What Is a Pip Worth? Pip Value for Every Kind of Pair
"A pip is ten dollars a lot" is true for EUR/USD with a USD account. Move to a yen pair, a cross, or a non-dollar account and it stops being true. Size with it anyway and every trade carries a different risk than you think.
The formula
Pip value for one standard lot (100,000 units):
pip size × 100,000 = pip value in the quote currency
Then convert that into your account currency. That's it. Two steps, and the second one is the one people skip.
Pairs quoted in USD
EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD. The quote currency is already dollars:
0.0001 × 100,000 = $10 per pip per lot
This is where the "$10" rule comes from. With a USD account there's nothing to convert.
Pairs with USD as the base
USD/CAD, USD/CHF, USD/JPY. The pip is worth 10 units of the quote currency, so you divide by the current rate:
- USD/CAD at 1.3700: CAD 10 ÷ 1.37 = about $7.30
- USD/JPY at 150.00: JPY 1,000 ÷ 150 = about $6.67
Yen pairs use a 0.01 pip, which is why it's JPY 1,000 and not JPY 10. See pips vs points if the decimals look off.
Crosses
No USD in the pair at all. Pip value is in the quote currency, converted at that currency's rate against your account:
- EUR/GBP: £10 per pip. With GBP/USD at 1.2700, that's about $12.70
- GBP/JPY: JPY 1,000 per pip, same as USD/JPY, so about $6.67 at 150.00
GBP/JPY and EUR/GBP are both "a pip", and one is worth almost twice the other.
Why this matters for sizing
Say you risk $200 on a 20-pip stop and assume $10 a pip: 1.00 lot.
- On EUR/USD that's right. You risk $200.
- On EUR/GBP you actually risk 20 × $12.70 = $254. About 27% more.
- On USD/JPY you risk 20 × $6.67 = $133. You're under-sized by a third.
Neither error looks big on one trade. Across a challenge with a 4% daily limit, the over-sized version is how people trip the daily drawdown without ever changing their "1% per trade" plan.
Pip value moves
Conversion rates change, so pip value changes with them. USD/JPY at 140 makes a pip worth $7.14, at 160 it's $6.25. Not much on one trade, but it's why a pip value you worked out last month isn't the one you should use today.
Quick version
- Pip value = pip size × 100,000, in the quote currency.
- Convert into your account currency at today's rate.
- Lot size = money at risk ÷ (stop in pips × pip value).
The position size calculator does the conversion with live rates. Try EUR/GBP or USD/JPY and compare the pip values side by side.