---
title: "Markup & margin schedules"
description: "Price your whole catalog automatically by cost band — and handle the items that have a price but no cost."
category: "Pricing"
source: "https://www.pricebookr.com/docs/markup-schedules"
---

# Markup & margin schedules

A markup schedule sets a markup (or margin) for each range of item cost, then applies it across your catalog. Enter either markup or margin and Pricebookr fills in the other — they're two views of the same number. Need a one-off conversion? Use the free [margin & markup calculator](https://www.pricebookr.com/tools/margin-markup-calculator).

## Setting it up

1. On the **Markups** tab, pick the pricebook to price.
2. Define cost bands (e.g. $0–10, $10–50, $50–150…) and a markup for each. Add or remove bands as needed.
3. Click **Preview on catalog** to see exactly which items change and to what, then **Apply to catalog**.

![The Markups tab: six cost bands from $0 to $500+, each with a markup percentage and the matching margin filled in automatically, and a note that items with no cost are excluded.](https://www.pricebookr.com/img/docs/markups-cost-bands.png)

## Bands read total cost

An item's cost is **material cost + labor cost**, and a band matches on the total. A task with $80 of parts and $45 of labor lands in whichever band covers $125. Splitting an item's cost into its two parts never changes which band it falls into or what it prices at — the split is there so you can see and update the parts separately, not to change the arithmetic.

## Items with no cost are skipped

A markup schedule prices *from cost*, so an item with no cost — nothing in material and nothing in labor — has nothing to mark up. Rather than pricing those items at $0.00 and destroying a real price, Pricebookr leaves them exactly as they are and reports how many it skipped — in the note under the buttons, in the preview, and in the applied message.

This is the normal state of a catalog imported from Jobber, where services often carry a price but no cost. Two ways forward, and most catalogs use both:

- **Add costs** where you know them — inline on the Catalog, or with **Bulk edit → cost**. The **No cost data** filter above the catalog shows exactly which items still need one.
- **Price them directly** with **Bulk edit → price**, which applies a percent change, an amount, or a fixed price without needing any cost at all.

> "Applied markups to 0 items" almost always means every item was excluded for having no cost — not that your bands are wrong. The skipped count in the same message tells you which case you are in.

## How each price is governed

Every price on the Catalog carries a badge saying where it came from, which is what decides whether a schedule run will touch it:

| Badge | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| **manual** | A person set this number — typed in, bulk price-edited, or imported from Jobber. Nothing recalculates it. |
| a percentage, e.g. **40%** | Per-item markup override — the badge shows that item's own markup. Priced from cost at that markup, so it follows cost changes; schedule runs leave it alone. |
| **auto** | Governed by this pricebook's schedule, so it follows cost changes. |

To move a manual price onto the schedule, click its **manual** badge for one item, or use **Manual → schedule…** on the Catalog for many at once. The single-item dialog shows the arithmetic before you commit; the bulk version previews the whole set. Items with no cost, and items no band covers, are skipped and keep their manual price — converting them would delete the only price they have.

## When the preview says nothing would change

There are two very different reasons a preview finds nothing to do, and the message tells you which one you are in.

**Your prices already match the schedule.** Nothing to do, and nothing is wrong.

**Or every item is hand-set.** A catalog loaded from a starter template, or imported from a CSV as *"our prices"*, is entirely **manual** — and a schedule is never allowed to overwrite a price a person set. The preview says so, gives the count and names the first few, and offers **Put these on the schedule…** right there. That stages the whole conversion: you see every old price and new price before anything is written, items with no cost and items no band covers are listed as keeping their current price, and a catalog snapshot is taken before it applies.

> A preview that *does* change some items but leaves others out tells you that too — it names the hand-set ones that were skipped, so nothing about the apply is a surprise afterwards.

## Per-item overrides

Need one item priced differently? Edit it and set a markup, margin, or exact price for that pricebook. Overrides are respected by future schedule runs — they won't be overwritten.