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Forex profit and loss calculator

Enter where you got in, where you got out and how big the position was. This returns the move in pips and what it is worth in your account currency.

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Short answer

Profit = pips gained × pip value. A 60-pip winner on 0.5 lots of EUR/USD in a dollar account is 60 × $5 = $300 gross, before commission and swap.

Key takeaways

  • For a long, pips = exit − entry. For a short, pips = entry − exit. Getting this backwards is the most common arithmetic error in trade journals.
  • The result here is gross. Commission is charged per lot each way and swap accrues nightly on held positions.
  • Expressing the result as a percentage of the account is far more useful than the cash figure. It is the only version comparable across account sizes.
  • Run the numbers before entering. If the reward at your target does not justify the risk at your stop, the trade is a decision you can skip.

How the calculation works

Two steps. First convert the price move into pips by dividing by the pip size. 0.0001 for most pairs, 0.01 for yen pairs, 0.1 for gold. Then multiply by the pip value for your position size, which depends on the contract size and your account currency.

P&L = ((Exit − Entry) ÷ Pip size) × Pip value × Direction

Direction is +1 for a long and −1 for a short. Everything else is mechanical.

What the arithmetic will not tell you is whether the trade was good. A trade that hit its target for +$300 and a trade that ran to +$300 after you moved the stop three times are the same number and completely different decisions. This is why journals record the plan alongside the outcome.

The costs the gross number hides

Three costs sit between the calculated figure and what reaches your balance:

  • Spread. You enter at the unfavourable side of the quote, so a trade starts marginally negative. On a 0.8-pip spread that is $8 per standard lot, charged immediately.
  • Commission. Raw-spread accounts charge separately, commonly $3.50 per lot per side, $7 round-trip on a standard lot.
  • Swap. Positions held past the broker's rollover accrue an overnight financing charge or credit, depending on the interest differential between the two currencies and the broker's markup. Wednesday is usually charged triple to cover the weekend.

On a scalp these are a large fraction of the result. On a multi-week swing trade the swap alone can exceed the spread many times over. Cashback programmes rebate part of the spread and commission. The cashback calculator shows what that is worth at your volume.

The same calculators are inside the MarketPro app

MarketPro ships position size, pip value, margin, profit, risk-to-reward and compounding calculators alongside the signal feed, so you can size a trade on the same screen you read it on. Download free. One vetted signal every day, no card needed.

Written and reviewed by the MarketPro research desk

MarketPro is a trading-signal and trading-education app operated by Harajuku Holdings LTD (Cyprus). Our signal desk publishes and tracks every trade idea in-app, and every page here is checked against the app's live behaviour before publishing. Last reviewed . How we produce signals and content · About MarketPro

FAQ

Forex profit and loss calculator: questions

How do I calculate profit on a short trade?
Subtract the exit price from the entry price rather than the other way round. Selling EUR/USD at 1.0850 and buying it back at 1.0800 is a 50-pip gain, because the price fell and you were positioned for that. Select "Sell (short)" above and the calculator handles the sign.
Why is my broker P&L different from this?
Almost always costs. This figure is gross of spread, commission and swap. It can also differ if part of the position closed at a different price than you expected. Partial fills, slippage on the stop, or scaling out at multiple targets each change the average exit.
What is a good profit per trade?
The honest answer is that a single trade's profit is not a meaningful measure. What matters is expectancy across many trades: average win multiplied by win rate, minus average loss multiplied by loss rate. A strategy that wins 40% of the time with a 3:1 reward-to-risk ratio outperforms one that wins 70% of the time at 1:2. Trading involves risk of loss and no result is guaranteed.
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Not investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.