Gold Risk Reward Calculator
Enter entry, stop and up to three targets to get your dollar risk, dollar reward, R multiple and breakeven win rate for any XAUUSD trade, with partial take-profits.
- Risk to stop ($)
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- Stop distance
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- Reward if every target hits
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- Breakeven win rate
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- R after spread
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- Breakeven win rate after spread
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Your targets
| Target | Price | Share | Distance | R | Profit on that share |
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What the trade can return (before spread and commission)
| Scenario | Result | In $ |
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What the risk-reward calculator tells you
Enter your entry, stop-loss and up to three take-profit levels. The calculator returns the dollar risk to your stop, the dollar reward, the R multiple (reward divided by risk) and the breakeven win rate: the share of trades you must win just to stay flat with that reward-to-risk. If you scale out, give each target a share of the position and it blends them into one R figure, then shows what happens if only the first target is reached.
How to use it
- Type your entry and stop-loss. A stop below entry means a buy; above entry means a sell.
- Add TP1, and TP2 and TP3 if you take partial profits, with the share of the position closed at each (for example 50%, 30%, 20%). Leave a target empty to ignore it.
- Enter your lot size and contract size. Most brokers use 100 oz per standard lot; check your contract specification.
- Add the spread to see R and breakeven after costs. Commission and swap make the real figures a little worse again.
The formulas
- Risk ($) = |entry − stop| × lots × ounces per lot
- R for each target = |target − entry| ÷ |entry − stop|
- Blended R = sum of (share closed at each target × that target's R)
- Breakeven win rate = 1 ÷ (1 + R)
- After spread: R = (target distance − spread) ÷ (stop distance + spread)
Pips and points. The calculator works in dollars of gold price, because that never changes from one broker to the next. With the common $0.10 pip, a $1.00 move in XAUUSD is 10 pips. In MetaTrader a point is the smallest price step, $0.01 on a two-decimal quote, so the same $1.00 move is 100 points, while some traders call a full $1 move “a point”. With 1 standard lot = 100 oz, a $1 move is worth $100 per lot, $10 per 0.10 lot and $1 per 0.01 lot. If your broker labels things differently, the gold pip calculator converts between the conventions.
Worked gold examples
Example 1: one target. Buy 0.10 lot at 4,000.00 with a stop at 3,990.00 and a target at 4,020.00. Stop distance is $10.00, so risk = 10 × 0.10 × 100 = $100.00. The target is $20.00 away: reward $200.00, so R = 2.00. Breakeven win rate = 1 ÷ (1 + 2) = 33.3%.
Example 2: three partial targets. Same entry and stop, closing 50% at 4,010, 30% at 4,020 and 20% at 4,030 (1R, 2R and 3R). Blended R = 0.5 × 1 + 0.3 × 2 + 0.2 × 3 = 1.70R, worth $170.00 on $100.00 of risk if every target is hit, and the breakeven win rate is 37.0%. If TP1 is hit and the rest comes back to the original stop, the trade makes 0.5 − 0.5 = 0.00R; if you move the stop to entry after TP1, it banks +0.50R.
Example 3: a short-term trade and the spread. A scalp risks $6.00 to make $6.00: 1.00R and a 50.0% breakeven win rate on paper. With a $0.40 spread the real numbers are (6 − 0.4) ÷ (6 + 0.4) = 0.87R and a breakeven win rate of 53.3%. On small targets, costs change the maths a lot.
Common mistakes
- Moving the target to make the R look good. A 3R target that price rarely reaches is worse than a 1.5R target it often reaches. R only means something together with your win rate and expectancy.
- Measuring R from the wrong stop. R is always measured from the stop you actually place, not a mental stop.
- Counting partials as if every target is hit. Look at the "TP1 then stopped" scenario too: it is often closer to the real average.
- Ignoring the spread on tight trades. On gold a few tens of cents of spread is small on a $20 target and large on a $3 one.
- Choosing the lot size first. Set the stop, then size the trade with the position size calculator so the risk is the percentage you chose.
Where R fits in a trading plan
Reward-to-risk is one half of an edge. The other half is how often the trade works. A method with 1R winners needs to win more than half the time; a method with 3R winners can lose three times out of four and still roughly break even. Check both in your journal, then read the XAUUSD risk management lesson and the trading maths and expectancy lesson. If you place stops from volatility, the ATR stop-loss calculator sets the distance first.
Before you plug a strategy into any calculator, check how it actually behaved on gold: our gold trading strategies, tested and gold indicator settings, tested hubs show real XAUUSD results with costs, including the losing streaks.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate risk-reward on gold?
Divide the distance from entry to target by the distance from entry to stop. Buying at 4,000 with a stop at 3,990 and a target at 4,020 gives $20 ÷ $10 = 2R. In dollars, with 0.10 lot (10 oz) that is $100 of risk for $200 of reward.
What is a good risk-reward ratio for XAUUSD?
There is no single good number. A higher R needs fewer winners: 1R needs a win rate above 50%, 2R above 33.3% and 3R above 25% just to break even before costs. What matters is the R your method actually reaches together with its real win rate.
What is the breakeven win rate?
It is the win rate at which a method neither makes nor loses money on average: 1 ÷ (1 + R). At 1.5R it is 40%, at 2R it is 33.3%. Spread and commission push it higher.
How do partial take-profits change my R?
The blended R is the average of each target’s R weighted by the share closed there. Closing 50% at 1R, 30% at 2R and 20% at 3R gives 1.7R if all three are hit, but only 0R if TP1 is hit and the rest returns to the original stop.
Does the lot size change the R multiple?
No. R depends only on the distances between entry, stop and target. The lot size changes the dollar amounts: on gold each $1 move is worth $1 per 0.01 lot and $100 per standard lot of 100 oz.
Is a higher risk-reward always better?
Not by itself. Far targets are hit less often, so the win rate usually falls as R rises. Compare methods by expectancy, which combines both, using the expectancy calculator.
Educational tool only. Not financial advice and not a signal. Check your own broker's contract specification, margin rules and costs. Past data does not predict future prices. See our risk disclaimer.