Frequently asked questions

Questions about the calculators, where the figures come from, and the arithmetic behind position sizing. If yours is not here, the contact form reaches us directly.

Are these calculators free?

Yes, all of them, and there is nothing to sign up for. No account, no email, no trial. The site is funded by affiliate commission from brokers and prop firms, which is disclosed on every page and changes nothing about the arithmetic.

Where do the contract specifications and swap rates come from?

They are read from a live MetaTrader 5 account at a named broker, and the date they were read is shown next to them. They are then compared against that broker again every day: if a pip value drifts more than 2% from what the broker's own platform calculates, the page is held back until it has been reconciled.

Why does your figure differ from what my broker shows?

Most often because specifications genuinely differ between brokers — contract sizes and especially swap rates are set by each broker, and swap changes daily. The figures here are one broker's snapshot on a stated date, not an industry standard. Always check the contract specification in your own platform before sizing a real position. If the gap looks too large to be that, please report it; genuine errors have been found here that way.

What is a pip worth?

It depends on the instrument and your position size, which is why a single number cannot answer it. For a standard lot of a currency pair with 100,000 units of the base currency, one pip is 10 units of the quote currency, then converted to your account currency at the current rate. That conversion is why the dollar value differs on every pair and moves during the day.

What is a standard, mini and micro lot?

A standard lot is 1.00 and equals 100,000 units of the base currency for a currency pair. A mini lot is 0.10 and a micro lot is 0.01, so their pip values are one tenth and one hundredth of the standard lot's. Contract sizes for metals, indices and crypto are set per instrument and are shown on each page.

How do I work out position size?

Decide the money you are willing to lose on the trade, then divide it by the distance to your stop multiplied by the value of one pip per lot. Risking $50 on a 20 pip stop where a pip is worth $6.22 gives $50 ÷ (20 × $6.22) = 0.40 lots. The position size calculator does this for any instrument on the site.

Does higher leverage make a trade riskier?

Not by itself. Leverage sets how much margin is tied up to hold a position; what you actually lose if the trade goes against you is decided by your position size and your stop distance. Higher leverage becomes dangerous because it allows a position far larger than the account can absorb, not because the leverage figure itself does anything to a losing trade.

What is swap and when is it charged?

Swap is the financing cost of holding a position past the broker's daily rollover. It can be a charge or a credit, and the two sides of the same instrument are not mirror images — one direction is often credited while the other is charged. Most brokers apply three days' worth on one weekday to cover the weekend, so check which day yours uses.

Do you give trading advice or signals?

No. These are calculators: they do arithmetic on numbers you supply. Nothing here is a recommendation to take a position, and no track record is published. Trading CFDs and forex carries a high risk of losing your capital.

Can you add an instrument that is missing?

Ask on the contact page. Instruments are added as pages when there is enough search demand to justify one, and the underlying calculators already cover 67.

Still not sure about a number?

Report it. Include the instrument, what this site shows, what your platform shows, and which broker you are with. Specifications legitimately differ between brokers, but a mismatch is also how real errors get found here — and the ones found so far were found exactly that way.