Last updated: 22 October 2026. MoreLess
The calculator is our own free tool. Every IQ Option screenshot below was recorded on 22 October 2026 on a Practice account registered in Brazil, and no order was placed.
The Martingale strategy raises your stake after every losing trade, so that one win pays back all the earlier losses plus the profit of your first trade. Raising the stake does not change the odds of any trade.
Free Martingale calculator
Enter your balance, first stake, payout and win rate. It shows every stake, the total at risk and the chance of a losing streak that your balance cannot cover.
Open the free Martingale calculator
Risk warning: Martingale does not improve the odds of a trade, and a long losing run can cost your whole balance. Practise on a Practice account first and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
Quick answer
- Formula: next stake = previous stake × (1 + payout) ÷ payout. At an 87% payout that is × 2.15, not × 2.
- What a win earns: only the profit of the first trade, at any step: $0.87 on a $1 first stake at 87%.
- What it risks: seven steps from $1 at 87% put about $184 at risk for that $0.87. With a $100 balance, six steps fit: after six losses about $15 is left, so the seventh stake (about $99) cannot be placed.
- Losing streaks: at a 50% win rate, 7 losses in a row has a 0.78% chance on one ladder, but a 31.8% chance of happening at least once in 100 trades.
- Expected value: unchanged. A trade needs to win 53.48% of the time at 87% to break even, with or without a ladder.
- IQ Option limits (Practice account, 22 October 2026): minimum $1 and maximum $20,000 per trade; the Binary list showed payouts from 85% to 93%.
About the video below: it shows classic ×2 doubling. IQ Option pays less than 100% on a win, so at an 87% payout each stake has to be about 2.15 times the last one to win back the losses. The formula section explains why.
Video tutorial
What is the Martingale strategy?
Martingale is a way of choosing your stake, not a way of choosing a trade. After a losing trade you raise the next stake. After a winning trade you go back to the first stake. The rise is sized so that one win pays back everything you lost since the last win, plus the profit you would have made on the first trade.
The idea comes from casino games with even-money bets, where doubling after every loss does exactly that. In this guide a run of stakes is a ladder and each stake is a step. A ladder ends when a trade wins (you keep the small profit and start again at step 1) or when you stop because the next stake is too big.
That is the whole method. It says nothing about when to buy, which asset to pick or whether to choose Higher or Lower. The ladder works the same on a candle-colour rule, an indicator signal or a coin toss, and none of them gets better odds from it.
The formula: why a payout below 100% needs a multiplier above 2
Let p be the payout as a decimal: an 87% payout is 0.87. A win on a stake pays p times the stake as profit. A loss costs the whole stake.
After a loss, the next win has to cover two things: all the money lost so far, and the profit of your first trade. The next stake therefore has to satisfy this:
p × next stake = losses so far + p × first stake
Work it through one step at a time and every stake is the one before it times the same number:
- Step k had to win back its losses plus the first profit: p × stakek = losses before step k + p × first stake.
- Step k + 1 has to win back the same amount plus the stake that step k just lost: p × stakek+1 = p × stakek + stakek.
- Divide by p, and the stake grows by the same factor at every step:
multiplier = (1 + p) ÷ p
At even money (a payout of 100%) the multiplier is (1 + 1) ÷ 1 = 2: the classic doubling. Below 100% it is always more than 2, because the profit on a win is smaller than the stake. At 87% it is 1.87 ÷ 0.87 = 2.15.
