Profit factor calculator
Divide what you won by what you lost. Enter your totals and get the profit factor, the net result and the expectancy per trade. No sign-up.
Enter the total of your winning trades and the total of your losing trades, and the calculator shows your profit factor. Add the number of winners and losers to see your average win, average loss and the expectancy per trade. The example values are invented: $1,850 of winners, $1,240 of losers, 26 winning and 24 losing trades.
What profit factor is
Profit factor is gross profit divided by gross loss. A value of 1.00 means the winners exactly cancel the losers. Above 1.00 the winners are larger than the losers, below it the losers are larger. With the example numbers, 1,850 divided by 1,240 is 1.49: for every dollar lost, about $1.49 was won, before anything you did not count.
| Profit factor | In plain words |
|---|---|
| Below 1.00 | The account lost money over this sample |
| About 1.00 | Breakeven. Costs decide the outcome |
| 1.00 to 1.50 | Slightly positive. Fragile to costs and to a short sample |
| Above 1.50 | Winners clearly outweigh losers, if the sample is large and the numbers are net of costs |
| Very high on few trades | Often luck, or a sample too small to mean anything |
These bands are rough conventions, not rules, and different traders and sources use different cut-offs. What matters is that you measure it on net trades (after commission and swap) and on enough of them. Twenty trades prove very little.
What profit factor leaves out
- Risk. A profit factor says nothing about how deep the drawdown was on the way. Check it separately. See how to track drawdown in MT5.
- Win rate and size. The same profit factor can come from many small winners and a few big losers or the other way round. The average win and loss calculator shows the split.
- Position size. It is a ratio, so it ignores how much money is behind it.
- The future. It describes a past sample, not what comes next.
Profit factor, win rate and expectancy together
Profit factor, win rate and expectancy describe the same results from different angles. Expectancy is the average result per trade: net result divided by the number of trades. With the example numbers it is (1,850 - 1,240) / 50 = +$12.20 per trade. The expectancy calculator and the breakeven win rate calculator look at the same data from the win rate side.
Where to get the numbers
Gross profit and gross loss are the sums of your winning and losing closed trades. In MetaTrader 5 you can get them from the History tab report, or from a spreadsheet of your trades with =SUMIF(range,">0") and =SUMIF(range,"<0"). AI Trading Journal shows profit factor on its dashboard for any period, built from your net results, and its Excel report includes it among the key figures. See the MT5 report analyzer guide for the full method.
A worked example from a short trade list (hypothetical)
Take ten closed trades with these net results: +$120, -$60, +$45, -$60, +$200, -$60, -$60, +$90, -$60 and +$75. The five winners (+120, +45, +200, +90 and +75) add up to $530, and the five losers (-60 each) add up to $300. The profit factor is 530 / 300 = 1.77, the net result is +$230 and the expectancy is +$23 per trade.
| Figure | Value | How it is worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Gross profit | $530 | 120 + 45 + 200 + 90 + 75 |
| Gross loss | $300 | 5 x 60 |
| Profit factor | 1.77 | 530 / 300 |
| Win rate | 50% | 5 winners out of 10 |
| Average win | $106 | 530 / 5 |
| Average loss | $60 | 300 / 5 |
| Expectancy per trade | +$23 | (530 - 300) / 10 |
The trades are invented. Ten trades are far too few to trust a profit factor of 1.77: one more losing trade of $200 would drop it to 530 / 500 = 1.06. That sensitivity is the reason to read the figure on a large sample and next to the others.
How to read a change in profit factor
- It rises because winners grew. Check whether you are holding winners longer or whether one outlier trade did it. Remove the biggest winner and recalculate.
- It falls because one loss was large. Look at that trade in your journal. Was it a moved stop, a gap or a plan break?
- It rises because you took fewer trades. That can be good discipline, or just a small sample. Compare it with your trade count.
- It differs by instrument or hour. Break the figure down. The best-time guide shows how to group trades.
Common mistakes when using profit factor
- Using gross figures. Commission and swap are part of every trade. Without them the number is flattering.
- Comparing different periods. A week and a year are not comparable. Use the same window and a decent number of trades.
- Chasing a high number. Cutting every winner early can raise the win rate while the profit factor stays poor, and removing losing trades from the sample proves nothing.
- Ignoring drawdown. Two traders can share a profit factor and have very different drawdowns.
- Treating it as a prediction. It is a description of what already happened.
Limits of this calculator
- It uses the totals you enter. It does not check them against your account.
- It does not account for costs unless your totals already include them.
- It does not predict anything and is not trading or investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate profit factor?
What is a good profit factor?
Is profit factor the same as win rate?
Should I include commission and swap?
Where can I see my profit factor automatically?
Related guides
- Free position size calculator (forex and gold)
- Free risk to reward calculator
- Free drawdown recovery calculator
- Free trading expectancy calculator
- Free forex and gold profit and loss calculator
- Free margin calculator for forex and gold
- Free trading compounding calculator
- Free losing streak calculator
- Prop firm drawdown calculator (daily and maximum loss)
- Prop firm risk calculator: how many losing trades until the limit
- All trading journal comparisons
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