Furniture markup calculator: list price to what the client owes
Enter list price, trade discount, freight and receiving, and see your net cost, client price, gross profit and — the number most people get wrong — your actual gross margin. Includes chained discounts and a target-margin solver.
By Idan Mann, founder of NYA
The short answer
This calculator takes a list price, your trade discount, freight and receiving, and your markup, then returns your net cost, the client price, gross profit and the resulting gross margin. A 40% markup is a 28.6% margin — the two are different numbers, and the gap is where designers lose money.
Two things go wrong on furniture pricing, and both are arithmetic rather than judgement. Designers add chained trade discounts that should be multiplied, and they read a markup percentage as though it were a margin. The first overstates your cost; the second overstates your profit. Both are fixed below.
One piece, from list price to what the client owes
A 35% markup is a 22.5% gross margin on this piece — freight and receiving are passed through at cost, which dilutes the margin below the markup-only figure. They are not the same number, and the gap widens as the markup rises.
All of it is arithmetic on the numbers above — no assumed markups, no industry averages. Sales tax is shown for reference only; whether a designer charges it, and on what, depends on the state and on whether you are reselling.
Markup is not margin
Markup is measured against your cost. Margin is measured against the price the client pays. Since the client price is always the bigger number, the margin is always the smaller percentage — and the gap widens as you mark up harder.
| Markup on cost | Multiplier | Gross margin |
|---|---|---|
| 20% | 1.20× | 16.7% |
| 25% | 1.25× | 20.0% |
| 30% | 1.30× | 23.1% |
| 35% | 1.35× | 25.9% |
| 40% | 1.40× | 28.6% |
| 50% | 1.50× | 33.3% |
| 66.7% | 1.67× | 40.0% |
| 100% (keystone) | 2.00× | 50.0% |
Chained trade discounts multiply — they do not add
A vendor quoting "50/10" is offering 50% off list, then a further 10% off what remains. That is 55% off, not 60%. On a $4,000 list price you pay $1,800, not $1,600 — and a designer who added the discounts has quoted the client from a cost $200 below the one they will actually be invoiced.
- 50/10 → 0.50 × 0.90 = 0.45 of list → 55% off
- 50/10/5 → 0.50 × 0.90 × 0.95 = 0.4275 of list → 57.25% off
- Net 60 means you pay 60% of list — a 40% discount, stated from the other side. On payment terms the same words mean 60 days, so read the context.
What belongs in landed cost
Net price is not what a piece costs you. Freight, crating, receiving and inspection, storage and white-glove delivery all land before the item reaches a room. The calculator adds them into landed cost, then lets you choose whether your markup applies to them or whether they are passed through — because that single checkbox moves the margin more than most designers expect.
Working backwards from a target margin
The last figure in the calculator answers the question that actually matters: given this piece, these discounts and this freight, what markup do I have to apply to end up at the margin I need? With freight passed through at cost that is not simply margin ÷ (1 − margin) — the pass-through dilutes it, so the required markup is higher than the textbook conversion suggests.
Common questions
- Should I mark up freight and receiving?
- Both are defensible and your agreement should say which you do. Passing them through at cost is easier to justify to a cost-plus client but dilutes your margin; marking them up treats logistics as part of the service you are providing. Toggle the checkbox and watch what each does to the margin on a real order before you decide.
- What markup should I use on furniture?
- We do not publish a benchmark, because we have no survey we can source and date. Use the target-margin field instead: decide the margin your overhead requires, and the calculator tells you the markup that gets you there on this specific piece with this specific freight.
- Does the calculator handle sales tax?
- It shows the client total with tax applied for reference, but tax treatment for designers varies by state and by whether you are reselling under a resale certificate. Treat that line as a sense-check, not as tax advice.
- Is my data sent anywhere?
- No. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is transmitted, and there is no email gate on the results.