Free trading calculator

Risk of ruin calculator

A risk of ruin calculator tells you the chance that a run of losing trades takes your account down to a level you can't come back from. Enter your win rate, your average win against your average loss, and how much you risk per trade.

Free tier: 2 accounts, no card required.

Free, no sign-upWin rate, payoff and risk10,000 simulated runs

Risk of ruin is the probability of losing a set share of your account, say 50%, before your edge plays out. It rises fast with risk per trade: with a 50% win rate and a 1.5 payoff, risking 2% a trade almost never halves the account in 1,000 trades, 5% does so about 2% of the time, and 10% about 18%.

Risk of ruin calculator

–chance of hitting the ruin level within 1,000 trades
Expectancy per trade
–
Losses in a row to reach ruin
–

10,000 simulated runs of 1,000 trades, risking a fixed % of the current balance.

4,000+trades journaled
33countries
365brokers & prop firms verified
$0to start, free forever

Any broker or prop firm on MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8 syncs. Also imports TradingView, CSV and Excel and MT4 / MT5 reports. See all 365 brokers

Quick answers

What is risk of ruin in trading?

Risk of ruin is the chance that losing trades take your account down to a point you've defined as ruin, such as a 50% drawdown or a prop firm's maximum loss, before your edge has time to pay. It depends on three numbers: win rate, payoff (average win ÷ average loss) and the share of the account you risk per trade.

What is the risk of ruin formula?

The classic formula for equal-sized wins and losses is ((1 − edge) ÷ (1 + edge)) ^ units, where edge = win rate − loss rate and units is how many losing trades your capital can absorb. Real trading has uneven wins and losses and risks a % of a changing balance, so this calculator simulates 10,000 runs instead.

What is a good risk of ruin?

Most traders aim for a risk of ruin under 1%. If the calculator shows more than that, cut your risk per trade first: it is the one input you fully control, and halving it usually cuts the risk of ruin far more than half.

26 seconds

Watch a trade log itself.

A real MetaTrader terminal. Close the trade, open Dusk Analyst, and it’s already there: symbol, direction, entry, exit and P&L. Nothing to export, nothing to type, nothing forgotten.

Auto-sync (MT4, MT5, cTrader, NinjaTrader) is on Pro. The free plan imports your history files.

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At a glance

Dusk Analyst at a glance.

Price
$0 or $25/monthFree forever. Pro is one flat price.
Free plan
2 accounts, no cardManual entry, file import, tags, calendars and weekly reports. No time limit.
Auto-sync
MT4 · MT5 · cTrader · NinjaTraderOn Pro. Your first 5 trading days are free, no card.
How sync works
EA, cBot or NinjaTrader add-onRuns in your own terminal and sends each closed trade.
Your password
Never asked forNothing logs into your broker account from our servers.
Brokers
365 checkedAny broker or prop firm on MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8 works.
Setup
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 risk of ruin is calculated

The calculator plays out your numbers 10,000 times, 1,000 trades each, and counts how often the account hits your ruin level.

  1. Win rate. The share of your trades that make money. 50% means one winner for every loser.
  2. Payoff. Your average win divided by your average loss. 1.5 means winners are 1.5 times the size of losers.
  3. Risk per trade. The % of your current balance you lose when a trade hits its stop. Each trade risks a % of the balance as it stands, so size shrinks after losses and grows after wins.
  4. Ruin level. The drawdown you treat as the end: 50% for a personal account, or your prop firm's maximum loss (often 10%).

The same inputs always give the same answer: the simulation uses a fixed random seed.

Examples

What changes your risk of ruin

Risk per trade

Risk is the strongest lever. At a 50% win rate and a 1.5 payoff, the chance of halving the account in 1,000 trades is close to 0% at 2% risk, about 2% at 5% risk and about 18% at 10% risk.

Payoff

At a 50% win rate and 5% risk, a payoff of 1.0 (no edge) halves the account about 85% of the time; a payoff of 2.0 cuts that to about 0.2%.

Prop firm limits

A funded account's maximum loss is often 10%. With a 50% win rate and 1.5 payoff, the chance of hitting a 10% loss is about 0.1% at 0.5% risk, 3% at 1% risk and 17% at 2% risk.

Use your real numbers

Get your win rate and payoff from your own trades

The calculator is only as good as the numbers you put in. Guessed win rates are usually too high. Dusk Analyst works out your real win rate, average win, average loss and profit factor from your closed trades: import your MT4 or MT5 history file on the Free plan, or auto-sync MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8 so every new trade is counted. Then come back and put in the real numbers.

Related tools: win rate calculator, profit factor calculator, Kelly criterion calculator, risk reward calculator.

How it works

Live in two minutes.

01

Create your account

Sign up and grab a per-account API key from the connectors panel.

02

Drop in the EA, cBot or add-on

One file into MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader or NinjaTrader 8. No extra software.

03

Trades sync themselves

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

See it in action

Ask your trading data anything.

Your journal isn't a logbook, it's a dataset. The AI reads your actual trade history and answers the questions that move your edge.

  • Why do my losses cluster on Fridays?
  • Which strategy am I actually profitable in?
  • What happens when I break my 1% risk rule?
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.

Broker search

Does my broker work?

Each broker was checked against its own site in our 2026 audit. See all 365.

10,000simulated runs per answer
$0to use
4platforms auto-sync

Pricing

Free is enough to build the habit. Pro is where it runs itself.

Start manual and free. Upgrade to MT4, MT5, cTrader or NinjaTrader auto-sync when you're ready to stop touching it.

Free

$0

A real journal, free from day one. $0 forever, up to 2 accounts, no credit card required, weekly reports included, and CSV import from any trading platform.

  • Up to 2 accounts
  • Manual entry + CSV import from any platform
  • Tags, calendars & core analytics
  • Weekly reports

No terminal connection. Upgrade to Pro when you want the vault to fill itself.

Start free

No setup fees. No card for Free, and no card for your first week of Pro: every new account gets Pro free for 5 trading days. After that it is $25/month. We email you before billing starts.

Know your real numbers before you size up.

Import your history or auto-sync your platform. $0 to start.

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No card required.

FAQ

Risk of ruin questions, answered.

How do you calculate risk of ruin?

For equal wins and losses, use ((1 − edge) ÷ (1 + edge)) ^ units, where edge is win rate minus loss rate and units is the number of losing trades your account can take. For uneven wins and losses and a fixed % risk, simulate many runs of your trades and count how often the account hits the ruin level, which is what this calculator does.

What risk per trade keeps the risk of ruin low?

It depends on your win rate and payoff, so test it above. As a rough guide, many traders risk 0.5% to 2% of the account per trade; at those sizes a strategy with a positive expectancy rarely hits a 50% drawdown.

Can risk of ruin be zero?

Not while you risk money on every trade. With a positive expectancy and a small risk per trade it can be close to zero; with a negative expectancy it moves towards 100% the longer you trade, whatever your sizing.

Is this risk of ruin calculator free?

Yes. It runs in your browser, with no sign-up. Your numbers are not sent anywhere.

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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