Risk Reward Calculator
Enter your stop loss and take profit to get the risk to reward ratio, the win rate the setup needs to break even, and — with a win rate — what it earns per trade after costs. Free, no signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Enter your stop loss and take profit in pips, or as prices. Add your trading costs and a win rate to see the ratio after costs, the win rate you need to break even and what the setup earns per trade.
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How to Calculate Risk to Reward
The risk to reward ratio compares what a trade stands to lose with what it stands to make. Divide the distance to the take profit by the distance to the stop loss, and write the result as 1 : that number.
Reward multiple = take profit distance ÷ stop loss distance · Break-even win rate = stop ÷ (stop + target)
Example 1: a 20-pip stop and a 40-pip target.
The reward is 40 ÷ 20 = 2 times the risk, so the ratio is 1 : 2. The trade breaks even if it wins 20 ÷ (20 + 40) = 33.3% of the time, before costs.
The Win Rate Each Ratio Needs
A ratio on its own says nothing about whether a strategy makes money. What matters is whether the win rate it actually achieves sits above the break-even rate for its ratio. Before costs:
| Risk : reward | Break-even win rate |
|---|---|
| 1 : 0.5 | 66.7% |
| 1 : 1 | 50.0% |
| 1 : 1.5 | 40.0% |
| 1 : 2 | 33.3% |
| 1 : 3 | 25.0% |
| 1 : 4 | 20.0% |
Costs raise every figure in that table, and they raise it most where the stop and target are small, because a fixed spread and commission are a bigger share of a 10-pip move than of a 100-pip one.
Why a High Win Rate EA Can Still Lose
Some Expert Advisor sales pages lead with a win rate of 80% or more. A high win rate usually comes from a small target and a wide stop, and the ratio tells you how much of that win rate is already spoken for.
Example 2: a scalping EA with a 30-pip stop and a 10-pip target.
Before costs the ratio is 1 : 0.33, and the break-even win rate is 30 ÷ (30 + 10) = 75%.
With 1 pip of spread and commission per trade, a win nets 9 pips and a loss costs 31. The break-even win rate rises to 31 ÷ (31 + 9) = 77.5%. At an 80% win rate the expectancy is 0.80 × (9 ÷ 31) − 0.20 = +0.032R per trade — a margin that one bad week can erase.
The same arithmetic explains why grid and martingale systems can show long runs of winning trades before a single loss takes back months of gains. Our guide to martingale, grid and scalping EAs covers how each one shapes the ratio.
What the Ratio Leaves Out
Use the record, not the settings
Many EAs close trades before the stop or target is reached, with trailing stops, time exits or basket closes. Their stop and take-profit settings then describe trades that rarely happen. Enter the average win and average loss in pips from the EA's own track record instead, and the ratio describes what the EA actually does.
Slippage and gaps
A stop is an instruction, not a guarantee. In fast markets and over weekend gaps, stops fill beyond the price set, so real losses can be larger than the stop distance. A strategy running close to its break-even rate has no room for that.
A win rate from too few trades
A win rate from a few dozen trades can be far from the strategy's true rate. The closer the reported rate sits to break-even, the more trades it takes before you can tell the difference between a small edge and none. How we test Expert Advisors sets out the minimum record we need before we trust a figure.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you calculate the risk to reward ratio?
What is a good risk reward ratio?
What win rate do I need for a 1:2 risk reward?
Is a 1:1 risk reward ratio profitable?
What is expectancy in trading?
Why use an EA's average win and loss instead of its stop and target?
Is it free, and do you store what I enter?
Before You Trust an EA's Win Rate
A good ratio is worth very little if the record behind the win rate was never evidence in the first place. We publish two free documents that cover the checks we run before we will cover a product at all: the EA Red Flag Checklist, and a Broker and VPS Quick Reference covering the conditions an EA actually needs to perform as advertised.
Both are yours the moment you submit — the download page opens immediately, with no waiting and nothing to find in your inbox. The marketing email tick-box is optional and you can leave it blank.
The Ratio Is the Easy Part
A risk to reward ratio is only as good as the win rate you put next to it, and a win rate is only as good as the record it came from. A vendor's backtest, a short live account or a record that mixes several strategies will all produce a confident ratio and a meaningless expectancy.
As at September 2026, none of the eight Expert Advisors we have reviewed holds our Recommended verdict, and each review shows the arithmetic, the account each figure came from and the date it was read.
This tool performs arithmetic on figures you supply and runs entirely in your browser. It is not financial advice and it is not a recommendation to trade. A break-even win rate and an expectancy describe the figures entered; they do not predict future results, and real trades are affected by slippage, gaps and changing market conditions. Trading forex and CFDs carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors.
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