What goes wrong if you double at an 87% payout
Take a $1 first stake and double after every loss. The table shows what the win would net if it came at each step. By step 4 a win still leaves you behind: after $1, $2 and $4 are lost ($7), an $8 stake wins only $6.96.
| Step | Stake if you double | Net result if the win comes at this step | Net result with the multiplier 2.15 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1 | +$0.87 | +$0.87 |
| 2 | $2 | +$0.74 | +$0.87 |
| 3 | $4 | +$0.48 | +$0.87 |
| 4 | $8 | −$0.04 | +$0.87 |
| 5 | $16 | −$1.08 | +$0.87 |
| 6 | $32 | −$3.16 | +$0.87 |
| 7 | $64 | −$7.32 | +$0.87 |
Multiplier and break-even win rate by payout
The lower the payout, the faster the stake has to grow, and the higher the win rate a trade needs just to break even (1 ÷ (1 + p)). A ladder does not change the break-even rate.
| Payout | Multiplier (1 + p) ÷ p | Win rate needed to break even |
|---|---|---|
| 80% | 2.25 | 55.56% |
| 82% | 2.22 | 54.95% |
| 85% | 2.18 | 54.05% |
| 87% | 2.15 | 53.48% |
| 90% | 2.11 | 52.63% |
| 91% | 2.10 | 52.36% |
| 93% | 2.08 | 51.81% |
| 100% | 2.00 | 50.00% |
Binary and digital options
The formula is the same for both, but the payout is not the same. A binary option shows a fixed percentage before you buy, so you can work out the next stake exactly. A digital option adds a strike price, the price level you choose, and the payout depends on that strike. Work each stake out from the payout shown on that trade: next stake = (all losses so far + the profit you want) ÷ the payout shown. In our recording the same asset, EUR/USD, showed +91% on the Binary panel and +86% on the Digital panel within seconds of each other (screenshots below). More on the difference is in our guide to binary vs digital options.
How fast the stake grows
The table follows a $1 first stake at an 87% payout. The two right-hand columns show the same ladder at even money (100%, plain doubling), to show how much faster the real ladder grows.
| Step | Stake at 87% | Total staked at 87% | Stake at 100% | Total staked at 100% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1 | $1 |
| 2 | $2.15 | $3.15 | $2 | $3 |
| 3 | $4.62 | $7.77 | $4 | $7 |
| 4 | $9.93 | $17.70 | $8 | $15 |
| 5 | $21.34 | $39.04 | $16 | $31 |
| 6 | $45.88 | $84.92 | $32 | $63 |
| 7 | $98.61 | $184 | $64 | $127 |
| 8 | $212 | $395 | $128 | $255 |
| 9 | $456 | $851 | $256 | $511 |
| 10 | $979 | $1,830 | $512 | $1,023 |
A win at any step nets $0.87, the profit of the first trade. The higher the step, the more you have at risk for that same $0.87: about $184 at step 7 and about $1,830 at step 10. The stake passes $200 at step 8.
You type the stake in dollars and cents. If you round every stake up to the next cent and work each one out from the stakes you actually placed, the ladder is a few cents higher: $4.63, $9.95, $21.38, $45.96 and $98.79 at steps 3 to 7, which is 18 cents more than the unrounded $98.61 at step 7. The calculator on this page shows these rounded-up stakes.
How much balance you need for a losing run
If every trade of an N-step ladder loses, you have lost the first N stakes. That total is also the least balance you need to place all N steps:
total for N steps = first stake × p × (multiplierN − 1)
For seven steps at 87% from $1: 0.87 × ((1.87 ÷ 0.87)7 − 1) = $183.54. The table gives the total for other first stakes.
| Steps | First stake $1 | First stake $2 | First stake $5 | First stake $10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $39.04 | $78.09 | $195 | $390 |
| 6 | $84.92 | $170 | $425 | $849 |
| 7 | $184 | $367 | $918 | $1,835 |
| 8 | $395 | $791 | $1,977 | $3,955 |
| 9 | $851 | $1,702 | $4,255 | $8,511 |
| 10 | $1,830 | $3,661 | $9,152 | $18,304 |
To find the biggest first stake a balance can carry, divide the balance by the total for $1. A $100 balance and six steps: 100 ÷ 84.92 = 1.1776, so a first stake of $1.17 at most (rounded down to the cent). Seven steps: 100 ÷ 183.54 = 0.5448, which is below the $1 minimum trade (see below). A $100 balance fits six steps from the $1 minimum, never seven.
