Risk/Reward Ratio Calculator

Entry, stop, target — instant R:R plus the minimum win rate you need.

Entry price ($)

Stop-loss price ($)

For longs: below entry. For shorts: above entry.

Target / take-profit ($)

For longs: above entry. For shorts: below entry.

Position size (shares, optional)

Leave at 1 if you just want the R:R ratio.

Risk/Reward ratio

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Risk per trade

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Reward per trade

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Minimum win rate to break even

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How risk/reward actually works

The risk/reward ratio is the ratio of your potential reward to your potential loss on a single trade. A 1:3 ratio means you're risking $1 to make $3. A 1:1 ratio means you're risking $1 to make $1.

The reason it matters is captured by the break-even win rate. With a 1:1 ratio, you need to win more than 50% of your trades to make money. With a 1:3 ratio, you only need to win 25% — losing 3 out of every 4 trades still leaves you profitable.

This is why many systematic traders run lower win rates intentionally. They take smaller losses and let winners run, accepting that most trades will lose. The math still works.

The minimum win rate formula

Break-even win rate = 1 / (1 + R:R)

So:

1:1 R:R → need win rate above 50%
1:2 R:R → need win rate above 33%
1:3 R:R → need win rate above 25%
1:5 R:R → need win rate above 17%

Note: this is gross. Real expectancy needs to account for transaction costs, which typically add another 5-10 percentage points to the required win rate.

What R:R ratios are realistic

Most retail signal services advertise huge R:R ratios (1:5, 1:10) without disclosing that they require absurdly far stops. A 1:10 R:R with a 30% stop is essentially "set and forget for months."

Realistic ratios for active traders:

Scalping: 1:1 to 1:1.5 — tight stops, quick exits
Day trading: 1:1.5 to 1:3 — meaningful targets within the session
Swing trading: 1:2 to 1:5 — patient with both stops and targets
Position trading: 1:3 to 1:10 — wide stops, large moves expected

Real numbers in the wild. The SultraxAI platform publishes the average win and average loss on every signal it fires. Currently average winning BTC trade returns +0.89% and average losing trade is -0.72% at the 1h horizon — that's an R:R of roughly 1:1.24. Modest but real, which is the kind of number you can actually trade.