Percent Off Calculator

How the Discount Is Calculated

The math behind any "percent off" sale is straightforward: multiply the original price by the discount percentage to find the amount you save, then subtract that from the original price to get the sale price. A $80 item at 25% off saves you $20, bringing the sale price to $60. If you enter a sales tax rate, this calculator assumes — as most U.S. retailers do — that tax is charged on the discounted sale price, not the original price, since that's the amount actually changing hands at checkout.

Stacking Discounts Isn't Simple Addition

A common shopping mistake is assuming two discounts add together — that "30% off" plus an extra "20% off" equals 50% off. It doesn't. Discounts stack multiplicatively: the second discount applies to the already-reduced price, so 30% off followed by 20% off actually works out to a 44% total discount (0.70 × 0.80 = 0.56, meaning you pay 56% of the original price). To check a multi-coupon deal, run the sale price back through this calculator a second time using the new discount.

Comparing Deals and Budgeting for the Purchase

When comparing two differently priced sale items, the percentage off alone can be misleading — a 50%-off $200 item still costs more than a 20%-off $80 item. Look at the actual final price instead. If you're financing a larger discounted purchase rather than paying cash, the loan calculator can show what the payments would look like, and the sales tax calculator is useful if you need to work out tax on purchases separately from a discount.