Tool
Futures position size calculator
Calculate contract size and risk for ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, YM, MYM, CL, GC, and other futures contracts, enter your stop in ticks, get the contract count.
40 contracts
Raw sizing is 40.00, rounded down to 40.
Budgeted risk
$500.00
1% of $50,000
Risk per contract
$12.50
10 ticks × $1.25
Actual risk at size
$500.00
40 × $12.50
Stop is 2.50 points. Commissions, exchange fees, and slippage are not included, budget 1–2 extra ticks on the stop side.
How this calculation works
Position size = account risk ÷ (stop in ticks × tick value per contract). For a $50K Apex evaluation with a $500 risk cap per trade, a 10-tick stop on MES ($1.25 per tick) allows 40 contracts , far more than the max-contract rule allows. For the same 10-tick stop on ES ($12.50 per tick), it's 4 contracts. The calculator shows the raw number; always cap against your firm's max contract rule.
Caveat: this does not subtract commissions, exchange fees, or slippage. In practice budget 1–2 extra ticks on the stop side for those costs.