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Percentage Calculator

Reviewed by BS Román Ramos
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Calculus 1: quantity

Calculate an amount relative to the percentage of a known total.

% of
is

Calculus 2: Total

Calculate the total from a known percentage.

If
is the
%, the total is

Calculation 3: percentage

Calculate the percentage that a quantity represents relative to the total.

is the
% of

How to Use the Calculator

If you're here, it's because you're looking for how to calculate the percentage of a number or because you need to know what percentage of a figure X is a specific number.

Well, you should know that you've come to the right place, because we've programmed a perfect percentage calculator for you, it includes both options and is very simple to use.

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Just enter the data you have, and it will take care of giving you the result you're looking for, whether in percentage or in real numbers.

The advantages of this are fundamentally the speed, the convenience of being able to perform this type of operations online, and the accuracy it will provide you.

Being a machine, if the data is correctly entered, it cannot give a wrong answer.

But perhaps you're interested in doing it manually, to not depend on anyone or anything and to be able to perform all kinds of percentage operations anywhere.

For people like you, we've designed a small tutorial to do it step by step, if you want to learn how, keep reading.

What are percentages?

Before seeing how to perform the calculation of percentages it is important to know a definition as accurate as possible in order to understand what it is about.

What are all those numbers accompanied by the % symbol? They are called percentages, and they are a fraction that always has the number 100 as its denominator, they serve to indicate what proportion out of 100 satisfies certain specific conditions.

With an example, it can be seen more clearly: 60% of university students start studying for an exam the last week; this means that 60 out of every 100 students start preparing for an exam one week in advance.

A slightly more theoretical explanation can give you interesting nuances that facilitate your understanding: When we talk about percentages, we are referring to an alternative way of reformulating a fraction through hundredths.

How to calculate a percentage using fractions

To learn to calculate a percentage you should know that there are at least two different ways to do it: by fractions or by proportions.

We're going to show you how to do it with a clarifying example, Spain has 45 million inhabitants and 20% of them support F.C. Barcelona, how many Spaniards support this team?

In this case, we are simply being asked to calculate what 20% of 45 million is:

$$20\%\ of\ 45 = 20\times\frac{45}{100} = 9$$

In this case, we could say that 9 million people in Spain are fans of F.C. Barcelona.

As you may have noticed, if you are comfortable with the calculation of fractions you should have no problem carrying out the different calculations related to percentages.

The procedure is simple, to be able to calculate the percentage of a certain amount, it is enough to multiply that amount by the variable x (that is, the percentage number) and then divide the result by 100.

How to convert a percentage into a fraction

If you've already understood how to perform the calculation of percentages having the rate and the total amount, you will be able to go a bit further to learn how to use percentages from another perspective.

In this direction, what you should do first is to know the procedure through which a percentage can be transformed into a fraction.

To do this, just consider the percentage and divide it by 100. This way, you will have in your hands a fraction capable of representing the same amount in a different way.

Example: What fraction corresponds to 15%?

To find out, use the definition we just gave:

$$15\% = \frac{15}{100}$$

Then we can affirm that in general:

$$X\% = \frac{X}{100}$$

Calculation of percentages with proportions

In addition to transforming percentages into fractions, it is even possible, in an equivalent way, to rewrite them through their appropriate proportions. In reality, every percentage of an amount can be reformulated in the form of a proportion.

Under these conditions, we will be able to find different problems depending on what you need to calculate, but in any case, the formula that relates percentage/proportion is the following:

  • Percentual amount/Total amount = Percentual/100

Example: in a school, 75 out of 300 students have failed one or more subjects. What percentage of students has not passed at least one subject?

Development: the relationship of the students who fail compared to the total number of students is 75 divided by 300. To transform it into a percentage form, we should reformulate the total as if it were a hundred.

To do this, we must numerically calibrate the change in relationship between the 75 students with respect to the 300 total, to what it would be if the total were 100.

Let's see it in the form of a formula:

$$\frac{75}{300} = \frac{x}{100}$$

And with this formula at hand, we can easily clear the value of X

$$X = 75\times\frac{100}{300} = 25$$

This means that out of every 100 students, 25 have failed one subject or more, in other words, 25% of the students.

Trick to Quickly Calculate Percentages by Hand

After so much theoretical definition, we're going to tell you how to calculate it in a practical way, to save time using a very simple trick based on the rule of three.

If you want to know what 22% of 1500 is, simply think of a rule of 3, if 1500 is 100%, how much will 22% be:

$$1500\frac{22}{100}$$

To speed this all up, simply multiply 1500 (or whichever number you want) by 0.22 (or the percentage you want, expressed from 0 to 1) and you will have the result you are looking for in a much faster, more comfortable, and agile way.

It doesn't matter if you divide the total result of the multiplication or do it only with one of the two numbers, it will also give you the same number if you multiply 15*22, the solution in all cases will always be 330.

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Let's put another example: saying 15% of 220 is the same as saying (220)*(0.15) or now well (2.2)*(15) or also (15)*(220/100). The result will always be 33.

With this rule of three, you will save a lot of time when calculating percentages, it is much more advisable than the two previous methods, although it is true that the other methods serve to explain in a more theoretical way what percentages are.

This concludes this article, in which you have learned to use the percentage calculator to do it easily, quickly, automatically, and totally free.

And, on the other hand, we have also explained how to do it by hand and with two different methods: with fractions and using functions.

We hope that all this information that you have been able to find on this online simulator website has been useful to you, if so, a good way to reward us would be to share this article on your social networks, thus growing this great community.

Before finishing, I would like to remind you that, if you have a problem with our percentage calculator, you can always contact us through the contact page.

BS Román Ramos
Bachelor of Mathematics and Master in Operations Research from UCV.
Román Ramos holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the Central University of ... Read more »

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