How to use the crypto profit calculator
The Trade profit tool handles one purchase and one sale of the same coin. The Trading fees tool shows what maker and taker fees cost when you trade repeatedly.
- Choose what you know. Enter the dollar amount you spent, or switch to the number of coins you ordered. Either way, the buy fee comes out of the coins you receive, as on many spot exchanges.
- Enter the buy and sell prices per coin. Use the fill prices from your trade history.
- Enter the fee on each side as a percentage. Market orders usually pay the taker fee and resting limit orders the maker fee. Your exchange’s fee page lists both, often by volume tier.
- Add a withdrawal fee if one applies. A network fee for moving coins to a wallet is charged in coins; a fee for cashing out to a bank is in dollars. Enter 0 if the coins stayed on the exchange.
- Add the days held if you want an annualized return.
How crypto profit is calculated
Coins sold = Coins received − Withdrawal fee in coins
Proceeds = Coins sold × Sell price × (1 − Sell fee) − Withdrawal fee in dollars
Net profit = Proceeds − Investment
Break-even sell price = (Investment + Withdrawal fee in dollars) ÷ [Coins sold × (1 − Sell fee)]Fees are entered in percent and used as decimals (0.5% = 0.005). ROI is net profit divided by the investment.
A worked example
You put $1,000 into Coin A at $2.50. The exchange keeps 0.5% of the purchase, so you receive 398 coins instead of 400. You move them to a wallet for a network fee of 1 coin, and later deposit and sell the remaining 397 coins at $3.25 with another 0.5% fee.
The price rose 30.00%, which with no fees would be worth $300.00. After fees, the proceeds are $1,283.80 and the net profit is $283.80, a +28.38% return. The fees cost $16.20 in total, and the break-even sell price is $2.5315.
Had the price fallen to $2.25 instead, the net result of the same trade would be -$111.22, with the fees still paid. The table under the results repeats the trade at sell prices from 50% below to 50% above yours, so you can see the range of outcomes before you trade.
Where the fee money goes
The three kinds of fee behave differently, and that changes which one matters for your trade.
| Same trade, different fees | Net profit | Return | Fees cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5% each side, 1-coin withdrawal | $283.80 | +28.38% | $16.20 |
| 0.5% each side, no withdrawal | $287.03 | +28.70% | $12.97 |
| 0.1% each side, no withdrawal | $297.40 | +29.74% | $2.60 |
Percentage fees scale with the trade, so they take the same share of a $100 trade as of a $100,000 one. Moving from a 0.5% taker rate to a 0.1% rate is worth more the more often you trade, which the Trading fees tool puts in yearly terms.
Flat withdrawal fees do not scale. On a $100 purchase the same one-coin network fee turns a +28.70% return into +25.47%. Check the network fee before moving small amounts off an exchange.
Trading fees over a year
The second tool assumes you open and close positions of the same size repeatedly. Paying the taker fee of 0.4% on both sides costs $16.00 per $2,000 round trip and needs a 0.80% price rise to break even. At 10 round trips a month, that is $1,920.00 a year, compared with $960.00 if every order paid the maker fee.
What this calculator does not include
- Taxes. Results are before any capital gains tax.
- Spreads and slippage, unless your entered prices are real fills.
- Fees charged in a different asset, such as an exchange token discount. Convert them to an equivalent percentage.
- Deposit or card fees for buying with fiat, which some platforms add on top of trading fees.
- Price risk. Crypto prices can move sharply in either direction, and a past gain says nothing about the next trade.