How mark-up works, and why it isn’t margin

Every auto-configured price is your cost plus a percentage on top. Here is where that percentage comes from, and how to read the green figure under a line.

The sum

Price = cost × (1 + mark-up). A £10 cost at 50% sells for £15. At 100% it sells for £20. That is a mark-up: the percentage is of the cost, and it can go past 100% whenever you like. A margin is a percentage of the selling price and can never reach 100%, which is why the screens say mark-up and not margin. £70 of paper and clicks sold at £300 is a 328% mark-up, and a 77% margin; the app shows you the first.

Where the percentage comes from

Each part of an auto-configured line looks for its mark-up in this order, and the first one it finds wins:

1. The Mark-up (%) box on that row of the line, if you have typed one.
2. The press’s own mark-up (a litho press has one for setup and one for the run), or the sheet size’s or roll width’s.
3. Your Standard mark-up, at the top of Settings › Pricing.

If none of those is set, the row sells at cost. Finishing extras always start from the standard mark-up. The Settings page shows what your standard works out to on a £10 cost, and what that is as a share of the selling price, before VAT.

Type a price instead

Anywhere there is a mark-up box there is a price box next to it, and you can type either. Type a sell price and thintent works the percentage back out and stores that, so if the cost changes later the price moves and the mark-up stays. A default can’t be set below cost, but an individual row on a quote can, if you mean it.

Reading the green figure

Under the cost of each line is what you make on it: the pounds in bold, then the percentage of cost. Green when you are ahead, red when the line is below cost, grey at exactly nothing. At the foot of the quote the same figure is shown for the whole quote, marked Not shown to customer, and it never is: not on the quote page, the PDF or the emails.

Set every row at once

In a line’s price table, Set every mark-up to puts one percentage on every part of that line, at every quantity. Full breakdown shows each part’s mark-up at each quantity, to set one at a time. Changing a press or stock only refills a row’s mark-up if you haven’t typed your own.