Forex profit calculator with pips and compound growth

The sum has 3 parts. Take the price change, multiply by the contract size, then multiply by the number of lots. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the first currency, and 0.10 lots is 10,000 units.

Buying EUR/USD at 1.1000 and selling at 1.1050 is a change of 0.0050. On 10,000 units, that makes USD 50. A short position reverses the sign, so the same rise would lose USD 50.

When the second currency is not USD, the calculator converts the result at the current rate. On USD/JPY, for example, profit first lands in yen, and a 1-yen gain on 0.10 lots gives JPY 1,000, about USD 6.50 at a rate near 154.

Gold uses 100 ounces per lot, so a USD 10 rise on 0.10 lots earns USD 100.

These figures are gross, so subtract your spread, commission and swap to get the real result. On 0.10 lots, a 1.0 pip spread costs USD 1, and a raw account near 0.8 pips all-in costs USD 0.80.

Swap applies if you hold past the daily rollover at 22:00 UTC, and it can be a charge or a small credit. Check the rate inside your platform.

A 50-pip winner on 0.10 lots earns USD 50 and costs about USD 1 in spread, which is minor. A 5-pip scalp on the same size earns USD 5 and pays the same USD 1, so costs take 20% of the gain. Our low spread brokers guide ranks all-in costs.

The compound section multiplies your balance by the same monthly return, month after month. USD 1,000 at 5% a month reaches about USD 1,796 after 12 months and USD 3,225 after 24 months.

Those sums look easy on a screen, and very few traders manage them. A steady 5% a month means roughly 80% a year, far beyond what most professional funds earn. Published broker disclosures show that between 51% and 89% of retail CFD accounts lose money.

Use this forex profit calculator to test a plan, and try a loss as well. A 10% loss needs an 11% gain to recover, and a 50% loss needs a 100% gain. Treat any promise of fixed monthly returns as a warning sign.

Your real profit also depends on your broker, so check costs on our forex broker comparison. See also our pip calculator and lot size calculator.