What this calculator really shows
Copy trading platforms sell the upside — a leaderboard of traders with big monthly returns and a one-click "copy" button. What they bury is the downside math: the lead's return is gross, the drawdown is real, and the profit-share fee compounds against you. This tool puts all three on one screen. Worst-case loss is simply your allocated capital × the lead's deepest historical drawdown — the money you'd be down if their worst stretch repeats while you're copying. Net profit compounds the monthly return over your time horizon, then subtracts the profit-share fee the lead skims off every gain. The gap between the headline number and what lands in your account is usually bigger than people expect.
How to use this calculator
Enter the capital you'd actually commit to copying (not your whole account — never your whole account). Pull the lead's average monthly return and maximum drawdown straight from their public stats page; if a trader hides drawdown, treat that as a red flag and assume 50%+. Set the profit-share fee shown on their profile (10% is common; some charge 20–30%). Pick how many months you plan to follow them. The calculator returns your worst-case dollar loss, gross vs. net profit, and the effective monthly return you actually keep after fees.
Common mistakes
• Anchoring on the win, ignoring the drawdown. A trader up 300% can still have had a 70% drawdown — copy them at the wrong moment and you eat that drop. • Forgetting profit-share compounds. A 20% fee on every winning month is a permanent drag on your compounding, not a one-time cost. • Copying with money you can't lose. Worst-case here is not theoretical — it already happened to that trader once. • Past performance ≠ future. A short, hot track record on a leaderboard is often luck or hidden leverage; the longer and calmer the record, the more it means. • Over-allocating to one lead. Their blow-up becomes your blow-up.
Copy trading is leveraged exposure to someone else's risk decisions. Sanity-check the survival odds with the risk of ruin calculator, see how brutal a deep drawdown is to claw back in the drawdown recovery calculator, and if the lead trades leverage, understand how close liquidation really is. Trading your own plan instead? Start with the position size calculator.
FAQ
Is copy trading profitable?
It can be, but the headline return is gross. After the lead's profit-share fee and the risk of copying into a drawdown, your net is meaningfully lower — and a single deep drawdown can wipe out months of gains. Run your own numbers above before trusting a leaderboard.
What's a realistic max drawdown to expect?
Whatever the lead's worst historical drawdown is — assume it can happen again. Many "top" copy traders carry 40–70% drawdowns earned through high leverage. If a profile hides its drawdown, assume the worst and size accordingly.
How does the profit-share fee work?
The lead takes a percentage (often 10%, sometimes up to 30%) of the profit you make from copying them. You pay it on gains, not losses — but because it skims every winning period, it drags on your long-term compounding. This calculator subtracts it from your gross profit.
Should I copy with my whole account?
No. Treat a copied allocation like any single high-risk position — a slice of your capital you could lose entirely if the lead has a bad run. Diversifying across uncorrelated leads helps, but it doesn't remove the risk.