Summary
To calculate the original price from a sale price and percentage discount, you can use a formula that divides the sale price by 1 minus the discount percentage. In the example shown, the formula in cell F5 is:
=C5/(1-D5)
The results in column F are the original prices. The discounts in column D are decimal values with the percentage number format applied.
Generic formula
=price/(1-discount)
Explanation
In this example, the goal is to determine the original price from a discounted price (sale price) and the percentage discount. For example, given a sale price of $63.00, and a discount of 10%, we want a result of $70.00 for the original price. The discounted price is in column C and the percentage discount is in column D. The general formula for this calculation, where "x" is the original price, is:
x=price/(1-discount)
x=63/(1-10%)
x=63/(0.90)
x=70.00
Converting this to an Excel formula with cell references, the formula in F5 becomes:
=C5/(1-D5)
=63/(1-0.1)
=63/0.9
=70.00
As the formula is copied down, it returns the original price for each item in the table, based on the percentages shown in column D. This is the reverse of decreasing a price by a percentage: a sale price is the original price times 1 minus the discount, so dividing the sale price by 1 minus the discount gets the original price back.
