A take profit is a price you decide on before you enter, and a take profit strategy is the rule that picks that price. There is no pip number that carries from one instrument or timeframe to another, and the published answers to "how far" come in five units that do not convert into each other.

What is a take profit strategy in forex?

It is the rule that decides your target price before the trade is on, rather than the decision you make later about when to leave.

That distinction gets lost quickly. Axi's page is headed "Best profit-taking strategies to enhance your trading" and lists seven methods, but only one of them sets a price in advance: the support and resistance method, where you "set a profit target based on support and resistance lines". The other six are exit signals you read after you are already in the trade. Its first method waits for a 5-period moving average "to cross below the 20-period (maroon line) to signal your exit". Its second is an ATR trailing stop. The remaining four are divergence, time in the trade, candlestick patterns and news events (axi-solaris.com, undated).

Both kinds are useful and they are not the same tool. A target is a number you can write down, test and compare. An exit signal cannot be known until the bar prints.

Axi also refuses its own headline at the end: "There is no single profit-taking strategy that is better than the rest."

What each source publishes as a target distance

Five units, ten sources, and almost no overlap.

Source (date on the page)	What it publishes as a target distance	Instrument and timeframe named	Does it name a trading cost?
blueberrymarkets.com (undated)	Price levels in worked examples: an entry at 1.2000 with targets at 1.2050, 1.2100 and 1.2150; a second trade from 1.1200 to 1.1300	EUR/USD in the second example, no timeframe	Slippage, as a risk to the fill, and the spread once
tradingwithrayner.com (14 May 2023)	None. Its only distance is for the stop: "Place stop loss order 1 ATR away from previous swing low/high"	Daily EUR/USD, USD/JPY	No
axi-solaris.com (undated)	One method of seven: a target "just before 0.89" from entries near the 0.86 support, inside a "300 pips range"	NZD/CAD, gold, US500, USD/CHF, silver, no timeframe for the target	No
theforexgeek.com (30 April 2026)	"a 50-pip gain" as an example, a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio, a "2% gain", and "profit targets based on multiples of ATR" with no multiple given	None	No
forextraders.com (16 November 2022)	Twice the stop distance in pips; Fibonacci extensions; a flagpole measured move; the opposite Bollinger band	EUR/USD 1-minute, GBP/USD 1-minute	The spread, once
tradingstrategyguides.com (31 July 2023)	No target distance, but the only cost-to-distance rule in the set	5-minute and 4-hour, no pair	Yes, the spread, repeatedly and as a distance
forexgdp.com (undated)	"a ratio of at least 1:2", and nothing else: no pip figure, no ATR, no percentage	None	No
arongroups.co (4 November 2025)	The ATR "multiplied by 3 or more"; 1:2 and 1:3 ratios; "risking 1% to aim for a 2% profit"	None	No
dailypriceaction.com (19 September 2024)	10 pips, printed as a warning rather than a recommendation, against stops of 90 to 180 pips	None	No
fbs.com (14 April 2025)	"The take-profit is 30-40 pips", paired with a stop of 15-20 pips	GBPJPY, M5, 10-EMA and 26-EMA	No

Two things in that table shape the answers. Some sources publish no absolute target distance at all: tradingwithrayner.com gives a stop distance and no target, and forexgdp.com gives a ratio and nothing else. And of the ones that do publish a distance, only a couple attach it to both an instrument and a timeframe, which is what makes a pip figure mean anything.

How many pips should your take profit be?

No pip number travels. One source prints a target in pips together with the pair, the timeframe and the stop it belongs to, and the gap between its numbers and the next source's shows why a figure on its own is useless.

That source is FBS. On GBPJPY on the M5 chart, using a 10-period exponential moving average against a 26-period one: "The stop-loss should be placed 15-20 pips above the sell order level. The take-profit is 30-40 pips." It then does its own ratio, "The stop-loss (15-20 pips) to take-profit (30-40 pips) ratio is 1 to 2" (fbs.com, 14 April 2025).

Daily Price Action shows the same pairing running the other way. Writing about plans that aim for 10 pips a day: "Most of the strategies that aim for 10 pips a day use a 90 pip stop loss or greater. I have even seen some as large as 180 pips; to achieve just 10 pips of profit." The page works out what win rate a 10 against 90 pairing would need just to break even and calls it unrealistic for any forex strategy. Its objection is to the format rather than to the number: "I'm against aiming for any number of pips within any specified period of time" (dailypriceaction.com, updated 19 September 2024).

Scale is the other half of it. Forextraders' 1-minute EUR/USD scalp puts its stop "2-3 pips above the most recent swing high". FBS puts its stop at 15-20 pips and its target at 30-40. Same question, same asset class, an order of magnitude between them, and the gap comes from the pair and the timeframe each one is written for.

