Spread Cost Calculator

What is the Spread Cost Calculator?

The Spread Cost Calculator is a cost tool that answers one question: how much does the bid-ask spread actually cost you each time you enter and exit a trade, and what does that add up to over many trades? It converts the spread into a concrete money figure so a cost that hides inside the price becomes visible.

How to use it

1. Enter the spread for your instrument (typically in pips) and your position size, so the tool knows how wide the gap is and how large your trade is.
2. The calculator multiplies the spread by the value of one pip for your position to get the cost of a single round trip.
3. It then scales that single-trade cost across 100 trades so you can see the cumulative drag of the spread.
4. Read the highlighted per-trade figure as the amount you start each trade already down, before price moves at all, and the 100-trade figure as the running cost of frequency.

How it's calculated

Spread cost per trade is calculated as spread (in pips) multiplied by the pip value for your position size: cost = spread_in_pips x pip_value. The cumulative figure is simply that per-trade cost multiplied by the number of trades (e.g. x100). Because you cross the spread on entry, the spread is effectively a fixed toll you pay at the start of every position.

Frequently asked

Keep in mind: This number tells you only the spread portion of your costs at the size you enter; it excludes commissions, swaps, slippage and the wider spreads that appear during news or thin liquidity, and it says nothing about whether any trade will be profitable.