Stock profit calculator

How do you calculate profit on a stock?

Take what the sale brought in after its commission and subtract everything the purchase cost, commission included: profit = (shares x sell price - sell commission) - (shares x buy price + buy commission). A negative answer is a loss.

The default trade buys 100 shares at $50 and sells them at $65, paying $5 on each trade. The purchase costs 100 x 50 + 5 = $5,005. The sale brings in 100 x 65 - 5 = $6,495. The difference, $1,490, is the profit. The share price rose $15, which on 100 shares is $1,500, and the two commissions took $10 of it.

The result card also shows the price at which the same trade would have made exactly nothing. Here that is $50.10: the sale has to recover the $5,005 outlay plus the $5 it costs to sell, so (5,005 + 5) / 100 = 50.10.

How do you work out stock profit as a percentage?

Divide the profit by the money you put in, costs included: return = profit / total cost of the buy x 100. On the default trade that is 1,490 / 5,005 = 29.77%.

That is a little less than the 30% rise in the share price, because the commissions sit on both sides of the sum: they shrink the profit on top and enlarge the cost underneath. The two figures answer different questions. The price change tells you how far the share moved. The return tells you how hard your money worked, which is the number to compare with a savings rate or another trade.

Neither is a yearly figure. A 29.77% return over three weeks and over three years are very different results, and the CAGR calculator turns a return over any period into a yearly rate.

Flat, per-share or percentage commission: what each costs

Platforms charge in one of three ways, and the calculator takes each one. Here is the default trade, 100 shares bought at $50 and sold at $65, under each:

A percentage commission is the only one that grows with the price: the sell at $65 costs $6.50 against $5.00 on the buy. A flat fee weighs most on small trades. Buy just 10 shares on the same prices and the $10 of commission is 6.67% of the $150 price gain; the profit falls to $140, a 27.72% return, and the break-even sell price climbs to $51.00, a 2% rise just to stand still. On 1,000 shares the same flat fees leave $14,990 and move the break-even price only to $50.01.

What is the break-even price of a stock?

It is the exit price at which the trade makes exactly zero after every cost. For a long trade it depends on how commission is charged:

• Flat amount F per trade: (total cost of the buy + F) / shares.
• Amount c per share: total cost of the buy / shares + c.
• Percentage p of each trade: total cost of the buy / (shares x (1 - p)).

The break-even price is the honest starting line for any trade, because a sale at your own buy price is a loss once commission is paid twice. On the default trade the gap is 10 cents; on the 10-share version it is a full dollar. When several buys at different prices make up one holding, the stock average calculator works out the combined cost first.

Profit or loss on a short sale

A short trade sells borrowed shares first and buys them back later, so it gains when the price falls. Choose Short and the fields become the price you sold at and the price you bought back at. The profit is what the sale raised after commission, minus what the buy-back cost after commission.

Euro example. Short 200 shares at €40, buy them back at €34, paying €4 a trade. The sale raises €7,996 and the buy-back costs €6,804, a profit of €1,192, or 14.90% of the €8,000 short-sale value. Buying back at €39.96 would have broken even.

The arithmetic is not symmetrical in practice. A long position can lose at most what it cost, but a short has no ceiling on the price it may have to pay back: had the shares risen to €46 instead, the same trade would have lost €1,208. Short positions also carry costs this page does not model, such as the fee to borrow the shares and any dividends owed to the lender.

Stock profit calculator UK: adding the 0.5% duty

In the UK, a share purchase usually carries a 0.5% tax on the price you pay, according to GOV.UK's page on tax when you buy shares (checked November 2026). Bought electronically it is Stamp Duty Reserve Tax; on paper it is Stamp Duty, which applies when the transaction is over £1,000. The same guidance lists cases with no tax, such as subscribing to a new issue of shares, and notes that buying foreign shares outside the UK normally avoids both. Enter 0.5 under Duty on the purchase when it applies to your trade.

Pound example. Buy 400 shares at £2.50 and sell at £2.80, paying £9.95 a trade. The duty is £5.00, so the purchase costs £1,014.95 and the sale brings in £1,110.05: a profit of £95.10, or 9.37%. Without the duty the profit would be £100.10. The break-even sell price is about £2.5623, 2.49% above the buy price, and costs take 20.75% of the £120 price gain. The duty is charged on the purchase only, which is why the calculator applies it to the buy in a long trade and to the buy-back in a short one.

Worked example in dirhams, and any other currency

Buy 1,000 shares at AED 12.40 and sell at AED 13.10 with a commission of 0.15% of each trade. The buy costs AED 12,400 plus AED 18.60 of commission, and the sale brings in AED 13,100 less AED 19.65. The profit is AED 661.75, a return of 5.33% on AED 12,418.60, against a 5.65% rise in the share price. The break-even sell price is AED 12.4373.

The calculator works the same way in each of its 24 currencies; pick yours from the selector and the symbols and decimals follow it. It never converts between currencies. If you buy a share listed in another currency, enter the prices in that currency, or convert them yourself at the rates you actually paid, since a change in the exchange rate during the holding is part of your real result and is not shown here.

How to calculate stock profit in Excel or Google Sheets

Put the shares in B2, the buy price in C2, the sell price in D2 and a flat commission per trade in E2. Then:

• Profit: =(B2*D2-E2)-(B2*C2+E2), which returns 1,490 for the default trade.
• Return: =F2/(B2*C2+E2) with the profit in F2, formatted as a percentage.
• Break-even sell price: =(B2*C2+2*E2)/B2.

For a percentage commission in E2 (0.1% entered as 0.001), the profit becomes =B2*D2*(1-E2)-B2*C2*(1+E2). For a short trade, put the price you sold short at in C2 and the buy-back price in D2; the profit is then =(B2*C2-E2)-(B2*D2+E2), and the return divides it by B2*C2.

What this calculator leaves out, and common mistakes

It does not work out tax on the gain, which depends on your country, your income and how long you held the shares; the capital gains tax calculator does that for the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. It also leaves out dividends received while you held the shares, minimum commission charges, currency conversion fees on foreign shares, and the bid-ask spread, which is already inside the prices you actually got.

• Counting commission once. Most platforms charge on the buy and again on the sell.
• Quoting the price change as the return. A 30% move earned 29.77% on the default trade, and less again after tax.
• Using the quoted price instead of the fill. Enter the prices you were actually filled at.
• Forgetting duty on a UK purchase. 0.5% on the buy is a cost like any other.
• Treating a short like a long in reverse. A short can lose more than the money the sale raised.

Glossary

Long: a trade that buys first and sells later. Short: a trade that sells borrowed shares first and buys them back later. Commission: the platform's charge for carrying out a trade. Total cost of the buy: shares times price plus commission and any duty. Proceeds: what a sale brings in after its commission. Return: profit as a percentage of the money put in. Break-even price: the exit price at which profit after all costs is zero. Stamp Duty Reserve Tax: the UK tax on buying shares electronically.

Frequently asked questions

Courses behind a share trade

Sources and review