So the point is not 30 or 10. A target distance means nothing until you say what stop it sits next to. Thirty pips against a 15-pip stop and thirty pips against a 90-pip stop are different trades with the same target.

What percentage should your take profit be?

A percentage target is a habit imported from equities, and the sources that use one rarely say a percentage of what.

The Forex Geek describes closing part of a position "after a 2% gain". Arongroups frames it as account risk, "risking 1% to aim for a 2% profit". Blueberry Markets offers it as a choice of method: "Traders can decide this based on a percentage gain or technical level, such as resistance."

Those are two different rules wearing one word. A percentage of the entry price is a distance on the chart. A percentage of your account is a result, and the distance that produces it depends on your position size. None of the three names an instrument, which matters because the same percentage of price is a very different number of pips on gold than on EUR/USD.

Sizing from a stop distance is a separate calculation from choosing a target, and our free position size calculator handles that one.

Should you set the take profit at a chart level or at a fixed distance?

They answer different questions, and only one of them can be decided before you look at the chart.

The chart-level family puts the target where the market has already shown it reacts. The method on tradingwithrayner.com is "Place Take profit order before resistance/support" on a daily EUR/USD chart (updated 14 May 2023). Axi's range example is the same idea with numbers: inside a "300 pips range" on NZD/CAD, with entries near the 0.86 support, "you may set your take profit level just before 0.89". Arongroups adds unfilled imbalance zones between candles to the same list.

The fixed-distance family ignores the chart and measures from your entry. FBS's 30 to 40 pips is one. Forextraders sets the target by "doubling the distance from the entry order to the stop loss in pips and projecting it lower" for a short, on EUR/USD on a 1-minute chart (forextraders.com, 16 November 2022).

A level answers where, a distance answers how far, and a level can only be found with the chart in front of you. A fixed distance can be written into a plan and applied identically across a hundred trades. A level cannot, which is why it adapts and why two traders applying it to the same chart get different targets.

How do you set a take profit from the ATR?

Two sources publish an ATR multiple, and they do not apply it to the same thing.

Arongroups gives the only ATR target rule among them: "multiply the ATR value by a factor such as 1.5 or 2 and use the result as a suitable stop-loss distance. Similarly, for take-profit, the ATR value can be multiplied by 3 or more to maintain a proper risk-to-reward ratio." It credits the idea to a third party by name with nothing to follow, "According to quantifiedstrategies" (arongroups.co, 4 November 2025).

Axi's ATR numbers look similar and are not the same thing. "A trend following ATR stop would set the exit at 2-3 times the daily ATR from the low of the day", and "A short-term ATR stop would set the exit at around 1.5xATR from the low of the day". Both are trailing stops rather than targets. Its illustration is gold, where the daily ATR "has ranged from 17.70 to 31.37" from April to mid-August 2021, so at its peak in that window gold was "moving around $31 per day". That is a useful reading of volatility, and it is not a profit target.

The Forex Geek's ATR-Based Targets section recommends "profit targets based on multiples of ATR" and never says which multiple.

How the average true range is calculated, and what period to run it on, is a separate subject from where you put the target.

Where do Fibonacci targets go: the retracement or the extension?

Two sources give Fibonacci instructions, and they point in opposite directions.

Blueberry Markets places the target inside the move: "Place the take-profit order at key Fibonacci levels, such as 38.2%, 50%, and 61.8% of the movement." Forextraders places it beyond the move: "During strong trending conditions, a market will typically reach the 138.2%, 161.8%, 178.6% and 200% extensions or higher."

Both cannot be the same instruction. A retracement at 38.2% to 61.8% is a pullback inside a swing that already happened. An extension at 138.2% to 200% is a projection past the end of it. One takes profit before the move completes, the other after it extends.

A source that tells you to use "key Fibonacci levels" without saying retracement or extension has not given you an instruction you can follow.

Does your take profit have to clear the spread?

Yes, and it is the adjustment almost nobody publishes.

One source turns a cost into a distance. Trading Strategy Guides has a heading for it, "Accommodate for Spread and NOT Aiming for the Last Pip", and two amounts: "If you are trading on the 5-minute chart, accommodate the spread and give an extra pip or two. However, if you use the 4-hour chart, accommodate the spread and give an additional 10-15 pips" (tradingstrategyguides.com, 31 July 2023).

That makes it close to alone. Blueberry Markets raises slippage, but only as a risk to the fill, never as something taken off the target. Nothing else in the set turns a cost into a target distance at all.

Take round numbers: a 10-pip target with 2 pips of round-trip cost leaves 8, a loss of a fifth. The same 2 pips against a 30-pip target leaves 28, a loss of a fifteenth. The cost matters in proportion to how close the target is, so the plans recommending the tightest targets are the ones that can least afford to leave it out, and they are the ones that do.

