What will I pay in the sale?
Put in the normal price and the number on the sale sign.
Fill in the price and the discount, and what you pay will show up here.
What will you actually pay in the sale?
Put in the normal price and the number on the sale sign, and we show what you pay at the till and how much you save.
Both numbers matter. The price is what you need to know whether you can afford it, and the saving is what tells you whether the offer is any good.
What the sign is telling you
A sign saying 30% off means the price drops by 30 out of every 100. On a coat of 80, that is 24 off, so you pay 56.
The bigger the original price, the more a percentage takes off. That is why 20% off a phone matters more than 20% off a sandwich, even though the percentage is the same.
Common questions
How do I work out a discount?
Put the normal price in the first box and the percentage from the sale sign in the second.
By hand: divide the percentage by 100, multiply by the price to get the saving, then take that off the price.
What does 30% off mean?
It means the price falls by 30 out of every 100. Something priced at 80 loses 24, so you pay 56.
How to calculate discount percentage in a calculator?
It depends which direction you are going, and the two are different sums.
If you know the percentage and want the price, use this calculator: put in the normal price and the number from the sale sign, and it gives you what you pay and what you save.
If you know both prices and want to know what percentage the discount was, use the percentage change calculator instead. Put the original price in as the before, the sale price as the after, and it tells you the size of the drop — a coat marked down from 80 to 56 is 30% off.
What about an extra 20% off an item already reduced?
Two discounts do not add together. The second one only applies to what is left after the first.
So 50% off and then an extra 20% off is not 70% off — it is 60% off. Work out the first discount, then run the new price through again with the second.
Can a discount be more than 100%?
No. At 100% off the price is already zero, so anything higher would mean the shop paying you. If you type more than 100, we say so rather than showing a negative price.
I know what I paid and the discount. What was the original price?
That is a different sum and we do not have a calculator for it yet. For now, divide what you paid by one minus the discount as a decimal — so 42 paid after 30% off is 42 divided by 0.7, which is 60.