Betfair Commission Calculator: See Your Real Profit
The sum in your head says £80 at 3.10 wins £168.00 of profit. The balance moves by less. Enter a stake, odds and a rate to see what lands after exchange commission, before the bet goes on.
Enter your bet and your rate
Exchange commission is a share of your net winnings on a market, taken only when that net is above zero. Enter a stake, decimal odds and a rate and the calculator returns the commission, the net profit and the effective odds. Back £80 at 3.10 at an example rate of 2%: gross profit £168.00, commission £3.36, net profit £164.64, and the price is worth 3.058. Your own rate depends on where you live and, in some regions, on your package, so check the current terms. Every result assumes the bet is matched in full.
Reading the slips: what the fee takes and what is left
Each slip is a chain (a short one, thankfully): this bet, your other bets, the net on the market, the commission, what is left. One covers a win, one a loss.
Commission is worked on the net, not bet by bet. Betfair's terms base it on your net winnings on a market and treat stakes as beside the point. That is why two boxes take your other bets in the same market, one per outcome; leave both at 0 for a single bet. The guide shows how a matched bet settles, with the fee.
With no other bets, a third slip gives the price. Effective odds are what your odds are worth once the fee is off, and the break-even chance is one divided by that price. At 3.10 you break even winning 32.3% of the time with no fee, and 32.7% at an example 2%. Small gap, every bet. The bookmaker's side: what a price costs before the fee.
The first mode opens at 2, Betfair's Basic package figure in its own £100 example (£2.00, archived Charges page). Treat it as a placeholder, not your rate. The second mode takes a Market Base Rate, opening at 6.5, and a Discount Rate, opening at 0. Where you live decides which applies, and the guide sets out the three rate regimes in full.
Four worked examples to type in
Case 1 loads with the page; cases 1 to 3 assume it is your only bet in the market.
| Case | What you type | If the selection wins | If it loses |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. A plain back | Back £80 at 3.10, rate 2 | Gross £168.00, commission £3.36, net £164.64 | -£80.00 |
| 2. A rate from two figures | Back £150 at 1.85, Market Base Rate 6.5, Discount Rate 20 | Gross £127.50, commission £6.63 at 5.2%, net £120.87 | -£150.00 |
| 3. A lay | Lay £65 at 2.20, rate 2 | -£78.00, the liability | +£65.00, commission £1.30, £63.70 kept |
| 4. Another bet in the market | Back £50 at 4.00, rate 5, other bets -25 if it wins, 25 if it loses | Market net £125.00, commission £6.25, result £118.75 | Market net -£25.00, no commission, result -£25.00 |
Case 3 is a lay, and working out what a lay risks has a calculator of its own. The liability is £65 times 1.20, so £78.00 is at risk to win £65.00, and the effective lay odds are 2.224.
Case 4 adds a second bet. Suppose you already hold a £25 back at 2.00 on the other selection of a two-way market, then take this selection with £50 at 4.00 at an example 5%: if it wins, the £150.00 win is offset by the £25.00 the other bet loses, so the fee is charged on £125.00 and comes to £6.25, against £7.50 on the £150.00 alone, and if it loses, the other bet's £25.00 cuts the £50.00 loss to a net £25.00 and nothing is charged. Set both boxes to 0 for the £7.50.
What the calculator leaves out
Whether a bet is matched in full depends on the money waiting to be matched, and how depth decides what fills has its own page.
Left out: the Expert Fee, a weekly charge Betfair says under 0.5% of customers incur; Transaction Charges; an extra charge in Australia; Betfair Points arithmetic; deposit and withdrawal costs; and any fee a broker or another exchange sets.
Rounding is to the nearest penny at each step, so a slip adds up on paper. Betfair's rules round winnings, losses and commission to two decimals, and the direction is not modelled, so your account can differ by a penny. Prices come from the odds and the rate, not from the pennies.
Other exchanges set their own rates and none is priced here. The ranking page sets out the other exchanges, use case by use case.
Once the sums are done, the account
Sums are the easy half; the harder half is the account you need before the sums matter. A short set of questions about your situation sorts the routes into it. If a broker is in the picture, the broker-side check for an exchange you have in mind shows who reaches it.
A broker's exchange tool is a commercial arrangement under the broker's own terms, and its charges are its own rate. What sits between you and the exchange on a broker route has its own page. What a broker adds on top of the exchange rate sits on the comparison. Each broker has its own country list, every route needs ID checks, and none reopens Betfair's list of countries it does not serve. There are more free tools for exchange bettors too.
Questions people ask
How is Betfair exchange commission calculated, and is it charged per bet or on lays?
Your net winnings on a market times your rate, and a market that nets to a loss pays none. It is not charged bet by bet or by side, and a lay win is the backer's stake. No separate rate for lays appears in Betfair's terms or Charges page, in archived copies, so check the current terms.
Which rate do I enter?
Your own, which depends on where you live. In regions with My Betfair Rewards a package sets it, and Betfair's own Basic package example is 2%; elsewhere it is the Market Base Rate times one minus your Discount Rate. Betfair's Charges page, archived, points customers to its emails and web messages for their Market Base Rate, so check the current terms.
What are effective odds, and how do they compare with a bookmaker's price?
Effective odds are your odds after the fee: take the odds, subtract 1, multiply by one minus the rate, then add 1. Betfair says exchange odds are generally higher for singles, before commission, so compare the effective odds with the price you were offered elsewhere, and check the current terms.
Can I pay less commission?
Only through whatever sets your rate: in package regions, your package. Elsewhere the Discount Rate comes from Betfair Points, one for every 10 pence of commission paid, and Betfair caps it at 20% until identity and verification checks are complete, which an account needs anyway; check the current terms.