This risk reward calculator gives you the ratio between what you aim for and what you risk, and above all the win rate that ratio forces you to hold. Enter your entry, your stop loss and your target. Free, instant, no sign-up, and it works the same on stocks, futures and forex.
Entry, stop and target are entered in your chart's unit: points, pips or ticks. The ratio is dimensionless, it comes out the same whichever unit you pick.
Risk = distance between your entry and your stop. Reward = distance between your entry and your target. In points, pips or ticks, it does not matter, as long as it is the same unit on both sides. That is the only condition for the division to mean anything.
Ratio = distance to target ÷ distance to stop. Entry 100, stop 97.50, target 107.50: 7.50 divided by 2.50 makes 3. You risk one to aim for three. This rr calculator returns two decimals, so 2.08 never reads as 2.
Breakeven rate = 1 ÷ (1 + ratio). At 3 to 1 it is 25%. Add your win rate and the tool returns your expectancy in R, positive or negative: the answer the ratio alone never gives.
The full formula: ratio = (target − entry) ÷ (entry − stop), in absolute value. And the threshold that goes with it: breakeven rate = 1 ÷ (1 + ratio). A ratio you never compare with that threshold is just a number.
Want the long read on risk to reward, market by market?
Read the risk reward guide →An r/r ratio is never read on its own. It only becomes information next to the win rate it demands, and that rate is 1 divided by (1 + ratio). Here is the full table for the ratios you actually meet.
| Risk reward ratio | Breakeven rate | In other words |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5 to 1 | 66.7% | two winners out of three, just to stay flat |
| 1 to 1 | 50.0% | one in two, the textbook case |
| 1.5 to 1 | 40.0% | four out of ten are enough |
| 2 to 1 | 33.3% | one in three, the most widely taught ratio |
| 2.5 to 1 | 28.6% | a little more than one in four |
| 3 to 1 | 25.0% | one in four, typical of swing trading |
| 4 to 1 | 20.0% | one in five |
| 5 to 1 | 16.7% | one in six, and it takes nerve to hold |
The first row is the one nobody looks at and it explains more empty accounts than any other. At 0.5 to 1, meaning a stop twice as wide as the target, you need two winners out of three just to break even. That is exactly the profile of the trader who cuts winners and lets losers run, and a flattering win rate does not save them.
Expectancy in R answers the question the ratio dodges. It is rate × ratio − (1 − rate), and it reads in multiples of risk: +0.20 R means a trade earns on average a fifth of what you risk. The table crosses both numbers on real combinations.
| Win rate | Ratio | Expectancy | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30% | 2 to 1 | −0.10 R | losing |
| 30% | 3 to 1 | +0.20 R | winning |
| 40% | 2 to 1 | +0.20 R | winning |
| 50% | 1 to 1 | 0.00 R | breakeven |
| 50% | 1.5 to 1 | +0.25 R | winning |
| 60% | 1 to 1 | +0.20 R | winning |
| 70% | 0.5 to 1 | +0.05 R | barely winning |
Compare rows 2 and 3: two very different traders, one right three times out of ten, the other four, land on the same expectancy because their ratios compensate. Then compare the last row with the second: the trader who wins seven times out of ten brings back four times less per trade than the one who is wrong seven times out of ten. That is the whole point of a risk reward ratio calculator.
A risk ratio calculator works on three prices you choose: entry, stop and target. So it returns the ratio you aim for, not the one you realise. That is also the limit of any risk to reward calculator, and of the trade return calculator figure it prints next to it: both describe the plan, not the fill. Between the two sit the spread, the commission, the slippage on entry and the partial exit you take halfway.
Those costs add to your risk and subtract from your reward, so they attack the ratio from both ends. And because they are fixed amounts, they weigh more the shorter your distances: a cost of 1.5 points turns an advertised 3 to 1 into a real 2.08 on a 5-point stop, and into 2.93 on an 80-point stop. The scalper loses seven points of breakeven rate, the swing trader half a point.
The only way to know your real ratio is to measure it on closed trades, at executed prices. That is what a journal does, and it is why the average ratio on a statement is almost always lower than the one in the plan.
Four questions stay open after the calculation, and none of them is readable on the chart.
Risk reward ratio, reward to risk ratio, reward/risk ratio, ratio risk reward, R/R, RR: the spellings change, the computation does not. You divide the distance to target by the distance to stop. That is the risk reward ratio formula, and the reward to risk ratio formula is the same line read backwards. If you have ever wondered what is r/r in trading, what's rr in trading, or what is rr value, this is it, and how to calculate risk reward ratio takes ten seconds by hand.
The reverse ratio says the same thing upside down, which causes half the misunderstandings between traders. What matters is not the order of the terms but consistency: keep one convention in your journal, or your statistics mix two measures. A risk reward ratio of 1:2 in trading means one unit risked for two targeted, and calculate rrr means nothing more than that division. The reward to risk ratio equation and risk reward ratio calculation are the same operation under two names.
A ratio alone says nothing about profitability. Cross it with your win rate: risk reward ratio trading only pays when the two numbers agree. That is why a risk to reward ratio calculator, an r r calculator and a win rate calculator belong side by side rather than one replacing the other.
Ratio = (target − entry) ÷ (entry − stop), in absolute value. Entry 100, stop 97.50, target 107.50: you risk 2.50 to aim for 7.50, so 3 to 1. This risk reward calculator runs the division and adds the breakeven win rate, which is the useful part.
There is none in the absolute, and that is the first reading mistake. A 1 to 1 is excellent at 60% accuracy and ruinous at 45%. The only good ratio is one whose breakeven rate sits below the rate you actually observe on your closed trades.
It is the percentage of winning trades below which your series loses money, at a constant ratio. It equals 1 ÷ (1 + ratio). At 2 to 1 it is 33.3%, at 3 to 1 it is 25%. Above it you make money, below it you lose.
Yes, it is dimensionless. A stock at 100 with a stop at 97.50 and a target at 107.50 gives the same 3 to 1 as a contract measured in ticks, which is why a stock r/r reads exactly like a futures one. What changes between markets is turning risk into position size, not the ratio itself.
Yes, fully free and no sign-up, like the six other calculators on this site. The Tradoshi app goes further by measuring the ratio actually obtained on your closed trades, at executed prices, when the stop is recorded.
Permanent free plan, no credit card.