A Kalshi price is a probability written in cents. A Yes contract at 70¢ means the market, at that moment, is pricing the Yes outcome at roughly a 70% chance. That one idea explains how Kalshi "odds" work, how to compare a price with your own estimate, and why fees decide whether a trade is worth anything at all. This guide works through the math with real numbers from Kalshi's fee schedule: implied probability, the Yes/No relationship, the spread, the fee, break-even win rate and expected value. It explains the mechanics. It does not tell you what to trade.
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Short answer
Every Kalshi binary contract pays $1 if it settles in your favor and $0 if it does not. So a price of P dollars is the market's implied probability of that outcome. A Yes price of 70¢ implies about 70% for Yes and about 30% for No. To profit on average you need your real chance of winning to be higher than the price plus the fee. With Kalshi's taker fee at a 70¢ price, the break-even is about 71.5%, not 70%. Expected value per contract is your probability minus the price minus the fee. If you can't honestly say your probability beats that number, the trade has negative expected value. Trading can lose money.
Why a Kalshi price is a probability
Kalshi's help center describes the price as directly tied to the market's perceived probability of the event: when the perceived chance of Yes rises, the Yes price rises and the No price falls. The reason is the $1 payout. If a contract pays $1 when an event happens, and the event happens 70% of the time, then on average the contract is worth $0.70. A price far from that would invite someone to trade against it until it moved back.
So you can read any Kalshi price this way:
- Yes at 20¢ → the market implies about a 20% chance of Yes.
- Yes at 50¢ → about a coin flip.
- Yes at 93¢ → about 93%, a strong favorite, and only 7¢ of upside per contract.
"About" matters. The price is a market estimate, set by whoever is trading right now, and it is not a guarantee of anything. Prices also include the spread and the effect of fees, covered below.
Yes plus No equals $1
Kalshi matches a Yes buyer with a No buyer, and its help center states that their combined investment must equal $1. If Yes trades at 70¢, the matching No side is 30¢. One of the two will be paid $1 at settlement; the other gets $0. This is why every Kalshi market has two mirror-image prices, and why buying No at 30¢ is economically the same position as selling Yes at 70¢.
It also means "odds" on Kalshi don't need converting. A sportsbook line of -233 or a decimal price of 1.43 both mean roughly 70% before the bookmaker's margin. On Kalshi the 70¢ already is the probability, and the platform's cut shows up as an explicit trading fee instead of being baked into the odds.
Bid, ask and the spread: which price is "the" probability?
A live market has two prices on each side. The ask is the lowest price someone will sell at; the bid is the highest price someone will buy at. If Yes shows a bid of 68¢ and an ask of 71¢, the market's probability is somewhere around the middle, about 69.5%. But you don't trade at the middle:
- Buying Yes immediately costs the ask, 71¢.
- Selling Yes immediately gets the bid, 68¢.
That 3¢ gap is a real cost of trading immediately, on top of the fee. Our guide on how to read the Kalshi order book shows why Kalshi's book lists bids on both sides and how the ask is implied from the other side's bids. For probability math, use the price you will actually pay, not the headline number.
The fee: Kalshi's formula with worked numbers
Kalshi's fee schedule (the July 2026 update) gives the general trading fee as:
fee = round up(M × 0.07 × C × P × (1 − P))
where C is the number of contracts, P is the price in dollars, and M is a multiplier set in the schedule. The schedule says the rounding brings fee plus position cost up to a centicent (a hundredth of a cent). For resting maker orders, where a maker fee applies, the coefficient is 0.0175 instead of 0.07. The schedule also says there is no settlement fee: holding to the end costs nothing extra.
Because of the P × (1 − P) term, the fee is largest at 50¢ and shrinks toward the extremes. Here is the taker fee assuming a multiplier of 1 (check the schedule for the market you trade):
| Price | Fee per contract | Fee on 100 contracts | Fee as % of price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10¢ | $0.0063 | $0.63 | 6.3% |
| 30¢ | $0.0147 | $1.47 | 4.9% |
| 50¢ | $0.0175 | $1.75 | 3.5% |
| 70¢ | $0.0147 | $1.47 | 2.1% |
| 90¢ | $0.0063 | $0.63 | 0.7% |
In absolute dollars the fee peaks at 50¢. As a share of what you put up, it is heaviest on cheap contracts. Our Kalshi fees explained and maker vs taker fees guides cover the details.
Break-even win rate: the number that matters
If you buy one contract at price P and pay fee f, you spend P + f. You get $1 back only when you win. To break even on average, your win rate has to equal what you spend:
break-even win rate = P + f (with both in dollars per contract)
| Buy price | Taker break-even | Maker break-even (0.0175) |
|---|---|---|
| 30¢ | 31.47% | 30.37% |
| 50¢ | 51.75% | 50.44% |
| 70¢ | 71.47% | 70.37% |
| 90¢ | 90.63% | 90.16% |
Read the 70¢ row this way: if the market is right that Yes is 70%, buying Yes at 70¢ as a taker loses about 1.5¢ per contract on average. You are only ahead if your real chance of winning is above 71.47%. If you pay the ask instead of the midpoint, add the half-spread too. With a 68¢/71¢ market and a midpoint of 69.5%, buying at 71¢ needs about 72.4% to break even, three points above what the market implies.
This is the core reason most "the price is roughly right" trades lose money after costs. When your estimate agrees with the market, you pay the fee and the spread and get nothing for it. Our fees and break-even win rate article goes deeper on this.
