Calculate the exact break-even price for your crypto trade after accounting for exchange fees on both entry and exit. Know the minimum move needed to profit.
Your break-even price is not your entry price — it's higher (for longs) or lower (for shorts) because of trading fees. Every trade incurs fees on both entry and exit, meaning the price must move in your favor by at least the combined fee amount before you make any profit.
For spot trades with 0.1% fees each way, the break-even move is 0.2%. But with leveraged positions, the fee relative to your margin is multiplied by your leverage. At 10x leverage with 0.1% fees each way, you need a 2% margin-relative move just to break even — and that's before funding costs.
This calculator computes the exact break-even price accounting for both entry and exit fees. It helps you set realistic profit targets and determines whether a trade idea has sufficient expected movement to justify the costs.
Crypto traders, long-term holders, and DeFi participants benefit from transparent crypto break-even price calculations when planning entries, exits, or portfolio rebalances. Revisit this calculator whenever market conditions shift to keep your strategy grounded in accurate data.
Many traders set their entry and immediately think any favorable price movement is profit. In reality, the price must first overcome the fee barrier. For leveraged trades, this barrier is significant. Knowing your exact break-even prevents taking trades where the expected move barely covers costs. Real-time recalculation lets you model different market scenarios quickly, so you can act with confidence rather than relying on rough mental estimates.
For Long: Break-Even = Entry × (1 + Entry Fee + Exit Fee) For Short: Break-Even = Entry × (1 − Entry Fee − Exit Fee) Required Move % = (Entry Fee + Exit Fee) × 100 With Leverage: Required Margin Move % = Required Move % × Leverage
Result: Break-Even: $65,052 | Required move: 0.08%
With a long entry at $65,000, 0.04% entry fee and 0.04% exit fee: Break-even = $65,000 × (1 + 0.0004 + 0.0004) = $65,052. The price must rise $52 (0.08%) before you make any profit. At 10x leverage, this 0.08% price move represents 0.8% of your margin.
High-quality trade setups have expected moves that are multiples of the break-even distance. If break-even is 0.08%, your target should be at least 0.5-1.0% for the trade to have good risk-reward. Trades where the expected move only marginally exceeds break-even have poor risk-reward ratios and high failure rates.
Scalpers operate on thin margins, often targeting 0.1-0.3% moves. With 0.08% break-even, only 0.02-0.22% is actual profit. This means scalpers need extremely high win rates (>70%) to be profitable, and even small fee increases can make their strategy unprofitable. This is why fee optimization is a scalper's top priority.
If you make 100 trades per month with 0.08% total fees each, that's 8% in fees alone — equivalent to what many hedge funds charge annually. Active traders must account for this cumulative drag. Reducing fees by even 0.02% saves 2% monthly, which compounds to significant savings over time.
Because you pay fees to open and close a position. These fees are deducted from your profit, so the price must move enough to cover both fees before you net any gain. This is true for both spot and futures trading.
The absolute break-even price doesn't change with leverage. However, the break-even as a percentage of your margin scales with leverage. At 20x leverage and 0.08% total fees, you need a 1.6% return on margin just to break even — making profitable scalping very difficult.
Yes, especially for market orders or large positions. Slippage effectively adds to your entry and exit costs. If you expect 0.02% slippage on each side, add that to the respective fee rates for a more accurate break-even calculation.
Yes. Spot trades also have fees on buy and sell. If you buy BTC at $65,000 with 0.1% buy fee and 0.1% sell fee, your break-even is $65,130. The BTC must appreciate $130 before selling it yields any profit after fees.
If you use a maker order to enter (0.02%) and a taker order to exit (0.05%), your total fees are 0.07% instead of 0.10% (taker both sides). This 30% reduction in fees translates directly to a 30% lower break-even distance.
For shorts, the break-even is below the entry price: Break-even = Entry × (1 − Total Fees). At $65,000 entry with 0.08% total fees: Break-even = $65,000 × 0.9992 = $64,948. The price must fall $52 before you profit.