Stock Profit Calculator

Before you buy or sell, it helps to know exactly what a trade will net you after fees. This free stock profit calculator turns your share count, buy price, sell price, and commissions into a clean net profit figure and a percentage return in seconds. Below the tool you will find the formula, a worked example, and a plain-English guide to every result.

Key Takeaways

• Net stock profit is (sell price minus buy price) times your share count, minus buy-side and sell-side fees. The calculator does this instantly.
• Return on investment turns that dollar profit into a percentage, so you can compare trades of any size on a level footing.
• For multi-leg options use the options profit calculator instead; to track net profit and ROI across every real trade over time, the Financial Tech Wiz Trading Journal does it automatically.

How to Use the Stock Profit Calculator

The calculator takes five inputs. Enter your Number of Shares, the Purchase Price per Share you paid, the Sell Price per Share you received (or expect), and your Commission Paid to Buy and Commission Paid to Sell. Most US brokers are commission-free on stock trades, so those two fields are often zero, but keep them in for regulatory fees, wire costs, or any broker that still charges per trade.

The tool returns four numbers: Total Cost of Purchase (what the position cost you, including buy commission), Sell Price (your gross proceeds), Profit/Loss (your net dollar result after both commissions), and Return on Investment (that result as a percentage of what you put in). Change any input and every output updates immediately, so it doubles as a “what if I sell here” planning tool.

The Stock Profit Formula

Net profit = (Sell Price per Share minus Purchase Price per Share) times Number of Shares, minus Buy Commission, minus Sell Commission.

Return on investment = Net Profit divided by Total Cost of Purchase, times 100.

That is the whole calculation. The calculator just spares you the arithmetic and keeps the fee handling consistent, which is where most back-of-the-napkin estimates go wrong.

Worked Example: 100 Shares at $50

Say you buy 100 shares at $50 and sell them at $65, with $5 in fees on each side. Your gross gain is ($65 minus $50) times 100, which is $1,500. Subtract the $10 in total commissions and your net profit is $1,490. Your total cost of purchase was $5,005 ($5,000 plus the $5 buy fee), so your return on investment is $1,490 divided by $5,005, times 100, which is about 29.8%. Plug those numbers into the calculator and you will see the same result without touching a calculator app.

Profit vs. Return on Investment: What Each Number Tells You

Dollar profit tells you how much you made. Return on investment tells you how hard your money worked. A $1,490 gain sounds great, but a 29.8% return is the figure you can actually compare against another trade, against the S&P 500, or against leaving the cash in a high-yield account. Two trades can both make $1,000 while one tied up $5,000 and the other tied up $20,000; ROI is what separates them. Watch both, and lean on ROI when you are deciding whether a trade was genuinely good or just large.

Don’t Forget Fees and Taxes

The calculator nets out your buy and sell commissions, but two costs sit outside it. First, regulatory and miscellaneous fees (SEC and FINRA fees, spreads, transfer or wire charges) can shave a little off real proceeds; fold them into the commission fields if you want an exact figure. Second, taxes. Gains on shares held under a year are taxed as ordinary income, and gains on shares held over a year get the lower long-term capital gains rate. The calculator shows your pre-tax result, so treat it as your gross outcome and set aside an estimate for taxes. This is general information, not tax advice; a tax professional can confirm your specific rate.

When to Use This vs. the Options Profit Calculator

This calculator is built for plain share trades: you buy a quantity at one price and sell at another. That covers stocks, ETFs, and any asset that works the same way, including crypto. It is not built for options, because options profit depends on strike price, expiration, and premium, which a simple buy-and-sell model cannot capture. For those, use the options profit calculator. To average into a falling position and recalculate your cost basis, the average down calculator handles that, and you can find every tool in one place on the calculators hub.