gross margins much higher — but it varies widely by industry and region, so treat it as a sanity check rather than a target. The number that matters is whether the margin covers the hours you do not invoice for — quoting, travel, admin and chasing payment.
No. Gross margin is what is left after the direct cost of doing the job — materials, subcontractors, direct labour. Net profit is what remains after overheads such as insurance, vehicle, tools, software and tax. A healthy gross margin can still produce zero net profit if overheads are not priced in.
Reduce the cost of the work or the cost of getting paid. Buying better, quoting more accurately, and cutting rework all help. So does how you take payment: a 1.9%–3.5% card fee comes straight out of margin, so offering bank transfer or PayID on every invoice keeps that percentage.
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