What you pay after the discount
A percentage off is easy to misread in a shop and easy to misapply at a till. This calculator takes the original price and the percentage and gives the price you pay and the amount saved. The sections below cover the two places people get it wrong: stacked discounts and discounts before tax.
The formula
Worked example: $80 at 25% off
- Saving: $20
- You pay: $60
Stacked discounts do not add
"25% off, then an extra 20% off at checkout" is not 45% off. The second discount applies to the already-reduced price.
| Offer | Calculation | You pay | Real discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25% off | 80 × 0.75 | $60.00 | 25% |
| 25% then 20% | 80 × 0.75 × 0.80 | $48.00 | 40% |
| 45% off | 80 × 0.55 | $44.00 | 45% |
| 20% then 25% | 80 × 0.80 × 0.75 | $48.00 | 40% |
Two stacked discounts of 25% and 20% come to 40%, not 45%, and the order does not matter. The gap between "45% off" and "25% + 20%" is $4 on an $80 item and $250 on a $5,000 one.
Discount, then tax
Sales tax is charged on the discounted price, not the original. At 8% tax the $60 item costs $64.80; the discount saved $20 of price and $1.60 of tax. A coupon that the retailer redeems from the manufacturer may be treated differently in some US states, where tax applies to the pre-coupon price.
"Was" prices
A discount is only as real as the reference price. Consumer law in the UK and EU requires the "was" price to be the lowest price of the previous 30 days; US rules vary by state. A 50% discount from a price nobody paid is not a saving.
Percent off against amount off
$20 off and 25% off are the same thing at $80 and different everywhere else. Percent-off scales with the price; amount-off is worth relatively more on cheaper items. On a $40 item, 25% off is $10 but a $20 coupon is half the price.
What this calculator leaves out
Tax, shipping, minimum-spend conditions, and exclusions — the categories the discount does not apply to are usually in the small print.
Related calculators
- Percentage discount — working back to the percentage from two prices
- Double discount calculator — stacked offers in one step
- Sales tax calculator — the tax on the discounted price