This is also where a backtest and a real account part company. If your testing applies no cost, a tight-target rule will look better on paper than it can be in practice, and the gap grows the tighter the target is. In ChartLabs, commission and slippage are set per symbol, and every trade's profit and loss, balances and analytics reflect them. The trading simulator page states the same about the stats: "profit factor, drawdown, Sharpe, Sortino and Calmar, Monte Carlo simulation, and trading costs, since commission and slippage are applied per symbol."

How do you find the take profit distance your own setup needs?

By running the same entry rule twice over the same history with two different target rules, and comparing the two groups with costs applied.

None of the sources sets out that comparison. The closest is Trading Strategy Guides, which at least says to test the tool: "A trader must check and backtest the mechanics of these tools."

A workable version of it, using what a manual backtest gives you:

Fix everything except the target. Same instrument, same timeframe, same entry rule, same stop rule, same date range.
Pick two target rules to compare, for example a multiple of the stop distance against a level-based target. Two is enough. Testing six at once is how you end up fitting the rule to the sample.
Take the trades in replay and tag each one with the rule it used. The Orders panel shows up to five tags per trade, and the analytics filter by tag.
Write down why, not just what. A Notes column sits in the Orders panel and a note button on the chart while a trade is open, and notes come through in the CSV export. The note is what tells you later whether a target was missed by two pips or by forty.
Apply costs before you compare. A tight target and a wide one are affected very differently by the same spread.
Compare the tagged groups rather than the individual trades. Our beginner's guide to backtesting walks through the process end to end, and the forex backtesting guide covers the pair-specific parts.

You get a distribution for one setup, on one instrument, on one timeframe, under the costs you set. That is a smaller answer than "use 30 pips", and it is about your trading rather than someone else's.

How many trades you need before the comparison means anything is its own question, and a small sample will happily show you a difference that is not there.

Should you take partial profits?

Several sources describe it, and a staged exit is three or four targets rather than one.

The Forex Geek publishes a split, three bullets under its own "For example:":

"30% of position closed at Target 1."
"40% closed at Target 2."
"Final 30% left to run with a trailing stop."

Blueberry Markets describes tiered targets at several price levels where "only a part of the position at each target level is closed". Both are fair descriptions of how traders work.

For testing, each leg is its own rule with its own distance, so a staged exit needs a record per leg rather than one line per trade. That is more bookkeeping than a single target, and it is the reason to write the whole ladder down before the first trade rather than deciding the second leg while the first one is running.

Can you move a take profit once the trade is open?

On a live trading platform, yes, and two of the sources show how.

Blueberry Markets lists "Monitor/adjust the order" as the last of its five steps, so that "if the market trend changes, the trade can adjust the take-profit level". Arongroups gives the MetaTrader mechanics: "right-click on it in the Trade tab and select Modify or Delete Order to adjust the levels."

Arongroups' page then lists doing it without a rule among its five common mistakes: "Constantly changing TP and SL without clear analysis or logic. Traders who frequently move their levels during an open position usually lack a consistent trading system." The question is whether the move was in the plan before the trade was on. A target you move once is a different strategy from the one you tested, and nothing in your results will say so.

Two instructions worth reading twice

Two sources publish an instruction whose own halves do not work.

Arongroups' risk-to-reward example puts the stop and the target on the same side of the entry: "If the entry price is 1.0000 and the stop-loss is at 1.0050 (a 50-pip risk), the take-profit should be at least 1.0100 (a 100-pip gain)." The pip arithmetic is right and the geometry cannot be, because 1.0050 and 1.0100 are both above 1.0000.

Trading Strategy Guides' spread instruction points one way twice: "place your actual take profit a few pips below (for the upside target) and a few pips under (for the downside target) your original profit place". Below and under are the same direction, and a short position's target has to move the other way.

Trading Strategy Guides has the only cost-to-distance rule in the set, and Arongroups the only ATR target multiple. Read any instruction you are about to test closely enough to notice when it does not hold together, because a rule you cannot state precisely is a rule you cannot backtest.

Two more things to check as you read. Forextraders publishes a break-even figure for an example strategy without showing how it follows from the two pip numbers it gives in the same sentence. And several sources carry no publication or update date at all, only a site copyright year, so there is no telling how old the instruction is.

Where to start

Pick one entry rule you already trade, pick two target rules, and run them both over the same stretch of history with your costs switched on. You will learn more about your own target distance in an afternoon of that than from a list of pip numbers.

ChartLabs is a manual backtesting platform: you replay historical charts bar by bar, place market, limit and stop orders with a stop and a target, and review what happened with costs applied. It covers forex, index, commodity and crypto instruments, from 1-minute candles upward. The data is sourced from Dukascopy, tick-level where it is available, and cleaned to remove anomalies, with history reaching up to around 22 years on the oldest forex pairs and other instruments starting later.

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Forex Take Profit Strategy: How Far Should the Target Be