What’s the difference between markup and margin?

Both markup and margin describe profit — they just answer different questions.

Let's break down the math in simple terms:

Markup = profit ÷ cost
Margin = profit ÷ price you charge the customer

Same job. Same profit. Different math. An example:

Your cost is $100
You want $25 in profit

If you add $25 on top of the cost, that’s a 25% markup.You charge the customer $125. But your profit ($25) is only 20% of what the customer paid. That means your margin is 20%.

How Beam thinks about this

Beam uses markup when calculating prices. What this means in practice is if you’re aiming for a specific profit margin, you’ll need to set a slightly higher markup to get there.