Why ladder out instead of picking one exit
The hardest part of a winning trade is selling it. Aim for one perfect target and you'll watch price tag it and reverse, or stall just short and round-trip the whole gain. A take-profit ladder sidesteps the guess: you decide in advance to bank a slice at the first target, more at the second, and leave a runner for the move that may or may not come. Each rung that fills turns paper profit into realized profit you can't give back, which is exactly the discipline most blown trades lacked. This calculator size-weights your targets into a single blended exit price and shows the dollars realized at each step after fees, so you can see the trade-off between banking early and letting it ride before you're in it.
It also keeps you honest about fees. Every rung is its own closing trade, so a four-step ladder pays the closing fee four times on the pieces it closes — small, but real, and the calculator nets it out of each rung. The size column has to add up to 100% or less; whatever you leave unallocated is the position still open, shown separately so you don't mistake an unfinished plan for a closed trade. Pair it with the target exit price calculator to set each rung from a profit goal, the PnL calculator to sanity-check the dollars, and the stop-loss & take-profit calculator to put a floor under the runner.
How to use it
1. Choose long or short and enter your entry price and total position size in dollars.
2. Tap a quick ladder or type your own — set each target's price and the share of the position to close there.
3. Add a round-trip fee so each rung is netted honestly.
4. Read the blended exit, total realized profit, and how much position is left running in the table.
Common mistakes
Allocations over 100%. You can't sell more than you hold — the calculator flags it. Forgetting the runner. If your sizes add to less than 100%, the rest is still exposed; that's fine on purpose, not by accident. Bunching targets too tight. Four rungs within 2% of each other is just one exit with extra fees. No stop under the runner. A ladder banks gains on the way up but the open piece can still reverse — protect it.
FAQ
Should the first rung be the biggest? In choppy markets, yes — front-loading (40/30/20/10) banks the most before a reversal. In strong trends a runner-heavy ladder (20/20/20/40) captures more of the extension. There's no universal answer; the calculator lets you compare both in seconds.
What if price never reaches the higher rungs? Those sizes simply stay open. Only the rungs that fill are realized — the table's cumulative column shows your profit at each level price actually reaches.
Does this work for shorts? Yes. Flip the direction and your targets sit below entry; profit is booked as price falls through each rung.