Percentage Increase Calculator

By Mateusz Mucha and Dominik Czernia, PhD candidate
Last updated: Feb 10, 2021

The percentage increase calculator is a useful tool if you need to calculate the increase from one value to another in terms of a percentage of the original amount. Before using this calculator, it may be beneficial for you to understand how to calculate percent increase by using the percent increase formula. The upcoming sections will explain these concepts in further detail.

How to calculate percent increase

The concept of percent increase is basically the amount of increase from the original number to the final number in terms of 100 parts of the original. An increase of 5 percent would indicate that, if you split the original value into 100 parts, that value has increased by an additional 5 parts. So if the original value increased by 14 percent, the value would increase by 14 for every 100 units, 28 by every 200 units and so on. To make this even more clear, we will get into an example using the percent increase formula in the next section.

Percent increase formula

The percent increase formula is as follows:

Percent increase = [(new value - original value)/original value] * 100

An example using the formula is as follows. Suppose a $1,250 investment increased in value to $1,445 dollars in one year. What is the percent increase of the investment? To answer this, us the following steps:

  1. Identify the original value and the new value.
  2. Input the values into the formula.
  4. Multiply the result by 100. The answer is the percent increase.
  5. Check your answer using the percentage increase calculator.

Working out the problem by hand we get:

  1. [(1,445 - 1,250)/1,250] * 100
  2. (195/1,250) * 100
  3. 0.156 * 100
  4. 15.6 percent increase.

The percentage growth calculator is a great tool to check simple problems. It can even be used to solve more complex problems that involve percent increase. You may also find the percentage calculator is also useful in this type of problem.

Calculating percent decrease

If you want to know how to calculate percent decrease, we follow a very similar process as percent increase. Notice the slight modification of the formula:

Percent decrease = [(original value - new value)/original value] * 100

Suppose we have the same investment value after one year of $1,445. A year later the value decreased to $1,300. The percent decrease would be calculated as follows:

  1. [(1,445 - 1,300)/1,445] * 100
  2. (145/1,445) * 100
  3. 0.10 * 100 = 10 percent decrease

Although we have just covered how to calculate percent increase and percent decrease, sometimes we just are interest in the change in percent, regardless if it is an increase or a decrease. If that is the case, you can use the percent change calculator or the percentage difference calculator. A situation in which this may be useful would be an opinion poll to see if the percent of people who favor a particular political candidate differs from 50 percent.

While the percentage increase calculator is important in mathematics, it is also useful in science, such as calculating percent increase in mass of an chemical element in a compound.


Where is percentage increase useful?

Percentage increase is useful when you want to analyse how a value has changed with time. Although percentage increase is very similar to absolute increase, the former is more useful when comparing multiple data sets. For example, a change from 1 to 51 and from 50 to 100 both have an absolute change of 50, but the percentage increase for the first is 5000%, while for the second it is 100%, so the first change grew a lot more. This is why percentage increase is the most common way of measuring growth.

How do I calculate percentage increase over time?

  1. Divide the larger number by the original number. If you have already calculated the percentage change, go to step 4.
  2. Subtract one from the result of the division.
  3. Multiply this new number by 100. You now have the percentage change.
  4. Divide the percentage change by the period of time between the two numbers.
  5. You now have the percentage increase over time. Remember that the units will be % / [time], where time is the units you divided by, e.g. s for seconds, min for minutes etc. Please note that this does not take into account compounding.
  6. For linear plots, multiply this number by any time difference to get the percentage change between the two times.
  7. For non-linear plots, just replace the larger number with your equation and solve algebraically. This will only find the percentage change between a number you input and the original number.

How do I add a percentage increase to a number?

If you want to increase a number by a certain percentage, follow these steps:

  1. Divide the number you wish to increase by 100 to find 1% of it.
  2. Multiply 1% by your chosen percentage.
  3. Add this number to your original number.
  4. There you go, you have just added a percentage increase to a number!

How do I add 5% to a number?

  1. Divide the number you wish to add 5% to by 100.
  2. Multiply this new number by 5.
  3. Add the product of the multiplication to your original number.
  4. Enjoy working at 105%!

How do I add two percentages?

To add two percentages together follow these steps:

  1. Calculate the first percentage by dividing the number you wish to find the percentage of by 100.
  2. Multiply the result by the percentage in its percentage form (e.g. 50 for 50%) to get the percentage of the original number.
  3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 for the other number.
  4. Add these two numbers together to get the addition of two percentages.
  5. If the number you wish to find the percentage of is the same for both percentages, you can just add the two percentages together and use this new percentage to get the result of the addition.

How do I calculate a 10% increase?

  1. Divide the number you are adding the increase to by 10.
  2. Alternatively multiply the value by 0.1.
  3. Add the product of the previous step to your original number.
  4. Be proud of your mathematical ability!

How do I make a percentage?

  1. Decide two things - the number which you want to find the percentage of and your chosen percentage.
  2. Divide the chosen number by 100.
  3. Multiply this new number by your chosen percentage.
  4. There you go, you’ve just made a percentage!

What is a 50% increase?

A 50% increase is where you increase your current value by an additional half. You can find this value by finding half of your current value and adding this onto the value. For example, if you wanted to find what a 50% increase to 80 was, you’d divide by 2 to get 40, and add the two values together to get 120. A 50% increase is different to a 100% increase, which is double the original value.

How do I calculate percentage increase in Excel?

While it's easier to use the Omni Percentage Increase Calculator, here are the steps to calculate discount rate in Excel:

  1. Input the original number (for example into cell A1).
  2. Input the increased number (for example into cell B1).
  3. Subtract the original number from the increased number (In C1, input =B1-A1) and label it 'difference'.
  4. Divide the difference by the original price and multiply it by 100 (In D1, input =(C1/A1)*100) and label it 'percentage increase'.
  5. Right click on the final cell and select Format Cells.
  6. In the Format Cells box, under Number, select Percentage and specify your desired number of decimal places.

How do I add 20% to a number?

  1. Divide the original number by 100 to get 1% of it.
  2. Multiply 1% by your desired percentage, in this case 20.
  4. Congratulate yourself on adding 20% to your number!
Mateusz Mucha and Dominik Czernia, PhD candidate
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