A trade isn't flat at your entry price — fees on both the open and the close push break-even away from it. Enter your entry price, fees and direction to get the exact price where the trade nets to zero.
Break-even price
—
Break-even price
—
Move needed to break even
—
Combined fee rate
Trader's toolkit
Plan the trade here — then track it.Size every trade by risk, journal it, and find out if you actually have an edge. An Excel/Sheets workbook: position sizer, auto trade journal (R-multiple, PnL, win rate) and an equity-curve dashboard.
Disclosure: links to exchanges may be affiliate links. Crypto trading carries risk; never trade with money you can't afford to lose.
Why break-even isn't your entry price
It's tempting to assume a trade is flat the moment the exit price matches your entry price. It isn't. Every open and close charges a fee on the notional value of the trade, and those two fees have to be earned back before the position is genuinely break-even. The exit price that actually nets to zero sits a little past your entry — further out the higher the fees and the tighter the round trip.
The formula falls out of setting net PnL to zero and solving for the exit price. For a long, break-even price = Entry × (1 + entry fee) ÷ (1 − exit fee). For a short, it mirrors: Entry × (1 − entry fee) ÷ (1 + exit fee). Both fee rates are expressed as fractions (e.g. 0.05% = 0.0005). With zero fees both formulas collapse back to break-even = entry, exactly as intuition expects.
Why this matters more than it looks
At a typical 0.05%/0.05% taker fee, break-even on a $50,000 long sits around $50,050 — a small gap that's easy to dismiss. But three things make it matter in practice. First, leverage doesn't change the break-even price — fees are charged on notional, not margin, so a highly leveraged trade has the identical break-even price as an unleveraged one at the same fee rate; what leverage changes is how big the corresponding swing in your margin is. Second, frequent traders pay this gap every single round trip, and it compounds: a scalper doing 20 round trips a day at 0.1% combined fee load is fighting a 2%/day headwind before any edge shows up. Third, maker vs. taker fees change the number substantially — a maker rebate or a lower maker fee on one or both legs can shrink or even flip the direction of the gap, which is why limit orders are often worth the wait for active traders.
Reading the result
"Break-even price" is the exact exit level where fees exactly offset gross PnL. "Move needed to break even" restates that as a percentage from your entry — useful for comparing against your stop-loss or take-profit distance at a glance. If your planned stop is closer to entry than the break-even move required to overcome fees on the losing side of the trade, that's a sign your fee load is a meaningful share of your risk budget, not just a rounding error. Pair this with the futures PnL calculator to see the full net result at a specific exit price, or the liquidation-price calculator to see the other end of the range.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate break-even price on a crypto trade?
Solve for the exit price where fees exactly cancel gross PnL. For a long: Entry × (1 + entry fee) ÷ (1 − exit fee). For a short: Entry × (1 − entry fee) ÷ (1 + exit fee). Fees are entered as percents and converted to fractions internally.
Does leverage change my break-even price?
No. Fees are charged on the position's notional value, not on your margin, so break-even sits the same distance from entry regardless of leverage. Leverage changes how much margin that price move represents, not where break-even falls.
Why is break-even different for makers vs. takers?
Maker orders (limit orders that add liquidity) usually pay a lower fee than taker orders (market orders that take liquidity), and some exchanges even pay maker rebates. Lower fees on either leg pull the break-even price closer to your raw entry price.
Is break-even the same as my target profit price?
No — break-even is where net profit is exactly zero, not where you want to take profit. Most traders set a take-profit meaningfully beyond break-even so the trade is worth the risk taken, using this calculator to confirm fees aren't eating an unexpectedly large share of a tight target.
After sending, paste your transaction ID (TxID / hash) from your wallet or exchange withdrawal — payment is verified on-chain and your download opens instantly.