The short answer
The profit or loss on your Polymarket profile is not a list of the bets you won and lost. For the period you pick (1D, 1W, 1M or All), it is the change in your profit chart: the last point minus the first. That change includes bets that are still open, valued at today's price, and it already has the fees taken out. It does not include the money Polymarket pays back. So the number can move on a day you don't trade.
To see your own month next to its fees, type your Polymarket @name or paste your profile address into the free check above.
What the profile number is
Three things are inside the one number Polymarket shows for a period:
- Bets that finished. Bets that ended in the period, or that you sold in the period. A bet you bought before the period started also counts here, but only for the change in its value inside the period. If you bought at 40¢, the price was 70¢ when the month started and the bet won, the month gets the move from 70¢ to $1, not the full move from 40¢.
- Open bets valued at today's price. A bet that has not ended yet counts at what it is worth today. If the price falls tomorrow, your profit falls tomorrow, even if you did nothing.
- Fees, already taken out. Every fee you paid in the period is already subtracted. You see the result, not the fees.
What it leaves out
- Your total fees. Polymarket shows the fee on each trade, but it never adds them up. The profile number is after fees, and nowhere does it say how much of it went to fees. More on this: how much have I paid in Polymarket fees.
- Money Polymarket pays back. Since 28 May 2026 Polymarket returns part of the fee on instant buys, pays limit orders a share of other traders' fees, and pays some rewards. This money comes as separate payments into your cash. It is not in the profile number: we watched wallets during quiet hours, and when a payment arrived, the profile number did not move. More on this: does Polymarket give fees back.
Why "I keep winning" can still be a loss
Counting wins is not the same as counting money. Take ten bets on sports markets. Each time you buy 100 shares at 80¢ by clicking Buy at the screen price. Each buy costs $80.00 plus a fee of $0.80.
- A win pays $1 a share: +$20.00 on the bet.
- A loss pays nothing: −$80.00 on the bet.
Now say you win 8 of the 10:
- 8 wins: 8 × $20.00 = +$160.00
- 2 losses: 2 × $80.00 = −$160.00
- Fees: 10 × $0.80 = −$8.00
You won 8 times out of 10, and the result is −$8.00. Before fees the ten bets were exactly even. The fees turned them into a loss.
Selling before the end changes the picture too. A sale at the screen price sets your result at that price, and the sale pays a fee of its own. Selling the same 100 shares at 90¢ on a sports market costs another $0.45 in fees.
What we saw in 108 wallets
We looked at 108 public wallets checked on polyfees that had bets finish in the last 30 days. For each one we put the 30-day number Polymarket shows next to the bets that finished in the same 30 days.
- 43 of 108: the profile month and the bets that finished in it were more than 30% apart, and by $100 or more.
- 11 of 108: the profile month and the bets that finished in it told different stories. One showed a profit and the other a loss.
The main reasons were the two described above: open bets valued at today's price, and bets that started before the month. Neither number is wrong. They answer different questions: "how did my account change" and "how did the bets that ended do".
How to read your own month
The free check above shows three lines side by side, for the last 30 days:
- what Polymarket shows for your profit or loss;
- how much went to fees, from Polymarket's own public records, to the cent;
- what Polymarket paid back.
No login and no keys: your profile address is already public. For every bet that finished, our result is compared with Polymarket's own result for that bet; on ordinary wallets they agree to within five cents (1,039 of 1,039 positions in our tests). How we count, step by step.
To see which bets made the month, the full report for $19 goes through the finished bets one by one.
Questions
Why does my profit change when I don't trade?
Your open bets count at today's price. When the price of an open bet moves, the profile number moves with it, even if you made no trades.
Does the Polymarket PnL include fees?
Yes. The fees are already taken out of the profit or loss on your profile. Polymarket does not show the total of those fees anywhere. The free check above adds them up for the last 30 days, to the cent.
Why is my cash different from my profit?
Cash is the money you can use now. The profit number also counts open bets at today's price, and money in an open bet is not cash until the bet ends or you sell. Money paid back by Polymarket goes into your cash, but not into the profit number.
Does the profit include money Polymarket paid back?
No. The part of the fee returned, the share paid for limit orders and the rewards come as separate payments into your cash. The profile number does not move when they arrive.
Why is my profile in profit but my balance went down?
Usually because money left your cash and went into open bets, or out as a withdrawal. If your open bets are worth more today than you paid, the profile shows a profit, while your cash is lower. That profit becomes cash only when the bets pay out or you sell them.