This futures calculator tells you how many contracts to take so you never exceed the risk you set, and gives you the tick value and the point value for each contract. MES, MNQ, MGC, ES, NQ, GC, CL: values are preset from the CME specifications. Free, instant, no sign-up, and it doubles as a futures position size calculator on any contract.
Tick value and tick size are preset per contract and stay editable. Point value follows from both: tick value divided by tick size.
A futures contract moves in fixed steps called ticks. Each tick is worth a dollar amount that depends on neither your account nor the price: 1.25 on the MES, 0.50 on the MNQ, 1.00 on the MGC. That is the first input, and the one most traders do not know by heart.
Cost of one contract = stop distance in ticks × tick value. A 40-tick stop on the MES costs 40 × 1.25, so 50 per contract. That number, not the distance in points, is what you compare with your allowed risk.
Contracts = allowed risk ÷ cost of one contract, rounded down. This futures contract calculator always rounds down: you never exceed the risk you chose, even if that leaves headroom unused, which it shows you.
The full formula: contracts = (capital × risk %) ÷ (stop in ticks × tick value), rounded down. And the point value everyone looks for: tick value ÷ tick size.
Want to see what a trading journal kept on futures looks like?
Read the futures journal guide →This is the number traders check most often and remember least. The MES tick value, the MGC tick value and the MNQ point value cannot be guessed: the exchange fixes them and they do not move. Here they are for the ten most traded contracts, with the point value that follows.
| Contract | Tick size | Tick value | Point value |
|---|---|---|---|
| MES · Micro E-mini S&P 500 | 0.25 | 1.25 | 5 |
| ES · E-mini S&P 500 | 0.25 | 12.50 | 50 |
| MNQ · Micro E-mini Nasdaq | 0.25 | 0.50 | 2 |
| NQ · E-mini Nasdaq 100 | 0.25 | 5.00 | 20 |
| MYM · Micro E-mini Dow | 1 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
| YM · E-mini Dow | 1 | 5.00 | 5 |
| MGC · Micro Gold | 0.10 | 1.00 | 10 |
| GC · Gold | 0.10 | 10.00 | 100 |
| MCL · Micro Crude Oil | 0.01 | 1.00 | 100 |
| CL · Crude Oil | 0.01 | 10.00 | 1,000 |
Keep the ten-to-one ratio between a micro and its full-size contract in mind. It is what makes micros indispensable to small accounts: on the MES a 40-tick stop costs 50, on the ES the same stop costs 500. With 50,000 of capital and 1% of risk you take ten MES or a single ES.
A futures contract does not split. You take three or four, never 3.4. So the calculator always rounds down and shows the headroom you leave unused. Rounding up would exceed the risk you had just set, which would empty the calculation of its meaning.
That lost headroom is the real cost of a full-size contract for a small account, and the table below prices it. Same 50,000 of capital, same 1% risk, so 500 allowed, same 40-tick stop.
| Contract | Cost of one | Contracts taken | Actual risk | Headroom lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MES | 50 | 10 | 500 | 0 |
| MNQ | 20 | 25 | 500 | 0 |
| MGC | 40 | 12 | 480 | 20 |
| ES | 500 | 1 | 500 | 0 |
| NQ | 200 | 2 | 400 | 100 |
| GC | 400 | 1 | 400 | 100 |
Look at the NQ and GC rows: a fifth of your allowed risk stays on the table because the second contract does not fit. On the equivalent micros the granularity is fine enough to use the risk in full. That is an argument a futures position size calculator makes visible and most spreadsheets keep quiet.
Take the question the way traders actually ask it: how many contracts can you trade to risk 250 on gold futures with a 30-tick stop? On the GC a tick is worth 10, so the stop costs 300 per contract and you cannot take a single one without going over. On the MGC the tick is worth 1, the stop costs 30, and 250 divided by 30 gives eight contracts for an actual risk of 240. Used as an MNQ calculator, the tool runs identical arithmetic; only the tick value changes.
The same reasoning holds on the index. A 30-tick stop costs 375 on the ES and 37.50 on the MES. A futures risk calculator does nothing more than that division, but it does it with the right tick value, and that is exactly where the mistakes live.
One last point the table does not show: these values belong to the contract, not to your broker. Intraday margin varies from broker to broker and changes nothing in the risk calculation. Do not confuse the amount your broker requires to open the position with the amount you lose if the stop is hit.
Three words, three different things, and the confusion is expensive because it only shows up on the statement.
It gives you a size for one trade, which is all a futures lot size calculator should do once the tick value is known. It does not say whether your series of trades makes money, which is another question, answered by your win rate and your reward-to-risk ratio. The win rate calculator returns the threshold your rate has to beat. Nor is it a testing tool: futures backtesting is its own discipline, and it needs tick data clean enough that the fills are believable. That is usually where free backtesting falls short, and why choosing the best backtesting software for futures is really a question of whose data you trust. Which prop firm suits you is yet another question, one of drawdown rules rather than tick arithmetic.
It does not know your prop firm's rules either. A daily loss limit changes the size allowed on the third trade of the day, not the first: that is the job of the risk calculator, which tests your plan against that limit.
And on markets quoted in lots rather than contracts, the position size calculator does the same work with pip value in place of tick value.
Contract size and tick value decide everything else, and the point value follows from them: 2 dollars a point for the MNQ, 50 for the ES, 5 for the MES. Once those three numbers are known, a futures contract calculator and an ES futures calculator run exactly the same arithmetic; only the instrument changes.
A futures profit calculator answers « what does this move pay me », a risk calculator answers « what does my stop cost me ». Both run the same multiplication in opposite directions, so the Nasdaq works exactly like the S&P 500: only the tick value changes.
Tax on futures trading is the one thing this page will not compute. It depends on your country of residence and your status, and an approximate number on that ground helps nobody.
1.25 dollars. The MES has a 0.25-point tick and a 5-dollar point value, so each tick is worth 5 divided by 4, that is 1.25. On the full-size ES the same 0.25-point tick is worth 12.50 dollars because the point there is worth 50.
2 dollars per point. The MNQ quotes in 0.25-point steps and each tick is worth 0.50 dollar, so the point is worth four times 0.50. On the full-size NQ the point is worth 20 dollars and the tick 5 dollars, ten times more.
Contracts = allowed risk divided by (stop distance in ticks × tick value), rounded down. With 500 of risk, a 40-tick stop and an MES at 1.25 per tick, the stop costs 50 per contract and you take ten.
Because a contract does not split, and rounding up would exceed the risk you just set. The calculator shows the unused headroom so you can see what that granularity costs, and it is often the argument that moves a small account onto the micros.
Yes, fully free and no sign-up, like the five other calculators on this site. Tick values are preset from the exchange specifications and stay editable for a contract that is not in the list.