Free tool

Futures Contract Size Calculator

Free futures contract size calculator: tick value, point value, and the full notional value one contract controls — MNQ, ES, NQ, MES, CL, GC and more. Includes exchange and clearing fees.
Your contract

Only used to show how much leverage this position carries.

MNQ — Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100

Value of 1 tick

$0.50

Tick size 0.25

Value of 1 point

$2.00

CME

Notional value controlled

$40,000

$40,000 per contract · 8× your account balance

A 10-point move is worth

$20.00

40 ticks · $20.00 per contract

Round-turn venue fees

$1.12

Exchange $0.70 · Clearing $0.38 · NFA $0.04. Your broker's commission is charged on top of this.

Contract size is three different numbers

“How big is one contract?” has three answers, and mixing them up is how traders end up surprised by a loss. Tick value is what the smallest price increment is worth. Point value is what a full point is worth — the contract's multiplier. Notional value is the face value the contract actually controls, which is almost always far larger than the margin you posted to trade it.

Tick value = Tick size × Point multiplier
Notional value = Price × Point multiplier

One MNQ at 20,000 costs a few hundred dollars in day-trading margin but controls $40,000 of Nasdaq-100 exposure. That gap is the whole reason futures cut both ways, and it's the number the calculator above puts in front of you.

“Lot size” in futures

If you came from forex, lot size means contract count here — futures have no standard/mini/micro lot convention layered on top of the instrument. The instrument itself is the size: MNQ is the micro version of NQ, at one tenth the multiplier. So “what lot size should I trade?” becomes two separate questions: which contract, and how many of them. This page answers the first; the position size calculator answers the second from your account risk.

The fees nobody puts in the calculator

Exchange, clearing and NFA fees are charged by the venue, not your broker, so they're identical wherever you route the order — and they usually don't appear in your broker's fee column at all. On a micro contract they're a meaningful share of the cost of a scalp. Where we've verified a product's rates against a real broker ledger, the calculator shows them; where we haven't, it says so rather than showing $0.00 and understating your cost.

Futures contract specifications

Tick size, tick value and point multiplier for every contract this calculator supports — the same reference data ExpectancyIQ uses to price your imported trades.

SymbolContractExchangeTick sizeTick valuePoint value
ESE-mini S&P 500CME0.25$12.50$50.00
MESMicro E-mini S&P 500CME0.25$1.25$5.00
NQE-mini Nasdaq-100CME0.25$5.00$20.00
MNQMicro E-mini Nasdaq-100CME0.25$0.50$2.00
RTYE-mini Russell 2000CME0.1$5.00$50.00
M2KMicro E-mini Russell 2000CME0.1$0.50$5.00
YME-mini DowCBOT1$5.00$5.00
MYMMicro E-mini DowCBOT1$0.50$0.50
CLCrude OilNYMEX0.01$10.00$1,000.00
MCLMicro Crude OilNYMEX0.01$1.00$100.00
GCGoldCOMEX0.1$10.00$100.00
MGCMicro GoldCOMEX0.1$1.00$10.00
SISilverCOMEX0.005$25.00$5,000.00
NGNatural GasNYMEX0.001$10.00$10,000.00
ZB30-Year U.S. Treasury BondCBOT0.03125$31.25$1,000.00
ZN10-Year U.S. Treasury NoteCBOT0.015625$15.63$1,000.00
6EEuro FXCME0.00005$6.25$125,000.00

From contract size to actual results

Knowing what a contract is worth is the arithmetic. Knowing whether your trading in it makes money is a different question — the expectancy calculator answers it from a win rate and average win/loss you type in, and ExpectancyIQ answers it from your real imported fills, fees included. Start free.