Discount Calculator

A discount is a reduction from an item's original price, almost always expressed as a percentage. Working out the real cost of a sale is one of the most common everyday calculations, and getting it right helps you compare deals and avoid paying more than you expect.

The basic math is straightforward. To find the savings, multiply the original price by the discount percentage; a 25% discount on an $80 item saves $20. The sale price is simply the original price minus that saving, or equivalently the original price multiplied by (1 minus the discount as a decimal) — $80 × 0.75 = $60. This one-step method is the quickest way to get the final price.

Where people often slip up is with stacked or successive discounts. A '30% off, then an extra 20% off' promotion does not equal 50% off. The second discount applies to the already-reduced price, not the original. So $100 with 30% off becomes $70, and a further 20% off $70 is $56 — a total of 44% off, not 50%. Calculating each discount in sequence is the only way to get the true price, which is exactly what the stacked-discount option here does.

The reverse calculation is useful too: if you know the original and sale prices, you can find the discount percentage by dividing the savings by the original price. This helps you judge whether an advertised 'sale' is genuinely a good deal or just marketing.

Discounts appear everywhere — retail sales, coupons, clearance, bulk and loyalty pricing, and negotiated reductions. Being able to calculate them instantly lets you compare offers fairly (a fixed-dollar coupon versus a percentage off behaves differently at different price points) and make sure a 'bargain' actually saves what it claims. This calculator gives you the savings and final price for single or stacked discounts at any percentage.