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Drawdown Recovery Calculator — % Gain to Break Even

A 50% loss requires a 100% gain to recover. Calculate the exact recovery percentage needed for any drawdown.

LostRecovery needed
−20.0%+25.0%
Capital remaining: 80.0%You need 1.25× the % gain to get back
Why this matters:drawdowns aren't symmetric. A 50% loss requires a 100% gain to break even. A 90% loss needs a 900% gain. Risk management isn't optional.
About this tool

Drawdowns are not symmetric

If you lose 10%, you need 11.1% to break even — manageable. If you lose 50%, you need 100% to break even. If you lose 90%, you need 900%. The math punishes large losses exponentially.

The formula

Recovery % = drawdown ÷ (1 − drawdown). A 25% drawdown needs 33.3% recovery. A 75% drawdown needs 300%. This is why pros cap any single loss at 1–2% of account and never recover from holes they didn't dig.

Practical takeaway

Avoid trades that can lose more than ~5% of your account no matter how attractive the upside looks. The recovery math after one bad trade can wipe out months of disciplined profits.

How to use the Drawdown Recovery Calculator

Takes about a minute. No signup, no download, your data stays in your browser.

  1. 1
    Open the tool. Scroll up to the Drawdown Recovery Calculator above — it loads instantly in your browser, no install needed.
  2. 2
    Enter your values. The fields come pre-filled with realistic defaults so you can see how it works — replace them with your own numbers.
  3. 3
    Read the result. The output updates instantly. Copy or share it — nothing is uploaded to a server, everything stays on your device.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about the Drawdown Recovery Calculator.

Why does recovering from a drawdown need a bigger percentage gain?

Because the gain is calculated on a smaller balance. A 20% loss needs a 25% gain to break even; a 50% loss needs a 100% gain. The asymmetry grows fast as losses deepen.

What is a drawdown?

A drawdown is the drop from a peak in your account balance to a subsequent low, usually expressed as a percentage — a core measure of risk and pain.

How do I limit drawdowns?

Position sizing and stop-losses are the main levers: risking a small, fixed percentage per trade keeps any single loss — and a losing streak — from digging a hole that’s hard to climb out of.

What gain do I need to recover a 30% loss?

About 42.9%. The formula is gain = 1 / (1 − loss) − 1, so a 0.30 loss needs 1 / 0.70 − 1 ≈ 0.429.

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