Photo: NeONBRAND. Source (Wikimedia Commons). License: CC0 1.0. A US one-dollar bill photographed against a wall, shown as generic money context only. It is not a Kalshi payout or a profit guarantee. Resized; no endorsement implied.
Profit on a Kalshi event contract is what remains after three subtractions: the price you paid, the trading fee, and, for US traders, taxes. Each contract pays a fixed $1 to the winning side at settlement, so a Yes contract bought at 40 cents that settles Yes returns $1.00 per contract: 60 cents gross profit per contract, minus the exchange fee. Under Kalshi's July 7, 2026 fee schedule, the general event-contract trading fee is round up(M x 0.07 x C x P x (1-P)). None of that math guarantees anything: contracts settle against you, spreads and slippage raise your effective price, and a losing position costs the full price plus fees.
Source snapshot: October 9, 2026 (15:00-15:05 UTC).
Kalshi Help Center's fees article and limit orders article, Kalshi Help Center's tax documentation article, and the IRS's Publication 550 were checked directly. The official fee schedule PDF effective July 7, 2026 is cited by this site's fee guide after its July 17, 2026 review; its host returned HTTP 429 rate-limit responses during this snapshot, so formula details here match the pinned on-site review rather than a fresh read. This is a static math explainer, not live market data and not financial advice.
An event contract is a position on an outcome, not an ownership stake. At settlement, the exchange pays $1 per contract to the side that turned out right and nothing to the other side. Settlement mechanics are covered in how Kalshi market settlement works.
Gross profit per winning contract is simply $1 minus the price you paid. Buy Yes at 10 cents and win: 90 cents gross per contract. Buy Yes at 90 cents and win: 10 cents gross per contract. The market price is also the crowd's rough implied probability, as explained in Kalshi implied probability and break-even math, so cheap contracts that feel like windfalls usually lose, and expensive favorites still lose sometimes.
Trading contracts is also not investing in Kalshi the company. Kalshi Inc. is private, and settling a contract profitably gives you no equity; see can you buy Kalshi stock? for that separate question.
Net profit if a contract settles in your favor is:
net profit = ($1 x C) - (P x C) - fee, where fee = round up(M x 0.07 x C x P x (1-P)), C is contract count, P is the price in dollars, and M is the series multiplier, which is 1 unless the schedule says otherwise. The trading fee is charged when the order executes, win or lose; the July schedule lists no separate settlement fee.
| Yes price | Cost | Fee | Payout if Yes | Net profit if Yes | Result if No |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0.10 | $10.00 | $0.63 | $100.00 | +$89.37 | -$10.63 |
| $0.40 | $40.00 | $1.68 | $100.00 | +$58.32 | -$41.68 |
| $0.90 | $90.00 | $0.63 | $100.00 | +$9.37 | -$90.63 |
Two honest observations from the table. First, the fee is small relative to cost at these sizes, but it is charged win or lose, so it compounds across many trades. Second, the loss column is the whole story for losing positions: you lose the full price plus the fee. To apply the current formula to a specific order, use the Kalshi fee calculator and the detailed fees explained guide; the schedule also lists no ACH deposit or withdrawal fee, while card deposits can carry up to a 2% fee.
The fee formula's factor P x (1-P) peaks at P = 0.50 and shrinks toward 1 cent or 99 cents. At 50 cents, the raw fee is 0.07 x C x 0.25, or $1.75 per 100 contracts; at 10 or 90 cents it is $0.63 per 100 contracts. Mid-priced markets therefore carry the largest exchange fee per contract, all else equal, which matters for strategies that trade around even odds.
Buying repeatedly at one price is profitable over time only if your realized win rate exceeds the all-in cost per contract. At 40 cents, the per-contract fee from the table is about 1.7 cents, so the all-in cost is roughly 41.7 cents. You need to win about 41.7% of such trades just to break even, before spread, slippage and taxes. If the market price is a fair probability estimate, the expected value is negative after fees, which is the honest baseline assumption.
For the full expected-value treatment, see implied probability, EV and break-even, and use the payout calculator to check position math before trading.
You usually buy at the ask and sell at the bid, and the spread between them is a cost the fee formula does not capture. On thin markets, market orders can fill worse than the last displayed price. None of that changes the $1 payout; it raises your effective entry price. The slippage calculator shows how execution quality changes outcomes, and Kalshi's limit orders documentation explains the alternative to accepting whatever the book offers.
For US traders, realized trading profit is taxable, and Kalshi issues tax documentation for accounts. How a specific contract's results are characterized depends on current law and individual facts, and this site does not decide that. Start with the Kalshi View tax hub, the prediction market tax guide and IRS Publication 550, and consider a qualified professional for your situation.
If you are new to the platform itself, start with what is Kalshi? and how to start trading on Kalshi.
Each Kalshi event contract pays a fixed $1 to the winning side at settlement. Profit on a winning contract is $1 minus the price you paid, minus the trading fee. A Yes contract bought at 40 cents that settles Yes returns $1.00 per contract, for 60 cents gross profit per contract before the fee.
As of Kalshi's July 7, 2026 fee schedule, the general event-contract trading fee is round up(M x 0.07 x C x P x (1-P)), where P is price, C is contract count and M is the series multiplier, usually 1. The schedule lists no settlement fee and no ACH deposit or withdrawal fee; card deposits can cost up to 2%.
Yes, realized trading profit is taxable for US traders, and Kalshi issues tax documentation. How a specific contract is characterized depends on current law and your facts. This site does not decide that; see the Kalshi View tax hub and IRS Publication 550, and consider a qualified professional.
No. Contracts settle against you, and a losing position costs the full price paid plus the trading fee. Spreads, slippage and taxes raise the bar further. Prediction-market trading is speculative, and no formula guarantees a profit.
Not financial advice. Prediction-market trading is speculative, and you can lose money. Do your own research.
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