Forex profit calculator
Work out the profit or loss on a forex trade in Australian dollars. Enter your pair, direction, lot size, entry and exit price, and the calculator returns the result in AUD, the pip movement, and the USD figure. Built for Australian traders on the major USD-quoted pairs. No signup, everything runs in your browser.
Calculator
All values stay in your browser and recalculate as you type. The USD-to-AUD rate is prefilled from recent data; edit it to match the rate when your trade closed.
- Pip movement: 0 pips
- Profit/loss in USD: USD 0.00
- Position: 100,000 units (1 lots)
How forex profit is calculated
The profit on a forex trade comes from two things: how far the price moved in your favour, and how big your position was. Put together, the formula for a USD-quoted pair is simple:
- Find the price movement. Subtract your entry price from your exit price. For a buy (long) trade, a higher exit is a profit; for a sell (short) trade, a lower exit is a profit, so the sign flips.
- Multiply by your position size. One standard lot is 100,000 units, so multiply the price movement by 100,000 times your lot size. Because the pair is quoted in US dollars, this gives the profit in USD.
- Convert to your currency. Multiply the USD result by the USD-to-AUD rate to get the figure in Australian dollars.
That is exactly what the calculator does. It also shows the move in pips, the standard unit of price movement, because traders usually think in pips first and dollars second.
Worked example
Say you buy one standard lot of EUR/USD at 1.0850 and close at 1.0880.
- The price moved 0.0030 in your favour, which is 30 pips.
- Multiplied by 100,000 units, that is USD 300.
- At a USD-to-AUD rate of about 1.50, that is roughly AUD 450, before spread and commission.
Now reduce the position to a mini lot (0.1 lots) and the same 30-pip move makes about USD 30, or AUD 45. Same trade, one tenth the size, one tenth the result. This is why lot size is the main control on how much a trade is worth, and why sizing it to your risk, with the position size calculator, comes before worrying about the profit target.
Where you trade affects what you keep
The calculator shows gross profit. What you actually keep is that figure minus the spread and any commission, which is why a tight-cost broker matters: the same winning trade nets you more at a broker with a 0.1 pip spread than at one charging a full pip. For active trading, Pepperstone leads on execution and Fusion Markets on cost.
For the full field, see the best forex brokers in Australia ranking, and to model your all-in trading cost, use the total cost of trading calculator. CFD Service. Your capital is at risk.
Frequently asked questions
Profit equals the price movement in your favour, multiplied by your position size. For a USD-quoted pair, the profit in US dollars is the difference between your exit and entry price, multiplied by the number of units (lots times 100,000), with the sign flipped for a short trade. You then convert that USD figure to your account currency. For example, a one standard lot EUR/USD trade that gains 30 pips makes about USD 300, which the calculator converts to AUD for you.
Yes. The headline result is in Australian dollars. The profit on a USD-quoted pair is first worked out in US dollars, then converted to AUD using a USD-to-AUD rate that the calculator prefills from recent exchange-rate data and that you can edit. It also shows the underlying USD figure and the pip movement, so you can see exactly how the result is built up.
The major USD-quoted pairs: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD and NZD/USD. These all share the same profit maths because the US dollar is the quote currency, so the profit comes out in USD before conversion to AUD. Pairs quoted in other currencies, such as USD/JPY or cross pairs, use different conversion steps and are best calculated inside your trading platform, which knows the live rates.
Profit scales directly with lot size. A standard lot is 100,000 units, a mini lot is 10,000, and a micro lot is 1,000. A 30-pip move that makes about USD 300 on a standard lot makes about USD 30 on a mini lot and USD 3 on a micro lot. Doubling your lot size doubles both the profit and the loss, which is why lot size is the main control on how much each trade is worth. See the guide on what a lot is for more.
No, it calculates the gross profit or loss from the price movement only. Your actual net result is slightly lower once you subtract the spread and any commission, which are the costs of the trade. To estimate those costs across the major brokers, use the total cost of trading calculator. For a single trade, a rough rule is to subtract the spread in pips from your pip result before reading off the dollar figure.
It is accurate for the gross profit on USD-quoted pairs, given correct inputs and a correct USD-to-AUD rate. The small differences from your broker statement come from the exact conversion rate used at the moment your trade closed, plus the spread and commission the calculator does not include. For position planning and learning how pips translate into dollars, it is precise enough; for reconciling a closed trade to the cent, use your broker's statement.
About the author