The other limit: the $20,000 maximum
The platform’s maximum caps the ladder from the other end. IQ Option’s FAQ says the maximum you can invest is $20,000. At 87%, a $1 first stake can climb 13 steps before the next stake passes it, a $10 first stake only 10 steps and a $100 first stake only 7.
| First stake | Steps that fit under $20,000 | Stake at the last step that fits | The next stake (over the limit) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1 | 13 | $9,725 | $20,902 |
| $5 | 11 | $10,524 | $22,621 |
| $10 | 10 | $9,793 | $21,049 |
| $50 | 8 | $10,598 | $22,780 |
| $100 | 7 | $9,861 | $21,196 |
How likely is a losing streak?
The chance of losing N trades in a row is (1 − win rate) to the power of N. If you win half of your trades, losing 7 in a row has a chance of 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.78% on any one ladder.
| Win rate | 3 losses in a row | 5 losses in a row | 7 losses in a row | 9 losses in a row |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50% | 12.50% | 3.13% | 0.78% | 0.20% |
| 55% | 9.11% | 1.85% | 0.37% | 0.08% |
| 60% | 6.40% | 1.02% | 0.16% | 0.03% |
| 70% | 2.70% | 0.24% | 0.02% | 0.0020% |
One ladder is rarely the problem. The problem is that you start a new one after every win, so the chance of meeting a long run of losses at least once grows with the number of trades. The table shows the chance of at least one run of that many losses somewhere in a series, at a 50% win rate.
| Run of | In 100 trades | In 250 trades | In 500 trades | In 1,000 trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 losses in a row | 54.6% | 86.8% | 98.3% | >99.9% |
| 7 losses in a row | 31.8% | 62.7% | 86.4% | 98.2% |
| 8 losses in a row | 17.0% | 38.4% | 62.5% | 86.1% |
| 10 losses in a row | 4.4% | 11.2% | 21.5% | 38.5% |
At a 60% win rate the same run of 7 losses has an 8.9% chance in 100 trades and 38.7% in 500. A higher win rate makes a long run rarer, not impossible.
Each trade is independent. After six losses the seventh has the same chance of winning as the first one had, so a streak never makes a win “due”. Be careful with the win rate you type in, too. The calculator starts at 70%, which gives a bust probability of 0.02% with six safe steps; at 50% the same ladder shows 0.78%. A win rate you have not measured over hundreds of trades is the number that makes a ladder look safe.
Why Martingale does not change the expected value
The expected value is the average result per trade if you could repeat it many times. For a $1 stake it is win rate × payout − (1 − win rate). At a 50% win rate and an 87% payout that is 0.5 × 0.87 − 0.5 = −$0.065: on average you lose 6.5 cents for every dollar staked.
A ladder does not change that number. It only changes how many dollars you stake on each trade. Add up the trades of a ladder and the average result is −6.5% of the average amount staked. A negative number times any amount of money is still negative.
Example: a six-step ladder from $1 at 87%, with a 50% win rate.
| Outcome | Chance | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The ladder wins, at any of the six steps | 98.44% | +$0.87 |
| All six steps lose | 1.56% | −$84.92 |
| Average per ladder | −$0.47 |
The check: on average this ladder stakes $7.24 (the first stake, plus each later stake times the chance of reaching it), and 6.5% of $7.24 is $0.47. Change the win rate and the average moves, but by the same rule. At 53.48% (1 ÷ 1.87) the average is zero, whatever ladder you use. At 60% the average ladder is positive (+$0.52), because every single trade already had a positive average result. The ladder created neither the loss nor the gain.
What the ladder does change is the shape of the result: many small wins and, now and then, one large loss. In this example about 98 ladders in 100 end with +$0.87 and about 2 end with −$84.92.
