Find the final sale price and exactly how much you save when an item is marked down by a percentage.
To find a sale price, multiply the original price by the discount percentage to get the amount saved, then subtract it from the original.
Amount saved = Original Price × (Discount % ÷ 100)
Final Price = Original Price − Amount saved
One of the most common shopping mistakes is assuming that two discounts add together. They don't. When you "stack" discounts, each one applies to the price that remains after the previous discount, not to the original price.
Say a $100 jacket is marked 30% off, bringing it to $70. You then apply a 20% coupon. That 20% comes off the $70, not the original $100, saving you $14 for a final price of $56. Your combined saving is 44%, not 50%. To find the true combined rate, multiply the remaining percentages: 0.70 × 0.80 = 0.56, meaning you pay 56% of the original and save 44%.
The order in which percentage discounts are applied doesn't change the final price (multiplication is commutative), but the order does matter when a fixed-dollar coupon is mixed with a percentage discount. Applying a $10-off coupon before a 20% discount usually saves you less than applying the percentage first — always read the checkout terms.
A discount and a markup of the same percentage do not cancel out. If a $100 item is marked up 50% to $150, then discounted 50%, you land at $75 — not back at $100. This is because the 50% discount applies to the larger marked-up price. Retailers rely on this asymmetry, which is why a "50% off" sale on an inflated "original" price isn't always the bargain it appears to be.
Sometimes you know the sale price and the original price and want to find the discount percentage. The formula is: Discount % = ((Original − Sale) ÷ Original) × 100. For example, an item that dropped from $80 to $52 was discounted ((80 − 52) ÷ 80) × 100 = 35%. This is handy for verifying that an advertised "40% off" deal is actually 40% off.
Multiply the original price by the discount percentage divided by 100 to get the amount saved, then subtract that from the original price. For example, 25% off $80 is $80 × 0.25 = $20 saved, leaving a final price of $60. You can also multiply the original price by (1 − discount/100) directly: $80 × 0.75 = $60.
"30% off" means the price is reduced by 30% of its original value. On a $50 item, 30% is $15, so you pay $35. The phrase always refers to a reduction from the listed price, not the amount you ultimately pay.
Divide the sale price by (1 − discount/100). If an item costs $60 after a 25% discount, the original price was $60 ÷ 0.75 = $80. This reverse calculation is useful when only the final price and discount rate are shown.
No. Stacked discounts apply one after another to the reducing balance. A 20% discount on top of a 30% discount yields a 44% total saving, not 50%, because the second discount applies to the already-reduced price.
Not necessarily. A 40% discount on an overpriced item can cost more than a 20% discount on a fairly priced one. Always compare the actual final prices, not just the headline percentages.