Futures Profit Calculator
Futures P&L is counted in ticks, not dollars per point. Enter your entry, exit, tick size, tick value and contract count and this returns the tick count and the net dollar result after round-turn commissions.
Ticks, not points
A futures contract moves in ticks — the smallest increment the exchange allows — and each tick is worth a fixed number of dollars. E-mini S&P (ES) ticks in 0.25 index points, each worth $12.50, so a full point is $50. Nasdaq (NQ) also ticks in 0.25 but each is worth $5, so a point is $20. Crude (CL) ticks in $0.01 worth $10 each, so a point is $1,000.
Those numbers are not interchangeable, and a trader moving between contracts who keeps sizing by "points" will be wrong by a factor of several. The value-per-point line in the result exists to make that explicit.
Common contract specifications
| Contract | Tick size | Tick value | Per point |
|---|---|---|---|
| ES — E-mini S&P 500 | 0.25 | $12.50 | $50 |
| MES — Micro E-mini S&P | 0.25 | $1.25 | $5 |
| NQ — E-mini Nasdaq 100 | 0.25 | $5.00 | $20 |
| MNQ — Micro E-mini Nasdaq | 0.25 | $0.50 | $2 |
| CL — Crude oil | 0.01 | $10.00 | $1,000 |
| GC — Gold | 0.10 | $10.00 | $100 |
Verify against your broker's contract specifications before trading — exchanges do change them, and micro contracts exist for most of the majors at a tenth of the size.
Fees matter more here than anywhere
A round turn on ES might cost $4–5 all in. On a trade targeting 4 ticks ($50), that is 10% of the target gone before the trade starts. Scalpers in futures are competing directly against their commission schedule, and the difference between a negotiated rate and a default one is frequently the difference between a profitable and an unprofitable system. Put your real round-turn cost in the field above.
Leverage is enormous and invisible
One ES contract controls roughly $260,000 of index exposure on a few thousand dollars of day margin. A 1% move against you is $2,600. Size from the stop and the account, not from what margin permits — the position size calculator does that arithmetic.
Where the multiplier comes from
Contract specifications, not convention. CME's E-mini S&P 500 is $50 × the index with a minimum tick of 0.25 index points, worth $12.50 a contract.[1] Every futures P&L calculation is that multiplier times the point move times the contract count.
The number is the easy part
Everything above is arithmetic, and anyone opening this page gets the same answer. What no calculator can settle is whether you took the trade on these terms, or are describing — afterwards — the version of it that worked out.
That is what a trade recorder is for: the trade committed before it resolves, timestamped and sealed on the spot, on a Merkle-anchored log a stranger can check without kappi's cooperation. The plan you typed here stops being a plan you remember having. $15/month, no free tier.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate futures profit?
Divide the price move by the tick size to get ticks, multiply by the tick value and the number of contracts, then subtract round-turn commissions.
What is the tick value of an ES contract?
$12.50 per 0.25-point tick, which makes a full index point worth $50 per contract. Micro ES (MES) is a tenth of that.
Why do futures use ticks instead of dollars per point?
The tick is the minimum price increment the exchange allows. Contracts differ in both tick size and tick value, so the dollars-per-point figure varies widely between products.
How much do futures commissions matter?
A great deal on short-term trades. A $4–5 round turn against a 4-tick ($50) target on ES is around 10% of the target, before slippage.