Position Size Calculator
Lots or contracts for your risk and stop - and how each loss measures up to your prop firm's daily and max loss limits.
Your account and trade
Position size
Position size
2.5 lots
Loses $500.00 at the stop - 0.50% of the account. 250,000 units.
- Risk budget
- $500.00
- Pip value
- $10.00
- per lot
- Exact size
- 2.500
- before rounding down
- Next size up
- $502.00
- risk at 2.51 lots
How the calculator works
Size from risk
Size = risk in dollars ÷ (stop distance × value of one pip or point per lot). The result is rounded down to 0.01 lots, or to whole contracts for futures, so the loss at the stop stays within your risk.
Forex and metals
A standard lot is 100,000 units, so a pip is worth 10 units of the quote currency, converted to dollars at the ECB reference rate - or at the rate you enter. Gold is 100 oz per lot and silver 5,000 oz, so a $1 move is $100 or $5,000 per lot. Check your platform: some brokers use other contract sizes for metals.
Futures
Point values are the exchanges' contract specifications, the same at every broker and prop firm. The stop is in index points or price, and the tick count is shown beneath it.
Loss limits
Enter your challenge's daily and maximum loss as a percentage of the starting balance to see how much of each a single loss uses. Pick a challenge on the compare page to find its limits.
Spread, commission and slippage are not included - a stop can fill worse than its price in a fast market. For a CFD index or crypto, choose Other and enter the value from your platform's contract specification.
Position size: common questions
How do I calculate position size for a prop firm challenge?
Decide how much of the account you will lose if the stop is hit - say 0.5% of $100,000, which is $500. Divide it by what one lot loses at your stop: with a 20-pip stop on EUR/USD, one lot loses 20 × $10 = $200, so the position is $500 ÷ $200 = 2.5 lots.
How much should I risk per trade on a funded account?
That is your decision, but it should follow from the firm's loss limits rather than from the account size alone. With a 5% daily loss limit, risking 1% per trade leaves room for five losses in a day; at 2.5% two losses end the day. The calculator shows how many losses at your stop each limit allows.
What is a pip worth?
On a standard lot (100,000 units) a pip is 0.0001 of price - 0.01 for yen pairs - so it is worth 10 units of the quote currency: $10 on EUR/USD or GBP/USD, ¥1,000 on USD/JPY, which the calculator converts to dollars at the current rate.
How are futures sized?
In whole contracts, each with a dollar value per point set by the exchange: $50 for ES, $5 for MES, $20 for NQ and $2 for MNQ. Contracts = risk ÷ (stop in points × point value), rounded down. When a single full-size contract risks too much, the micro contract is a tenth of the size.
Why is the size rounded down?
So a loss at the stop never exceeds the risk you set. Lots trade in steps of 0.01 and futures in whole contracts, so the exact figure is rounded down to the nearest size you can place.
Does the daily loss limit include open trades?
At most firms it does - and commissions and swaps count too - so the real room is smaller than the calculator shows when trades are already open. Some firms measure it from the day's starting balance, some from equity. Compare challenges to see each firm's drawdown rules.