Futures Position Size Calculator
Built for futures. Enter your account size, the risk you'll take, and your stop in ticks, and get the exact number of contracts to trade, including how to split it between micros and minis. Tick and point values are baked in for ES, NQ, CL, GC and the rest.
Good position sizing starts from the risk, not the reward. Decide how much you're willing to lose if your stop is hit, and the number of contracts falls out of the math. It's never a round number you picked because it felt right. This tool runs that math for every major futures contract and tells you how to express the size in micros and minis.
- What it does
- Contracts from your risk + stop
- Risk input
- Dollars or % of account
- Stop input
- Ticks or points
- Output
- Minis + micros to trade
- Markets built in
- Index, energy, metals, rates, FX
Try it yourself
Set your account size and per-trade risk, pick a contract, and enter your stop distance. The tool returns the contracts to trade, the risk that size actually commits, and (where a micro exists) the tightest mix of minis and micros that fits inside your budget.
20 ticks = 5 points · $250 per ES · $25 per MES
Risks $500 (100.0% of your risk budget) at this stop, which is 25.0% of your $2,000 max drawdown. That leaves $0 of your $500 budget unused.
| Risk budget | $500 |
| Risk vs max drawdown | 25.0% of $2,000 |
| Losses to drawdown | 4 trades |
| Risk per ES (mini) | $250 |
| Risk per MES (micro) | $25 |
| Recommended (minis + micros) | 2 ES |
| Or, micros only | 20 MES |
| Or, minis only | 2 ES |
Educational tool, not trading advice. It sizes a position from the risk youenter; it does not recommend what to trade or where to set a stop. Tick and point values are per CME Group contract specs; confirm your plan's allowed products and current specs before trading. Futures trading carries a substantial risk of loss.
How the calculator sizes a trade
Three inputs decide your size. Risk budget comes from your account and the percent (or dollars) you choose. Risk per contract comes from your stop and the contract's tick value. Divide one by the other and round down: that's your size.
1: Set your risk
Enter your account size and how much you will risk on the trade: a flat dollar amount, or a percent of the account. That percent times your balance is your risk budget: the most you are willing to lose if the stop is hit.
2: Measure your stop
Enter the distance from entry to stop in ticks (or points, which the tool converts using the contract’s tick size). Multiply that by the tick value and you have the dollar risk of a single contract.
3: Read your size
Contracts = risk budget ÷ risk per contract, rounded down. Where a micro exists, the calculator fills whole minis first, then tops up with micros so the size lands as close to your budget as possible without going over.
The formula is just contracts = risk budget ÷ (stop in ticks × tick value). Everything else the tool shows (the micro/mini split, the risk committed, the unused budget) is built on that one line.
Tick and point values baked in
A tick is the smallest move a contract can make; its tick value is the dollars that move is worth per contract. A point is a full 1.0 move. The calculator carries both for every market it supports. Here are the ones traders look up most.
| Rule | Tick value / tick size | Point value |
|---|---|---|
| ES: E-mini S&P 500 | $12.50 / 0.25 pt | $50 |
| MES: Micro E-mini S&P 500 | $1.25 / 0.25 pt | $5 |
| NQ: E-mini Nasdaq-100 | $5.00 / 0.25 pt | $20 |
| MNQ: Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 | $0.50 / 0.25 pt | $2 |
| CL: Crude Oil | $10.00 / 0.01 | $1,000 |
| MCL: Micro Crude Oil | $1.00 / 0.01 | $100 |
| GC: Gold | $10.00 / 0.10 | $100 |
| MGC: Micro Gold | $1.00 / 0.10 | $10 |
The full list in the calculator also covers the E-mini Dow (YM) and Russell 2000 (RTY) and their micros, natural gas (NG), silver (SI/SIL) and copper (HG/MHG), the U.S. Treasuries (ZB, ZN, ZF, ZT), and the CME FX majors (6E, 6B, 6J, 6A, 6C).
Micros vs minis: why the split matters
The calculator doesn't just round down to whole minis and waste the rest of your budget. Because a micro is a clean fraction of its mini and shares the same tick size, it fills whole minis first and then tops up with micros, so a $500 budget that only buys 1.7 minis becomes, say, 1 mini + 7 micros instead of leaving a third of your risk on the table.
Granularity
One micro is 1/10 of a mini on the index, energy and gold markets (1/5 on silver), so you can fine-tune size to your exact risk budget instead of jumping in big steps. A mini is the full-size contract. On a small or funded account a single mini can blow past your per-trade risk on a normal stop.
Same tick, same stop
A micro shares its mini’s tick size, so a stop you measure in ticks is identical for both. Only the dollar risk per contract changes. That is exactly why the mix works: 10 micros risk the same as 1 mini, so the tool can swap between them with no rounding error.
Scaling
Micros let you scale in and out in small pieces and keep risk constant as your account grows. Minis keep commissions and screen clutter down once your size is large enough that micros become unwieldy.
Sizing a funded account
On a funded or evaluation account, per-trade risk is only half the picture: the account also has a maximum drawdown, and some plans add a daily loss limit. Those floors, not just your stop, decide how much you can afford to lose before the account is gone. Size each trade to stay comfortably inside them.
See exactly how those floors move on the Drawdown Calculator, then pick the evaluation that fits your style on the plans page.
Frequently asked questions
Size it here, trade it on a funded account.
Now that your size comes from your risk instead of a guess, pick the evaluation that matches how you trade and put the plan to work.
Browse evaluationsAccount sizes and risk parameters are subject to change.
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