Discount Calculator
What you actually pay after the discount — including the stacked-coupon case that shops rely on you getting wrong.
Result
What this calculator does
Shops know that percentages are hard to do in your head at speed, and sale signage is designed around it. “30% off, plus an extra 20% at the till” sounds like half price. It is not — it is 44% off. That six-point gap is worth real money on a big purchase, and it is entirely predictable once you know the rule.
This calculator gives you the sale price, the amount saved, and the true combined discount when several offers stack. It can add sales tax or VAT afterwards, and it works the other way too: give it the original and the price you paid, and it tells you what discount you actually received.
How to use it
- On Take money off, enter the original price and the first discount. The sale price appears immediately.
- Add a second or third discount if coupons stack. They are applied one after another, exactly as a till does it.
- Add sales tax or VAT if you want the real total at the counter — it is applied after the discounts.
- Switch to Find the discount % when you already know both prices and want to know how good the deal really was.
The formula
Sale price = price × (1 − d₁/100) × (1 − d₂/100) × …
You save = original − sale price
Discount % = (original − final) ÷ original × 100
With tax = sale price × (1 + tax/100)
Stacked discounts multiply rather than add. 30% then 20% leaves you paying 0.7 × 0.8 = 0.56 of the original — a 44% discount, not 50%.
Worked examples
| Scenario | What you enter | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $249.99 jacket at 25% off | One discount | Pay $187.49, save $62.50 |
| $80 item, 30% off plus an extra 20% coupon | Stacked | Pay $44.80 — a 44% discount, not 50% |
| AED 1,200 sofa at 40% off with 5% VAT | Discount then tax | Pay AED 756, save AED 480 |
| Paid $56 for something listed at $80 | Find the % | 30% off |
| Three stacked offers: 20%, 15% and 10% | Stacked | 38.8% off in total |
Frequently asked questions
Find 10% by moving the decimal point one place left, then build from there. For 25% off $249.99: 10% is $25, so 20% is $50 and 5% is $12.50, giving $62.50 off and about $187.50 to pay. For 15%, take 10% and add half of it again. These shortcuts get you within a few cents, which is usually all you need standing in a shop.
Because the second discount applies to the already-reduced price, not the original. Take 30% off $100 and you have $70. Twenty percent of $70 is $14, not $20, so you pay $56 — a 44% discount. The bigger the individual discounts, the wider the gap between what the signage suggests and what you pay.
Not to the final price. Multiplication is commutative, so 30% then 20% gives exactly the same total as 20% then 30%. Order can matter to a retailer's own rules — some coupons are only valid on the full price, or cannot be combined with a sale — but if both apply, the arithmetic lands in the same place either way.
After, in almost every jurisdiction. Sales tax and VAT are charged on the price you actually pay, so a discount reduces the tax as well. That is the order this calculator uses. The visible exception is a price tag that already includes VAT, common in the UK and Europe — there the discount comes off the tax-inclusive figure and the maths still works out.
Divide rather than add the percentage back. If you paid $56 after 30% off, divide by 0.7 to get $80. Adding 30% to $56 gives $72.80, which is wrong — a common and expensive mistake when reselling. The “find the discount %” tab does this in reverse and also shows the mark-up from the sale price.
Fifty percent off, but only across the pair. You pay for one item and take home two, so the average unit price halves — provided you genuinely wanted both. Buy-two-get-one-free works out at 33.3% off three items. The honest way to compare offers is to divide what you hand over by the number of items you will actually use, and compare that unit price against the plain discount elsewhere.
Partly. The “find the discount %” tab reports the mark-up from the sale price back to the original, which is what you need when pricing goods for resale. Note the asymmetry: a 50% margin on cost is a 33.3% margin on the selling price. Mixing the two up is one of the most common pricing errors in small retail.
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