Free trading calculator

Kelly criterion calculator

A Kelly criterion calculator gives the share of your account that would grow it fastest over time, using f = W − (1 − W) ÷ R. Enter your win rate (W) and your payoff (R, average win ÷ average loss).

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Free, no sign-upFull, half and quarter KellyExpectancy included

The Kelly criterion for trading is f = W − (1 − W) ÷ R, with W the win rate and R the average win divided by the average loss. At a 55% win rate and a 1.2 payoff, full Kelly is 17.5% of the account per trade, half Kelly 8.75% and quarter Kelly 4.4%. Most traders use a fraction.

Kelly criterion calculator

–of your account per trade (full Kelly)
Half Kelly
–
Quarter Kelly
–
Expectancy per trade
–

Kelly assumes your win rate and payoff are exact. They never are, so most traders use a fraction of it.

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Quick answers

What is the Kelly criterion formula?

The Kelly formula is f = W − (1 − W) ÷ R, where W is your win rate and R is your average win divided by your average loss. At W = 55% and R = 1.2: 0.55 − 0.45 ÷ 1.2 = 0.175, or 17.5% of the account.

What is half Kelly?

Half Kelly is half of the Kelly result: 8.75% if full Kelly is 17.5%. It gives up some growth for smaller swings, and leaves room for your win rate and payoff being lower than you think.

Why do traders use a fraction of Kelly?

Full Kelly assumes your win rate and payoff are known exactly, and they never are. If your real edge is smaller, full Kelly over-bets, and even when it is right the drawdowns are deep. Fractional Kelly trades some growth for less volatility and less risk of ruin.

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At a glance

Dusk Analyst at a glance.

Price
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Free plan
2 accounts, no cardManual entry, file import, tags, calendars and weekly reports. No time limit.
Auto-sync
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Brokers
365 checkedAny broker or prop firm on MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8 works.
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About 2 minutesPer account, once.
Where it runs
In your browserDesktop and phone. Nothing to install except the EA, cBot or NinjaTrader add-on.
AI
Dusk QuantAnswers questions about your own trades. Pro, 1,000 trade-analyses a month.

How it works

How the Kelly percentage is calculated

  1. Win rate (W). The share of your trades that win. 55% is 0.55.
  2. Payoff (R). Average win ÷ average loss. 1.2 means winners are 1.2 times the size of losers.
  3. Kelly. f = W − (1 − W) ÷ R = 0.55 − 0.45 ÷ 1.2 = 17.5%. The calculator also shows half (8.75%) and quarter (4.4%) Kelly, and your expectancy: 0.55 × 1.2 − 0.45 = +0.21R per trade.

If the result is 0% or below, there is no edge in your numbers and Kelly says not to trade the setup.

Examples

Kelly results at a glance

50% win rate, payoff 2

f = 0.5 − 0.5 ÷ 2 = 25%. Half Kelly is 12.5%, still far more than most traders risk on one trade.

40% win rate, payoff 1.5

f = 0.4 − 0.6 ÷ 1.5 = 0%. The expectancy is zero, so Kelly says risk nothing.

Kelly as a ceiling

Kelly is the most you could justify, not a target. Many traders risk well below it and test the result in the risk of ruin calculator.

Use your real numbers

Feed Kelly your real win rate

Kelly is only as good as the win rate and payoff you put in, and small errors change the answer a lot. Dusk Analyst works it out from your closed trades. Calculate this from your real trades: import your MT4/MT5 history on the Free plan, or auto-sync MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8 on Pro.

Related tools: win rate calculator, profit factor calculator, risk reward calculator, risk of ruin calculator.

Sources

Where these numbers come from

How it works

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Create your account

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02

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03

Trades sync themselves

Every close pushes into the vault automatically. Journal complete, always.

See it in action

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See patterns like this in your own trades

Auto-sync setup

How do I connect my platform?

Auto-sync (MT4, MT5, cTrader, NinjaTrader) is on Pro ($25/month), free for your first 5 trading days with no card. The Free plan imports your platform's history file.

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Does my broker work?

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17.5%full Kelly at 55% and 1.2
$0to use
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Pricing

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FAQ

Kelly criterion questions, answered.

Who invented the Kelly criterion?

John L. Kelly Jr., a researcher at Bell Labs, published it in 1956 in the paper "A New Interpretation of Information Rate" in the Bell System Technical Journal.

Is full Kelly too aggressive for trading?

For most traders, yes. It assumes exact inputs and accepts deep drawdowns. A small error in your win rate can turn full Kelly into over-betting, which is why fractions such as half or quarter Kelly are common.

Does Kelly work for prop firm accounts?

Kelly ignores hard loss limits. A funded account with a maximum loss needs far smaller risk than Kelly suggests. Check your sizing against the limit with the risk of ruin calculator.

Is this Kelly criterion calculator free?

Yes. It runs in your browser with no sign-up.

Is Dusk Analyst really free?

Yes. The free tier costs $0 forever and includes two accounts, manual trade entry and CSV import - enough to journal a live account properly, with win rate, P&L and equity curve all calculated for you. There is no credit card required to start. Pro ($25/month flat) adds unlimited accounts, MT4/MT5/cTrader/NinjaTrader auto-sync, AI insights on your trading (1,000 trade-analyses a month), monthly reports and full export, and every new account gets Pro free for 5 trading days with no card. The pricing is deliberately simple: one plan, one price, no per-feature upsells.

Is there a free trial?

Yes, and it needs no card. Every new Dusk Analyst account gets Pro free for 5 trading days from sign-up: auto-sync from MT4, MT5, cTrader and NinjaTrader 8, AI Insights with 1,000 credits, monthly reports and unlimited accounts. After that Pro is $25/month, and you can cancel anytime from Billing in the app. If you skip it, the account moves to Free with every trade kept.

Can I import my existing trade history?

Yes - CSV import is available on every plan, including free. If you've been tracking trades in a spreadsheet, broker export or another journal, export the CSV from wherever it lives and import it into Dusk Analyst; the journal matches it against your accounts and keeps your history continuous. Import is also the fallback for platforms that don't run MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8. For MT4/MT5/cTrader/NinjaTrader terminals, Pro auto-syncs going forward and the EA backfills any trades your terminal missed while it was off. Any platform that exports a CSV of your trade history works. Dusk Analyst recognises TradingView, Tradovate, cTrader, MT4 and MT5 exports on sight; for anything else you map your columns once and that parser is saved for next time. Comma, semicolon and tab files are all handled, day-first and month-first dates are detected from the file itself, and any row that cannot be read is listed for you rather than dropped quietly.

How many AI credits do I get with Dusk Analyst Pro?

Pro includes 1,000 AI trade-analyses every month. One credit covers one trade, so asking a question about a 40-trade week costs 40 credits and you can keep asking. The allowance resets on the 1st of each month and the counter sits in the top bar of the app, so you always know where you stand. Narrowing a question to one account or a shorter date range makes the same allowance go much further. Free accounts get a small number of AI credits to try AI Insights, alongside the full journal, analytics and weekly reports, and the free Pro week (5 trading days, no card) includes the full monthly allowance.

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