Futures position size calculator
Enter your account balance, risk per trade, planned entry and stop. The calculator returns the maximum whole number of futures contracts that stays within that risk.
Inputs
Result
Your position size will appear here
Enter the account, contract, entry and stop details, then calculate the maximum whole-contract position.
How it’s calculated
Risk budget = Balance × Risk %Ticks to stop = |Entry − Stop| ÷ Tick sizeRisk / contract = Stop ticks × Tick valueContracts = floor(Budget ÷ Risk / contract)For linear futures with a fixed tick value. Fees, slippage, currency conversion and gaps are excluded; a stop does not guarantee its execution price.
Choose position size from your planned loss—not your desired exposure
The calculator divides your risk budget by the dollar risk of one contract at the selected stop. It does not decide where a stop belongs or whether the trade is appropriate.
Tick inputs
Use the exchange-defined tick size and tick value for the exact contract. Micro and standard contracts are not interchangeable.
Rounding
The maximum is floored to whole contracts. If one contract already exceeds the risk budget, the valid result is zero—not a recommendation to widen the budget.
Method
CME explains the same stop-distance and tick-value approach in its position-size lesson. You can separately check margin and effective leverage.
Position size is only one part of the plan.
Check the same stop against a target, measure leverage and margin, or calculate the trade's P&L — every futures calculator lives on one page.