Risk-Reward Ratio Calculator
Enter your risk, your reward, and your track record, and this page turns them into the numbers that actually decide whether your trading makes money: your ratio, your breakeven win rate, your expectancy, and your profit factor. Every formula is shown right next to its result, so you can check the math yourself.
Plan A Trade
Score Your Record
Enter your average losing trade as a positive number.
What Is A Risk-Reward Ratio
A risk-reward ratio is how much you stand to make on a trade compared to how much you are willing to lose on it. The formula is reward divided by risk, written as 1:X. Risk $100 to make $300 and you are trading a 1:3 ratio; risk $150 to make $150 and you are at 1:1. That is the whole calculation, and it is also where most traders stop thinking, which is the mistake. A big ratio on its own proves nothing, because a 1:5 setup you only win 10 percent of the time loses money steadily. The ratio only means something next to your win rate, which is exactly why this page puts them side by side. Enter your risk and reward in the calculator above and it hands you the ratio plus the win rate that ratio demands.
Breakeven Win Rate
Take your ratio and you can work out the win rate you need just to break even: divide 1 by 1 plus your R. At 1:3 that is 1 divided by 4, a 25 percent breakeven win rate. At 1:1 it is 50 percent. At 1:2 it is 33 percent. The logic is plain, each win has to pay for the losses that came before it, so the bigger your reward relative to your risk, the fewer wins you need. This number is the bridge between planning a trade and scoring your record: a trade plan is only as good as your realistic odds of clearing its breakeven rate. The calculator runs this for you the moment you enter risk and reward.
Win Rate
Win rate is the most overrated number in trading. On its own it tells you almost nothing, because it says how often you win and stays silent about how much. A trader winning 90 percent of the time can still lose money, all it takes is small wins and one oversized loser wiping out ten of them, and plenty of accounts have died exactly that way. The math is simple: win rate is wins divided by total trades. The value comes from pairing it with your ratio, your win rate against your breakeven rate is the single fastest health check your trading has. If you filled in both groups above, the calculator is already showing you that comparison.
Trade Expectancy
Say you win 40 percent of your trades, your average winner is $300, and your average loser is $150. Your expectancy is 0.40 times 300 minus 0.60 times 150, which comes out to $30. That means every trade you take is worth $30 on average, winners and losers blended together, and that per-trade average is the honest measure of a system. Divide it by your average loss and you get expectancy in R, here 0.2R, which lets you compare systems across different account sizes. One caution before you trust the number: a small sample lies. Twenty trades is a coin-flip streak, not a system, so make sure the win rate and averages you enter come from a real stretch of trading, the more trades behind them the more the output is worth. Then let the calculator above do the blending for you.
Profit Factor
Profit factor answers a different question than expectancy. Expectancy tells you what one trade is worth on average; profit factor tells you how many dollars you make for every dollar you lose, gross profits divided by gross losses. Above 1.0 means you are profitable by definition, since the wins outweigh the losses. Traders commonly treat somewhere around 1.5 to 2.0 as a workable system, though that is common practice and not a line anyone can promise, and a thin sample inflates the number fast, one lucky runner can carry a profit factor over 3 for a month that means nothing. The reason both numbers live on this page is that they catch different failures: a decent profit factor can hide a low-expectancy grind, and the calculator above prints both from the same three inputs so neither hides.
R-Multiple
Start measuring your trades in R and a lot of things get easier. One R is simply the amount you risked on the trade, so a trade that made $450 on $150 of risk is +3R, and a full loss is -1R. Journaling in R instead of dollars normalizes everything, a good day on a small account and a good day on a big account read the same, and it takes some of the emotional charge out of the dollar swings, which helps you judge your trading instead of your mood. The calculator above shows your planned reward as an R-multiple, and your expectancy in R, so both are already speaking this language.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good risk-reward ratio?
No ratio is good on its own. A 1:5 ratio loses money if you only win 10 percent of the time, and a 1:1 ratio makes money all day at a 60 percent win rate. The real test is whether your win rate clears the breakeven rate your ratio implies, with room to spare, and the calculator on this page works that out for you.
What is a good profit factor in trading?
Above 1.0 is profitable by definition, since your gross profits are bigger than your gross losses. Most traders treat somewhere around 1.5 to 2.0 as workable, but keep in mind a small sample inflates it fast, one lucky runner can carry a profit factor over 3 for a month and mean nothing.
What is expectancy in trading?
Expectancy is the average result of one trade across your whole system, in dollars or in R. The formula is your win rate times your average win, minus your loss rate times your average loss. If the number is positive, your system makes money over time; if it is negative, no amount of grinding fixes it, the math loses.
Is a 1:3 risk-reward ratio good?
Only if your win rate clears 25 percent, because that is the breakeven rate a 1:3 ratio implies: one win pays for three losses. Win 30 percent of the time at 1:3 and you have an edge. Win 20 percent and you are paying for the privilege of trading.
More Tools
The Position Size Calculator turns this page's risk-per-trade number into contracts for your actual funded account, and the Consistency Calculator checks your biggest day against your firm's published threshold. Every tool we build lives on the tools hub.
These numbers tell you whether your trading has an edge; they do not tell you where to trade it. If you have not picked a firm yet, start with the prop firm finder, it matches firms to how you trade instead of the other way around.