What IQ Option shows on the trade panel
The numbers below are what the platform showed us, not what it promises. We used a Practice account registered in Brazil, with the interface in English. Nothing was deposited and no order was placed.
The Practice balance
Click the balance in the top bar (1). The menu lists the real account and the Practice account (2). The Practice account held $9,998.87 in US dollars, and the real account next to it read R$ 0.00, so it was empty. Every other screenshot on this page is from the Practice account.
The Invest box: stake, expiry and payout
You type the stake in the Invest box at the top right of the order panel (1). The Expiration box (2) sets when the trade closes. Profit (3) is what a win pays as a percentage of your stake, and the dollar figure under it (4) is the profit for the amount in the Invest box: +91% and +$0.91 for $1 on EUR/USD Binary. That percentage is the payout to type into the calculator.
Minimum and maximum trade amount
Type less than the minimum and the platform says so. On EUR/USD Binary, 0.5 gave this message (2) in the red box beside the Invest box (1):
Type more than the maximum and you get the other message (2). The Profit box still calculates a profit for the number you typed (+$18,200.91), but no trade was placed.
On 22 October 2026 we saw the same limits, $1 minimum and $20,000 maximum, on EUR/USD Binary, EUR/USD Digital, Gold Binary, EUR/USD Blitz and USD/HKD (OTC) Blitz. IQ Option’s own FAQ (read the same day) says the minimum amount is shown on the platform, subject to current trading conditions, that the maximum you can invest is $20,000, and that the maximum for some assets may vary with market conditions. Blitz options are IQ Option’s very short options (30 seconds and 1 minute on the panels we opened). (OTC) marks an over-the-counter asset: IQ Option makes the quotes itself, which is how it can offer the asset when the real market is closed. A real account in another currency may show different limits. Ours is in Brazilian reais, we deposited nothing and could not check it.
The payout range
Open the asset menu (Options, then Binary) and sort the list by Profit. At about 03:00 UTC on 22 October 2026 the Binary list had 132 options (1). Sorted from high to low (2), it started with EUR/USD and GBP/USD at 93% (3). Sorted from low to high (4), the lowest rows read 85% (5): CARDANO (OTC), ETH/USD (OTC), SOL/USD (OTC), TRON/USD (OTC), Uranium (OTC) and USD/COP (OTC).
That is a range of 85% to 93% on that day. On the two Blitz options we opened, EUR/USD (1 minute) showed +89% and USD/HKD (OTC) (30 seconds) showed +87%. The payout depends on the asset, the expiry and the time of day, and IQ Option can change it at any time: its FAQ says the Company “reserves the right to decide and/or change the profitability percentage given to clients at any given time”. Always type the payout you see on your own panel.
Binary and digital payouts side by side
The two panels below were taken on EUR/USD a few seconds apart. The Binary panel (1) read +91%. The Digital panel (2) read +86%. Digital payouts also depend on the strike you choose, so you cannot type in one digital payout and use it for every trade.
How to use the free Martingale calculators
The full-page calculator
The full-page calculator is one page with four boxes and no sign-up, and it works out the numbers in your browser. Open it here: Martingale calculator. The example below uses a $100 balance, a $1 first stake, an 87% payout and a 50% win rate.
Fill in four boxes. Trading Balance (1) is the money you have for the ladder. Starting Trade Size (2) is your first stake. Payout on a win (3) is the Profit percentage from the trade panel. It starts at 100, which is even money and plain doubling, so change it to your payout. Win Rate (4) is the share of your trades that win: use your own measured figure, or try 50% if you have none.
Three results appear under the boxes. Safe Steps (5) is how many steps in a row your balance can pay for: 6. Next Unsafe Trade (6) is the stake of the first step you cannot pay for: $98.61. Bust Probability (7) is the chance of losing one more trade in a row than your balance can cover, here seven in a row, about 0.78%. The chance of losing the six steps you can afford is higher, 1.56%, and that already costs $84.92 of your $100.
