Position Size Calculator for Forex and Futures
Works out lots or contracts from your account, your risk and your stop — in pips, ticks or points. Runs in your browser, nothing to install.
What it does
- Pips, ticks or points — Switch the unit to match what you trade. The arithmetic is identical; only the label and the value per unit change. Presets fill both for the common instruments.
- It rounds down, never up — The exact answer is almost never a whole contract. Rounding up would put you over the limit you just set, so it rounds down and tells you how far under you landed.
- It tells you when you cannot trade it — If one contract or one micro lot already risks more than your limit, it says so plainly instead of returning a misleading 0.
- Nothing to install, nothing stored — It runs in the page. No account, no upload, no numbers leaving your machine.
The only question it answers
You have decided what a loss is worth. You have decided where the idea is wrong. Position size is what connects those two decisions, and it is the one part that is pure arithmetic:
risk in money ÷ (stop distance × value per unit) = size
Everything hard about trading happens before this line. This just stops you getting the easy part wrong at speed.
Pips, ticks and points
They are the same idea wearing different clothes, which is why one calculator covers all three.
A pip is the fourth decimal on most currency pairs. A tick is the smallest price increment of a futures contract — a quarter point on ES, worth $12.50. A point is whatever the instrument calls a whole unit.
The unit does not change the maths. It changes what number you type into "value per unit", and getting that wrong is the usual source of a position ten times bigger than intended. The presets fill it for you.
Why it rounds down
Divide a risk budget by a per-contract risk and you rarely get a whole number. 2.4 contracts is not a thing you can trade.
Round up to 3 and you have quietly broken the limit you set thirty seconds ago. So it rounds down to 2 and shows you the shortfall. Being slightly under your risk limit costs you a little upside. Being over it is how accounts end.
What it does not do
It does not know your broker's contract specifications, and it believes whatever value per unit you give it. Check the first calculation for a new instrument against your platform before trading real size.
It also has no opinion on whether the trade is any good.