This calculator returns your net profit on a long or short stock trade after commissions and the US regulatory fees charged on every sale. Most stock profit calculators assume you bought and held; this one is built for intraday trades, with short selling, per-share commission pricing, and the 2026 fee schedules baked in.
Enter shares, entry price, and exit price to see results.
Fee rates per the SEC and FINRA schedules in force June 2026. Results are pre-tax and exclude borrow fees, slippage, and platform charges.
How to use it
- Pick the direction, then enter shares, entry price, and exit price. On a short, the entry is your sale and the exit is your cover.
- Enter commissions the way your broker charges them: a flat amount per side, a per-share rate, or both. On a zero-commission retail account, leave both at zero.
- Leave the regulatory-fee toggle on. Results update as you type: gross P&L, total costs, net P&L, net per share, return on the capital in the trade, and the exact price where you break even.
A worked example with the fees included
Say you buy 1,000 shares at $4.85 and sell at $5.05 through a direct-access broker charging $0.004 per share each way. Here’s what the calculator does with that:
- Gross profit: $0.20 per share on 1,000 shares is $200.00.
- Commissions: $4.00 to get in, $4.00 to get out. $8.00 total.
- Regulatory fees on the sale: about $0.10 in SEC fees and about $0.20 in FINRA trading activity fees.
- Net profit: $191.70, roughly $0.19 per share.
- Return on the $4,850 in the trade: 3.95%.
- Breakeven sell price: $4.8583.
Costs ate $8.30 of a $200 winner, a bit over 4%. And your first eight tenths of a cent per share went to expenses before the trade made anything. On one trade that’s noise. Across 15 to 20 trades a week it’s a real line item, which is why the position size calculator and this page work as a pair: size the trade off your risk first, then check what’s actually left after costs.
The formula behind the numbers
Net profit on a long trade is (exit price minus entry price) times shares, minus commissions on both sides, minus the regulatory fees charged when you sell. On a short, the price term flips to (entry minus exit) and the sell-side fees hit your entry, because that’s the sale.
Two regulatory fees apply to US stock sales, and the calculator uses the schedules in force as of June 2026:
- The SEC fee runs $20.60 per million dollars of sale proceeds, effective April 4, 2026, per the SEC’s fiscal year 2026 fee rate advisory. On a $10,000 sale that’s about 21 cents.
- FINRA’s trading activity fee is $0.000195 per share sold, capped at $9.79 per trade, per Schedule A of FINRA’s by-laws (2026 schedule).
Both fees are assessed on the broker, apply to sales only, and change over time; the SEC rate can reset mid-year. Where your broker passes them through, they show up as small line items on the trade confirmation.
The breakeven readout solves for the exit price where net P&L equals exactly zero, including the SEC fee that itself depends on that exit price. It’s the honest version of “I’m flat on the trade”: at your entry price, you’re not flat. You’re down the costs.
One more thing the math can’t say for you: a profitable trade isn’t an income statement. For what traders actually clear over time, read how much day traders make, and keep in mind that most day traders lose money.
What the calculator leaves out
- Slippage and partial fills. You won’t always get filled at one clean price, so enter your average entry and average exit, not the prices you wanted.
- Borrow costs on shorts. Locate fees and hard-to-borrow charges are broker-specific and aren’t modeled here. On low-float names they can outrun your commissions.
- Taxes. Every figure is pre-tax; the day trading taxes page covers what happens after.
- Monthly platform, data, and routing charges. Those never show up per trade, but they’re still costs your net P&L has to beat.
Before the trade, the risk-reward calculator tells you whether the setup is worth taking. After it, this page tells you what you kept. If you want every trade’s net P&L logged with the fees accounted for, the free trading journal template does it in a spreadsheet.
FAQ
How do you calculate profit on a stock trade?
Multiply the price change by the number of shares, then subtract commissions on both sides and the regulatory fees charged on the sale. On 300 shares bought at $20.00 and sold at $20.50, the gross is $150.00; what you keep is that gross minus those costs.
How is profit calculated on a short sale?
The math flips: entry price minus cover price, times shares, minus costs. Short 500 shares at $8.20, cover at $7.90, and the gross is $150.00 before commissions and fees. Any borrow costs come out on top of that.
What are the SEC and FINRA fees on a stock sale?
As of June 2026, the SEC fee is $20.60 per million dollars of sale proceeds, effective April 4, 2026, and the FINRA trading activity fee is $0.000195 per share sold, capped at $9.79 per trade. Both apply to sales only, both rates change over time, and brokers that pass them through show them on the trade confirmation.
Does the calculator include taxes?
No. Every figure is pre-tax. Gains on positions held under a year are short-term capital gains, taxed at ordinary income rates for most US traders, so the after-tax number can look very different from the net P&L on screen.
Why doesn’t my broker’s confirmation match the result?
Usually fills. If you got filled in pieces at different prices, enter your average entry and exit instead of the prices you intended. Small differences also come from fee rounding and from monthly platform or data charges that never appear on a per-trade confirmation.