Expected value per contract
Expected value (EV) is what a trade earns on average if you could repeat it many times:
EV per contract = p − P − f
where p is your honest probability of winning. A worked example: Yes asks 70¢, you estimate 75%, and you buy 100 contracts as a taker.
- Cost: 100 × $0.70 = $70.00, plus a $1.47 fee, total $71.47.
- If Yes wins: you receive $100.00, a $28.53 gain.
- If Yes loses: you receive $0, a $71.47 loss.
- EV: 0.75 × $28.53 − 0.25 × $71.47 = $21.40 − $17.87 = about +$3.53, or 3.53¢ per contract.
Two things stand out. First, the edge is small compared with what's at risk: you put up $71.47 to earn $3.53 on average, and one wrong outcome costs twenty times that. Second, the whole result rests on the 75%. If the true chance is 71%, the same trade has an EV of about −$0.47. If it's 65%, about −$6.47. A probability estimate that is a few points too confident turns a positive trade into a losing one. Positive EV also says nothing about any single trade: a 75% outcome still loses one time in four.
Buying No is the same math from the other side
If Yes asks 70¢, the No side costs about 30¢ (Yes plus No is $1, before the spread). Your probability for No is 1 minus your probability for Yes. If you think Yes is only 60%, then No is 40% to you, and buying No at 30¢ as a taker has an EV of 0.40 − 0.30 − 0.0147 = about +8.5¢ per contract. The fee is the same at 30¢ as at 70¢, because P × (1 − P) is symmetric. Pick whichever side your estimate favors after costs, and price it with the side's own ask.
Selling before settlement
You don't have to hold to the end. Selling at the bid locks in about the bid minus a second fee. Holding is worth your probability, with no settlement fee. So the same comparison applies: if your current probability is above the bid minus the sell fee, holding has the higher expected value; if it's below, selling does. What you originally paid doesn't change that. Our guide to selling a Kalshi contract before settlement works through it.
How this applies to 15-minute crypto markets
Kalshi's 15-minute crypto markets ask whether a price index will be above a level at the close of a short window. The settlement source and close time are fixed in the market rules (see how Kalshi markets settle and CF Benchmarks BRTI explained). The price math above is identical. What changes is speed: prices move fast near the close, the spread can widen, and many favorites trade at 85¢ to 95¢, where the upside per contract is small and a single loss erases many wins. At a 93¢ buy, for example, the taker break-even is about 93.5%. Being right "most of the time" isn't enough at those prices. You need to be right more often than the price already assumes. Our 15-minute markets explained guide and do Kalshi 15-minute crypto bots work? cover the specifics.
Once you have an expected value estimate, the next question is how much to put on it. Our guide to Kalshi position sizing with the Kelly criterion walks through the fee-adjusted formula and why most traders use a fraction of it.
Where automation fits
None of this math needs software. It needs discipline: compute the break-even before every order, use the price you'll actually pay, and skip trades where your edge is smaller than the costs. Software helps with consistency. It can apply the same fee and break-even check on every market, every window, without getting tired or chasing. It can't make an estimate more accurate than the data and rules behind it, and it pays the same fees and spread a person does. If you automate, keep a written record of win rate against break-even, not just profit and loss. See how to automate Kalshi trades safely and when to skip a Kalshi trade.
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FAQ
What do Kalshi prices mean?
A price is the cost of a contract that pays $1 if its outcome happens and $0 if it doesn't. So the price in cents reads as the market's implied probability: 70¢ means about a 70% chance.
How do you convert Kalshi prices to odds?
You don't need to. The price in dollars is the implied probability. To get decimal odds, divide 1 by the price: 70¢ is about 1.43. Kalshi's fee is charged separately, so add it to the price before comparing with a sportsbook line.
Why do Yes and No add up to $1?
Kalshi pairs a Yes buyer with a No buyer, and their combined stake equals the $1 that one of them will be paid at settlement. The bid-ask spread can make the two quoted asks add to slightly more than $1.
What win rate do I need to break even on Kalshi?
Your buy price plus the fee per contract. As a taker at 70¢ that is about 71.47%; at 50¢ it is about 51.75%; at 90¢ about 90.63%. Paying the ask instead of the midpoint raises it further.
How do I calculate expected value on a Kalshi trade?
EV per contract = your probability of winning − the price you pay − the fee. Multiply by the number of contracts. If the result is zero or negative, the trade loses money on average.
Is the fee higher on cheap or expensive contracts?
In dollars, the fee is highest at 50¢ and falls toward 1¢ and 99¢. As a percentage of the price, it is heaviest on cheap contracts.
Is there a fee if I hold to settlement?
No. Kalshi's fee schedule states there is no settlement fee. You pay a trading fee when you buy, and again only if you sell before the end.
Is DeskBot affiliated with Kalshi?
No. DeskBot is independent software and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Kalshi.
Educational content, not financial advice. Trading event contracts can lose money. DeskBot does not guarantee profits, returns, win rates or income. DeskBot is independent software and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Kalshi. The fee formula, maker coefficient, rounding rule and the no-settlement-fee rule come from Kalshi's fee schedule (July 2026 update); the price-as-probability and Yes-plus-No-equals-$1 descriptions come from Kalshi's help center ("How are prices determined?"), both checked October 30, 2026. Fee tables assume a multiplier of 1. Check Kalshi's current documents before trading.