Enter your buy price, sell price, share count and commissions to get gross profit, net profit after fees, return % and your exact break-even sell price. Know the real number before you place the trade.
It is easy to glance at a trade and think "I bought at $50, sold at $65, so I made $15 a share." That is your gross profit, and it is only half the story. Commissions, even small ones, eat into the result, and the percentage return depends on your total cost, not just the share price. This stock profit calculator does the full accounting so you see the real, after-fees number.
The calculator works through four numbers:
The break-even figure is the most useful and most overlooked. It is the exact price you must sell at just to get your money back after both commissions — sell one cent above it and you are green, one cent below and you are red.
Worked example: Buy 100 shares at $50 ($5,000) with a $5 commission, then sell at $65 with another $5 commission. Gross profit is (65 − 50) × 100 = $1,500. Net profit after the $10 of fees is $1,490, a return of 29.77% on your $5,005 total cost. Your break-even sell price was just $50.10.
For a single buy-and-hold trade, $10 of commissions barely registers. But the math changes fast for active traders: if you place dozens of round trips a month, fees compound into a real drag, and a tiny edge per trade can vanish entirely. The break-even price tells you how far the stock must move just to cover costs before you make a cent — a reality check that keeps over-trading honest. Many U.S. brokers now offer zero-commission stock trades, in which case you can leave the commission fields at zero, but options, foreign shares and some platforms still charge, so it pays to model your real costs.
Notice that the dollar profit and the percentage return are different lenses. A $1,490 gain sounds great, but as a percentage it depends entirely on how much you risked. Position sizing — deciding how many shares to buy — is one of the most important skills in trading, because it determines how much a given percentage move actually means to your account. To practise sizing trades and locking in gains with no real money at stake, play the stock market simulator or the fast-paced day trading simulator.
Reality check: this tool does not include taxes, which depend on your country and how long you held the shares (short-term vs. long-term capital gains). It is for education only and is not financial advice — see the U.S. SEC at investor.gov.
Compare a longer holding's annualized result with the investment return calculator, or project future growth with the compound interest calculator.
Gross profit equals (sell price − buy price) × shares. Net profit subtracts your buy and sell commissions. Return percentage is net profit divided by your total cost (buy price × shares + buy commission).
The break-even sell price is the price at which your sale exactly covers what you paid plus both commissions, so net profit is zero. Selling above it makes money; selling below it loses money. The calculator shows that exact price.
Yes, for a true picture. Many brokers now charge zero commission on U.S. stocks, but others charge per trade, and fees still matter for options, foreign shares and frequent trading. Enter your real commissions to see net profit rather than the misleading gross number.
Yes. It runs in your browser with no account and no data stored. It does not include taxes, which vary by country and holding period, and it is for education only, not financial advice.