"What's a good win rate?" is the most-asked and most-misleading question in trading. The honest answer is that win rate on its own tells you almost nothing. A trader winning 40% of the time can be wildly profitable while one winning 70% slowly goes broke. The missing variable is how big the wins are versus the losses.
Win rate needs a partner: reward-to-risk
Your win rate only makes sense next to your reward-to-risk ratio — the size of your average
winner versus your average loser. Together they decide whether you make money. The break-even win rate for any
reward-to-risk is simply 1 ÷ (R + 1):
| Reward : risk | Win rate just to break even |
|---|---|
| 1 : 1 | 50% |
| 1.5 : 1 | 40% |
| 2 : 1 | 33% |
| 3 : 1 | 25% |
So at 2:1, a 45% win rate is strongly profitable. At 1:1, that same 45% loses money. "Good" is relative to your reward-to-risk — full tables are in The Trader's Math.
Two profitable traders, opposite win rates
- The trend follower wins ~35% of the time but rides big winners at 3:1 or more. Most trades are small losses; a few are large wins that carry the account. Positive expectancy, low win rate.
- The mean-reversion trader wins ~65% of the time but takes small, frequent profits at under 1:1. High win rate — but one poorly managed loss can erase many wins.
Both can work. Neither is judged by win rate alone.
The number that actually matters: expectancy
Combine win rate and reward-to-risk and you get expectancy — your average profit per trade in units of risk (R):
Expectancy (R) = (win% × avg win in R) − (loss% × avg loss in R)
Positive expectancy means the strategy makes money over many trades, whatever its win rate. This is why the goal isn't a high win rate — it's a positive edge. Measure yours by scoring trades in the R-multiple calculator and reading the full method in the risk/reward and expectancy guide.
So what's a good win rate?
Most profitable discretionary traders land somewhere in the 40–60% range with a reward-to-risk of 1.5:1 or better — but that's a description, not a target. Chase expectancy, not win rate. A comfortable win rate with negative expectancy is just a slower way to lose.
This is educational information, not financial advice.