What you actually paid per coin across every buy — and what it would take to move it.
Average price
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Total quantity
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Total invested
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Your average price is the total you spent divided by the total number of coins you hold. Each buy is weighted by its size, which is why the average is not the midpoint of the prices you paid.
average price = total spent ÷ total quantity
Buy $100 of a coin at $1 and another $100 at $0.10 and your average is about $0.18, not $0.55 — the cheaper purchase bought ten times as many coins, so it carries ten times the weight.
| Quantity | Price paid | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 0.5 BTC | $40,000 | $20,000 |
| 0.25 BTC | $60,000 | $15,000 |
| 1.25 BTC | $24,000 | $30,000 |
| 2 BTC | $32,500 avg | $65,000 |
Three buys totalling $65,000 for 2 BTC give an average of $32,500 — well below the $41,333 you would get by averaging $40,000, $60,000 and $24,000, because the largest buy was also the cheapest.
Buying below your average pulls it down, which lowers the price the coin has to reach before you are even. It also raises how much you have at risk. Both of those are true at the same time, and the calculator shows you the size of each rather than only the encouraging one.
There is a hard limit worth knowing before you plan around it: buying at a given price can only pull your average toward that price, never past it. If you are buying at $10, no amount of buying brings your average to $8. Enter a target below the price you are buying at and the calculator says so, rather than answering with a number.
The recovery figure is measured from today's price, not from your average. Down 50% needs a 100% rise to get back, and quoting the smaller number would be the more comfortable answer and the wrong one.
Divide the total amount you spent by the total number of coins you hold. If you bought 1 BTC at $50,000 and 2 BTC at $80,000, you spent $210,000 for 3 BTC, so your average price is $70,000 — not $65,000, which is what averaging the two prices would wrongly give you.
Because each buy carries the weight of its size. A large purchase moves the average far more than a small one, so the average sits closer to the price you bought the most at. Averaging the prices themselves ignores that and is the single most common mistake with cost basis.
Buying more of a coin at a price below your current average, which pulls the average down. It reduces the price the coin has to recover to before you break even, and it increases the amount you have at risk. Both are true at once.
Enter your buys and a target, and the calculator solves it for you. The important limit: buying at a given price can only pull your average toward that price, never past it. If you are buying at $10, no amount of buying will bring your average to $8.
100%, not 50%. A coin that falls from $100 to $50 has to double from $50 to return to $100. The calculator shows the recovery move measured from today's price for this reason — measuring it from your average understates it.
No. Enter the price you actually paid per coin including any fee you want to account for, and the result reflects it. Fees vary by exchange and order type, so folding a guess into the maths would be less accurate than letting you decide.
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