Forex Profit Calculator

The forex profit calculator turns a planned or finished trade into two numbers: the price move in pips and the profit or loss in money. Before you enter, run it with your stop loss as the exit price to see what a failed trade costs, then with your take profit to see what it pays. If either figure doesn’t fit your plan, change the trade size or the levels before the order goes in.

What the calculation needs

A profit figure depends on six inputs:

• Currency pair (or gold, using the XAUUSD calculator)
• Account currency, the currency your balance is held in
• Trade size, in lots or units
• Open price, where the trade is entered
• Close price, the planned or actual exit
• Direction, buy (long) or sell (short)

The result is shown in your account currency: positive means profit and negative means loss.

How forex profit is calculated

The calculation takes three steps:

1. Pips = (close price − open price) ÷ pip size for a buy. For a sell, use (open price − close price) ÷ pip size.
2. Pip value = pip size × trade size in units. This gives a value in the quote currency, which is then converted into your account currency.
3. Profit or loss = pips × pip value.

Most pairs use a pip size of 0.0001. Pairs quoted in Japanese yen use 0.01.

Example (hypothetical, USD account): You buy 1 standard lot (100,000 units) of EUR/USD at 1.10000 and close at 1.10500. That is 50 pips. Each pip is worth 0.0001 × 100,000 = $10, so the result is 50 × $10 = $500. A sell at the same two prices would lose $500.

For pairs where the US dollar is not the quote currency, the pip value is converted at the current exchange rate, so the dollar value per pip moves as rates change. The pip calculator shows this figure on its own.

Gold

With XAUUSD, a standard lot is usually 100 ounces. Example (hypothetical): buying 100 ounces at $1,890.00 and selling at $1,891.00 makes $1 × 100 = $100. Brokers define a “pip” on gold differently, so check the dollar result, not the pip count, against your platform.

Using the result

Divide the take profit amount by the stop loss amount to get your reward-to-risk ratio. For example, a $500 target against a $250 stop is 2:1.

To start from a fixed risk, such as 1% of the account, and work back to a lot size, use the position size calculator. The margin calculator shows the capital the position ties up.

What the result leaves out

The figure is a gross price-move result. Your account statement will differ because of:

• Spread. Buys fill at the ask and sells at the bid, so the spread is a cost already built into real entry and exit prices.
• Commission. Charges may be quoted per side or round trip. For example, $3.50 per lot per side comes to $7 per lot once you open and close.
• Swap. Positions held overnight earn or pay rollover.
• Slippage. The fill on a stop or market order can differ from the price you entered in the calculator.
• Conversion at close. For cross pairs, the final account-currency value uses the exchange rate when the trade closes.

For a net estimate, use prices that include the spread, then subtract commission and swap.