Position Size Calculator

Three inputs drive every calculation. Your risk amount is a fixed slice of equity — commonly 1–2%. Your stop distance is how far price must move against you before you exit. And the value per unit is what one pip or point is worth per unit of position. Fix the first, measure the second, and the size is determined. Widen your stop and the position shrinks to keep the loss constant; tighten it and the position can grow. The risk stays put — that's the whole point.

Why does this matter so much? Because losses compound against you. Picture two traders with the same $10,000 account and the same strategy — one risks 2% per trade, the other 10%. After an identical run of five losing trades, something every trader eventually meets, the disciplined one is down under 10% and barely troubled. The aggressive one has lost around 40% and now needs a gain of roughly 70% just to get back to even. Same strategy, same market, opposite fates. Position sizing is what decides which of the two you become.

The two examples below are worked exactly the way the calculator does it, using instruments from the dropdown so you can reproduce them yourself.

The input traders find fiddliest is the value per unit of movement — the pip value in forex, the point value on an index or commodity. A pip is the standard smallest increment on a currency pair (0.0001 on most pairs, 0.01 on yen pairs), and its cash value depends on your position size and the pair's quote currency; on a standard EUR/USD lot it is about $10. On an index or on gold, the equivalent is what a one-point move is worth per contract, which varies by instrument. Getting this figure right by hand is where most manual sizing errors creep in — the calculator reads it from the instrument you select, so you never have to look it up.

By TradeSpotter Editorial · reviewed for 2026

On forex, the calculator returns a lot size (a standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency), because that's how currency positions are placed. This is the classic forex position size — or lot size — calculation: risk amount divided by the stop in pips, divided again by the pip value. A tighter stop allows more lots; a wider one, fewer.

On indices such as the DAX 40 or NAS 100, positions are counted in contracts and the stop is measured in points rather than pips, so the tool returns a contract count. On gold, silver and oil, the same logic runs in the instrument's own units — ounces or barrels — with the stop measured in the price itself.

On crypto CFDs like Bitcoin and Ethereum, the calculator returns a number of coins. Because a 1% move on a $65,000 asset is a large absolute distance, the resulting position is usually small — which is exactly the protection you want on a volatile market. Whichever asset you trade, the discipline is identical: the size bends to your stop so your maximum loss stays fixed.

Leverage sets the margin — the deposit needed to open a position. It does not set how much you can lose. Your loss is fixed by your position size and your stop distance, full stop. Two traders can open the same position with wildly different leverage and face identical risk if their stops match.

That's why the calculator never asks how much leverage you have before sizing the trade — it asks how much you're willing to lose. The position it returns is almost always far smaller than your leverage would permit, and that gap is the difference between traders who survive and traders who don't. High leverage doesn't oblige you to trade large; it merely permits it. Position sizing is the discipline of declining the permission.

It helps to hold two numbers apart on every trade. Margin is what the broker sets aside to open the position — a function of size and leverage. Risk is what you lose if the stop is hit — a function of size and stop distance. They answer different questions, yet beginners routinely confuse them and size by the margin they have rather than the loss they can accept. The calculator shows both figures, but only one of them should ever drive the decision.

For EU and DACH retail traders, leverage is capped by the ESMA framework — 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on non-major pairs, gold and major indices, and lower on other instruments. Size by risk and those caps rarely bind: a properly sized position usually sits well within them. If your calculated size is bumping the ceiling, that's a signal your stop is too tight or your risk too high — not a reason to hunt for looser limits offshore.

Fixed-fractional risk — the 1–2% rule the tool applies — automatically scales positions up as the account grows and down as it shrinks, cushioning drawdowns and compounding gains. For almost every retail trader it's the right default.

Some traders prefer a fixed-dollar amount, risking the same cash figure on every trade regardless of balance. It's simpler to reason about but doesn't adapt as the account changes. Others cite the Kelly criterion, which sizes according to your edge and win/loss ratio. Kelly can be mathematically optimal in theory, but it assumes you know your true win rate precisely — which almost no one does — and full Kelly produces stomach-churning swings, so the few who use it trade a small fraction of it. Unless you have a large, well-measured record of trades, fixed-fractional sizing at 1–2% will serve you better and cost you far less sleep.