The table lists the ladder row by row. # counts the steps from 0, so row 0 is your first trade. Trade Size is the stake at that step, Cumulative is everything staked so far, and Loss Probability is the chance of losing that trade and every one before it. The green rows (1) fit in your balance, the yellow line (2) is your balance and the red rows (3) do not fit. Row 5 is the sixth trade: a $45.88 stake, $84.92 staked in total, and a 1.56% chance of losing all six trades in a row. The calculator writes amounts of $100 and more in whole dollars.
Two things to keep in mind. The full-page calculator uses one payout for every step, so for digital options treat it as an estimate. It also shows each stake before rounding, while in the Invest box you type the stake in dollars and cents, rounded up. The calculator on this page, below, does that rounding for you.
Open the free Martingale calculator
The calculator on this page
This page has a second calculator. It uses the same formula and rounds every stake up to a tradable step (the Minimum stake increment, 0.01 by default), so its Executable stake column is the rounded-up ladder from the section on how fast the stake grows. It also lets you pick the currency, cap the rounds at 12 and set the profit a win has to recover. For the example above (bankroll 100, first stake 1, payout 87, 8 rounds, target recovery profit 0.87, win rate 50) it shows US$98.79 at round 7 and US$183.86 exposed after seven rounds, against $98.61 and $184 in the full-page calculator. Both are right: one rounds up and the other does not.
Loss-streak risk
Martingale Risk Calculator
Visualize how a loss-recovery sequence grows, what balance it requires, and where a hard stop changes the exposure.
Important: Martingale can escalate losses very quickly and cannot remove the risk of ruin, platform limits, or losing streaks.
Does the Martingale strategy work?
As arithmetic, it is correct: a win at any step nets the profit of the first trade. As a way to beat the odds, it does not work: the odds of each trade are unchanged (see the expected value above), and the ladder only decides how much you stake. We tested the ladder on one rule with recorded prices from the Practice platform.
| Candles | EUR/USD binary, 5-minute candles recorded from the Practice platform, 29 September to 5 October 2026: 1,334 candles in two stretches without gaps |
|---|---|
| Rule | Trade the colour of a full-bodied candle (body at least 70% of its range) at its close, expiry one candle. After a loss, repeat the same direction with the stake × 2.15. After a win, go back to the first stake |
| Stake and payout | $1 first stake, 87% payout, ladder stopped after six losses in a row |
| Trades | 272 trades in 127 ladders: 123 won, 144 lost, 5 refunded |
| Win rate | 46.1% of the decided trades (123 of 267), against the 53.48% needed to break even at 87% |
| Net result | −$232.68 |
| Same candles, no six-loss limit | 275 trades, longest losing run 9, largest stake $979.27 after $851.09 of losses, net +$107.88 |
The rule is the candle-colour rule described in our candle colour guide. It traded 272 times in 127 ladders and lost $232.68. Four ladders reached the sixth loss, and each one cost $84.92. Without the six-loss limit, the same candles produced a run of 9 losses: the next stake was $979.27 after $851.09 of losses, and the replay ended at +$107.88. It recovered, but it needed a balance of $1,830 to place that tenth stake, which is 18 times the $100 in our example.
A week of candles proves nothing about the future, and a result above or below zero over 272 trades can come from chance alone. The six-loss limit and the 70% body rule are our own choices, and other choices would give other results. The replay counts a trade that closes at the entry price as a refund and repeats the stake. No profit or win rate is promised.
Risks to know before you use Martingale
- A long losing run is not rare over many trades. At a 50% win rate, at least one run of 7 losses has a 31.8% chance in 100 trades and 86.4% in 500.
- The reward is fixed and the risk is not. A win at any step earns the first trade’s profit ($0.87 in our example) while the risk grows about 2.15 times at every step.
