Percent increase measures the relative growth between an original value and a new, higher value. It's commonly used to track price increases, revenue growth, test score improvements, and salary raises. Understanding how to calculate percent increase helps you measure growth accurately and make informed comparisons across different scales.
How to calculate percent increase:
This formula gives you the percentage by which the original value has grown. The result will always be positive for an increase.
For detailed step-by-step solutions working through multiple scenarios, check out our percentage change examples guide which covers increases, decreases, and edge cases with full explanations.
Percentage increase is valuable across multiple real-world scenarios. In retail and pricing, it helps track cost inflation and profit margins—for example, when a product price rises from $20 to $25, that's a 25% increase. For salaries, it's the standard way to express raises and career growth; a salary increase from $50,000 to $60,000 represents a 20% increase. In business analytics, percentage increase measures revenue growth, helping companies track performance year-over-year. In education, it quantifies grade improvements and test score progress. Percentage increase provides a consistent, comparable metric across different scales and contexts. Whether you're analyzing product pricing, evaluating compensation packages, monitoring business growth, or assessing academic improvement, percentage increase offers clear insight into relative growth. It's particularly useful when comparing changes across different starting values, as it shows the proportional impact rather than just the absolute difference. If you need to compare two values without a clear starting point, explore our percent difference calculator instead.
One common mistake is using the new value as the denominator instead of the original value. This produces incorrect results because percent increase must be relative to the starting point. Another error is forgetting to multiply by 100, which gives you a decimal instead of a percentage. Always verify which value is the baseline before calculating, and double-check that your formula divides by the original value, not the final value.
Calculate percent increase instantly with our percentage change calculator. Simply enter your original and new values to get accurate results without manual calculations.
Percent increase specifically measures growth from a lower to higher value and always yields a positive result. Percent change can be either positive or negative, showing increases or decreases. Both use the same formula, but percent increase is used when you know the value has grown.
Yes, percent increase can exceed 100%. If a value doubles, that's a 100% increase. If it triples, that's a 200% increase. A 150% increase means the value is now 2.5 times the original amount.
In Excel, use the formula: =(NewValue-OldValue)/OldValue*100. For example, if A1 contains the original value and B1 contains the new value, use: =(B1-A1)/A1*100