Enter the total you want the register to show. This gives you the shelf price that produces it — exactly, to the cent — and tells you honestly when no price can.
The shelf price for each round total, at the rate you entered above. This is the table worth printing and taping inside the register.
| You want it to ring up | Put this on the sticker | Tax |
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The instinct is to divide the total by one plus the rate. For $5.00 at 8.25% that gives 5.00 ÷ 1.0825 = 4.6189…, so you round to $4.62 and it happens to work.
It doesn't always. Sales tax is rounded to the cent before it's added, so the relationship between shelf price and out-the-door total is a staircase, not a straight line. The division lands you between steps, and the register charges something else.
Because tax rounds to a whole cent while the shelf price also moves one cent at a time, the total sometimes jumps by two cents. Any total inside that jump cannot be produced by any price at all.
At a 4.5% rate, hunting for $18.00: a $17.22 sticker rings up $17.99, and a $17.23 sticker rings up $18.01. There is no price in between, so $18.00 does not exist at that rate. Roughly 8% of whole-dollar targets are unreachable at any given rate, and which ones depends on the rate. That's why this calculator searches for reachable totals instead of trusting the division — and says so plainly when it comes up empty.
In the UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand, displayed prices already include VAT or GST — the sticker price is the total. Whole-dollar pricing there is trivial: to ring up £5.00, charge £5.00. The problem this calculator solves is peculiar to jurisdictions where tax is added at the register.
Coinless takes your price export from Square, Shopify, Clover — or a list you type in — and hands back every price that rings up even. Free, no signup, runs entirely in your browser.
Read the full method → — the five steps, the traps, and what to do when a price can't be made to land.
Coinless — be coinless, not cashless. becoinless.com
This calculator arranges prices; it does not give tax advice. Sales tax is still calculated, collected and owed as usual, and your accountant remains the authority on your obligations. Results assume tax rounds half-up to the nearest cent on the line total, which is the common rule but not universal — check one real sale on your own register before repricing anything.