How to find the original price before a discount
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Sale price and percent-off known — recover what it cost before.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =A2/(1-B2) | A2=sale price, B2=discount rate. Divide — don't multiply by (1+B2). |
| Google Sheets | =A2/(1-B2) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =A2/(1-B2) | Identical. |
How it works
A 25%-off sale price is 75% of the original, so dividing by 0.75 reverses it: $60 / 0.75 = $80. The tempting shortcut — adding 25% back (60 × 1.25 = $75) — is wrong, because the percentage was taken of the LARGER original, not the sale price. Same logic recovers pre-tax amounts from totals (divide by 1+rate) — reverse percentages always divide.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =A2/(1-B2) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 80 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.