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Risk-reward ratio calculator
A ratio on its own says very little. The number that means something is its break-even win rate — the hit rate at which the payoff exactly cancels the losses — because it is a fact about the arithmetic, identical for every instrument and every trader.
These calculators do arithmetic on numbers you enter. They do not produce recommendations, do not connect to any market feed, and do not know what any instrument is worth — that is never advice, and it is not a substitute for your own judgement or a licensed professional's.
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How this is calculated
No hidden model and nothing fitted to data. Every figure on this page comes out of these lines, applied to the numbers you typed.
risk = | entry − stop |
reward = | target − entry |
R:R = reward ÷ risk
break-even win % = 1 ÷ ( 1 + R:R )
expectancy (R) = ( win% × R:R ) − ( 1 − win% )The other three
Frequently asked questions
- What is a risk-reward ratio?
- It is the distance from your entry to your target divided by the distance from your entry to your stop. If the target is 30 points away and the stop is 10, the ratio is 3:1 — the payoff is three times the amount being risked. It is pure geometry between three prices you chose and contains no view about whether those prices are sensible.
- How do I calculate the break-even win rate?
- Divide one by one plus the ratio. A 1:1 payoff breaks even at 50%, a 2:1 at 33.3%, a 3:1 at 25%, and a 0.5:1 needs 66.7%. Above that hit rate the arithmetic is positive over many trades; below it, negative. It says nothing about whether you will achieve that hit rate.
- What is expectancy in R multiples?
- One R is the amount you risk on a trade, so expressing results in R makes trades of different sizes comparable. Expectancy per trade is your win rate times the ratio, minus your loss rate. A 40% win rate at 2:1 gives 0.4 × 2 − 0.6 = 0.2R, meaning the arithmetic averages a fifth of one risk unit per trade across a large sample.
- Where does the win rate come from?
- From you. The calculator never suggests one, because a win rate is something you measure in your own records after a large enough sample — not something a web page can know about a trade you have not taken. Enter the figure your own journal shows and the tool does the arithmetic on it.
- Is a higher risk-reward ratio always better?
- The arithmetic is neutral on that and so is this tool. A wider target lowers the win rate you need but is reached less often, and the two effects work against each other — which is precisely why expectancy is calculated from both numbers together rather than from the ratio alone.
- Does the projection predict my results?
- No. It multiplies one arithmetic mean by a trade count and nothing more. Real sequences vary enormously around an average, order fills differ from the prices you typed, and costs are not modelled. It is the arithmetic of the inputs, not a forecast of anything.
⚠ Important disclaimer
These calculators are provided strictly for educational and informational purposes. They perform arithmetic on figures you enter. Nothing on these pages is financial, investment, trading, legal or tax advice, nor a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, derivative, commodity or cryptocurrency.
The creator is not a registered investment adviser, research analyst or broker with the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, NFA, any U.S. state securities regulator, or SEBI (as an Investment Adviser or Research Analyst). Trading involves substantial risk of loss — you can lose some or all of your capital, and with leveraged instruments you can lose more than you deposit.
Contract specifications, lot sizes and margin rates shown here are seeded from published standards, are editable, and may be out of date or wrong for your broker. Exchanges revise lot sizes and margin requirements, and brokers routinely impose more than the regulatory minimum. Verify every figure against your own broker before acting on it. These tools carry no warranty of any kind and may contain errors.
You are solely responsible for your own decisions. Read the full legal disclaimer →