- Your balance and the platform’s maximum end the ladder. When the next stake is more than your balance, or more than $20,000, the ladder stops with the loss.
- Payouts can change. IQ Option can change the profit percentage at any time, so a ladder worked out earlier may need bigger stakes.
- Many small wins hide the losses. Keep a record of the ladders you lose, not only the trades you win, and never add money to continue a ladder.
- This is not investment advice. Trading binary and digital options carries a high risk of losing all the money you put in. Practise on the Practice account first and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
Related guides and tools
- Martingale and position sizing: the money-management view, with position-sizing tables.
- Anti-Martingale money management: raising the stake after a win instead of a loss.
- Candle colour strategy on IQ Option: the rules, the test and the risk.
- Binary vs digital options: expiries, payouts and strikes.
- Options payout calculator and the Risk Control Center: more risk calculators.
- All free trading tools.
- How to open an IQ Option Practice account.
- Free IQ Option chart scripts: a ladder only sizes your stake, so test your entry rule on the Practice account first, with a script if you like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the Martingale formula for binary options?
A: Next stake = previous stake × (1 + payout) ÷ payout, with the payout as a decimal. At 87% the multiplier is 1.87 ÷ 0.87 = 2.15. At a payout of 100% it is 2, plain doubling.
Q: Why is doubling not enough on IQ Option?
A: The profit on a win is smaller than the stake, so a doubled stake no longer wins back all earlier losses. At 87%, doubling is $0.04 short at step 4: after $1, $2 and $4 are lost ($7), an $8 stake wins $6.96.
Q: How many losses in a row can my balance cover?
A: Add up the stakes. With a $1 first stake at 87%, six steps cost $84.92 and seven cost $183.54, so $100 covers six steps and not seven. The free calculator shows this as Safe Steps.
Q: What are the minimum and maximum trade amounts on IQ Option?
A: On the Practice account on 22 October 2026 we saw a minimum of $1 and a maximum of $20,000 on EUR/USD Binary and Digital, Gold Binary and two Blitz assets. IQ Option’s FAQ says the maximum for some assets may vary with market conditions, and a real account in another currency may differ.
Q: What payout should I enter in the calculator?
A: The Profit percentage on the trade panel for the asset and expiry you will trade. On 22 October 2026 the Binary list showed 85% to 93%, and IQ Option can change it at any time.
Q: Does a high win rate make Martingale safe?
A: It makes a long losing run rarer, not impossible, and you start a new ladder after every win. At a 60% win rate, a run of 7 losses has a 0.16% chance on one ladder and an 8.9% chance in 100 trades.
Q: Does Martingale change the expected value?
A: No. Every trade has the same expected result per dollar staked, and the ladder only changes how much is staked. At a 50% win rate and an 87% payout each dollar staked loses 6.5 cents on average, and the six-step ladder in our example averages −$0.47.
Q: Can I use Martingale with digital options?
A: The formula is the same, but the payout depends on the strike you choose, so work each stake out from the payout shown on that trade. The calculator uses one payout for every step, so treat its digital results as an estimate.
Q: Is there a free Martingale calculator for IQ Option?
A: Yes. Our Martingale calculator is free and needs no sign-up. Enter your balance, first stake, payout and win rate to see every stake, the total at risk and the chance of a losing streak.
Conclusion
Martingale is a staking rule with simple arithmetic and no edge. On IQ Option the payout is below 100%, so the multiplier is about 2.1 to 2.2, not 2. From a $1 first stake the stake passes $200 at step 8, and your balance and the $20,000 maximum end the ladder sooner than most people expect. It trades many small wins for a rare large loss, and the average result is set by your win rate and the payout, not by the ladder.
If you still want to test it, use the Practice account, set the step limit first with the free calculator, count your results over hundreds of trades and stop at the limit. No ladder, indicator or script can promise a profit.
Open the free Martingale calculator
