What the break-even calculator does
A trade does not start at zero. You pay the spread when you open it, a commission on each side at many brokers, and on crypto platforms a percentage fee on every fill. The break-even price is where the market has to go before the trade has paid for all of that. Knowing it tells you how much of a small target is eaten by costs, and where a break-even stop really has to sit to avoid a loss.
How to use it
- Pick the instrument. For pairs not quoted in dollars, enter the conversion rate; for indices, the value of a point per lot at your broker.
- Choose buy (long) or sell (short), enter the entry price as you see it on the chart, and the size in lots.
- Enter the spread in pips (points for indices and crypto), any percentage fee per side, and the commission per lot per side in dollars.
- Read the break-even price, the distance to it and how the cost splits between spread, commission and fees.
The calculator works with chart prices, which in MetaTrader are bid prices: a long opens at the ask, one spread above the chart, and closes at the bid; a short opens at the bid and closes at the ask.
The formula
units = lots × contract size
commission = 2 × commission per side × lots (round turn)
long: break-even = ((entry + spread) × (1 + fee) + commission ÷ units) ÷ (1 − fee)
short: break-even = (entry × (1 − fee) − commission ÷ units) ÷ (1 + fee) − spread
With no percentage fee, both reduce to entry ± (spread + commission ÷ units). For pairs such as USD/JPY the commission is first converted into the quote currency.
Worked example
EUR/USD, 1 lot long at 1.16000, 1.0-pip spread, $3.50 commission per side. The spread costs $10 and the round-turn commission $7. Break-even = 1.16000 + 0.00010 + 7 ÷ 100,000 = 1.16017, 1.7 pips above the entry. Shorting at the same chart price, break-even is 1.15983.
Gold, 0.50 lot long at 4,000.00, 2.5-pip ($0.25) spread and $3.50 per lot per side. The spread costs $12.50 and the commission $3.50, so the price must reach 4,000.32: 3.2 pips and $16 in total.
Bitcoin, 0.5 BTC long at 100,000, a 20-point spread and a 0.05% fee per side. Break-even = (100,020 × 1.0005) ÷ 0.9995 ≈ 100,120.1, a 0.12% move — about $60 of costs, $50 of them in fees.
Moving your stop to break-even
Traders often move the stop to the entry price once a trade is in profit. On the chart that looks risk-free, but closing there still loses the spread and the commission. If you want a stop that truly breaks even, place it at the break-even price instead — and expect it to be hit a little more often. The trailing stop guide shows how an Expert Advisor can do this automatically.
Spread, commission or fee: which matters most
On forex and gold, the spread is usually the largest cost and it is fixed in pips, so it weighs most on short targets. Commissions on raw-spread accounts are fixed per lot. Percentage fees, typical of crypto exchanges, grow with the price and the size, which is why the Bitcoin example above needs a 0.12% move while EUR/USD needs about 0.015%. Before a strategy goes live, compare its average target with the break-even distance: if costs take a third of the target, the win rate has to carry that weight.
Common mistakes
- Typing your ask fill as the chart entry. Chart prices are bids. If you enter your actual fill price for a long, subtract the spread first or the result is one spread too high.
- Counting the commission once. Most raw-spread accounts charge it on the way in and on the way out.
- Ignoring costs on short targets. On a 5-pip scalp, 1.7 pips of cost is a third of the target. Weigh costs against the reward with the risk/reward calculator, or see the win rate they demand with the trading fee calculator.
- Forgetting swap and slippage. Overnight financing and slippage on stops push the break-even further; estimate financing with the forex swap calculator.