Free tool · the rope calculator
Prop firm position size calculator
The number that matters was never the account size. It’s your size against the drawdown. Put in your max loss and your size, and see how many points it takes to lose the account.
Points to bust · 5 NQ
45.0
On $4,500 of room.
A 45-pt move costs
$4,500
That's the whole rope. Account gone.
Max size to survive 45 pts
4 NQ
or 49 MNQ
Normal days the rope holds
—
Enter a normal day's range.
Education, not advice. Practice on SIM first. Firm rules change, so check your own firm’s page before you trade. Contract values are CME specs: NQ $20, MNQ $2, ES $50, MES $5 per point.
The rope
On a 150K account at Topstep or Lucid, the most you can lose is $4,500. The same account lets you hold 10 to 15 NQ minis, and NQ pays $20 a point per contract.
5 NQ × 45 pts × $20 = $4,500
10 NQ × 22.5 pts × $20 = $4,500
At 10 contracts, a 22-point move is the whole account. That isn’t a crash or a news spike, it’s an ordinary stretch of a normal session. You can be inside every rule and still be at the far end of the rope when the market turns.
Floor in code, ratchet in your hands, micros not minis
The floor is a hard daily loss limit enforced by the platform or your own code. When it hits, the day is over. The daily floor check above tells you whether yours fires before the max-loss line does.
The ratchet moves the floor up as the day goes green, so a good day can’t turn into a red one. Keep it manual: the floor protects the account, the ratchet trains the trader.
Micros give the same setup ten times the points. That’s the cheapest risk control there is.
The day after a payout
A payout pulls the cushion out of the account. The max-loss line is the closest it has ever been to your balance, right when you feel the best you’ve felt. Put your room after the payout into “Room to the line right now” and look at the table again. Trade smaller than you want to.
Watch the video: Why You Keep Busting Lucid and Topstep AccountsFAQ
How many contracts should I trade on a 150K prop account?
Size against the drawdown, not the account. On a $4,500 max loss, 5 NQ contracts bust on a 45-point move (5 × 45 × $20 = $4,500), and 10 NQ bust on 22.5 points. The firm's maximum position is a ceiling, not a recommendation. Pick the move you need to survive and let the calculator give you the size.
Why micros instead of minis?
A micro is a tenth of the dollars per point (MNQ $2 vs NQ $20, MES $5 vs ES $50). The same setup in micros gives you ten times the points before the max-loss line, so an ordinary move costs a few hundred dollars instead of the account.
What is the difference between end-of-day and intraday trailing drawdown?
End-of-day trailing moves the line up only at the close, based on your highest end-of-day balance. Intraday trailing moves it with your highest balance including open profit, so giving back open profit shortens the rope mid-trade. At most firms a breach of either is checked in real time, including unrealized losses.
Why is the day after a payout dangerous?
A payout takes money out of the account, so the max-loss line sits closer to your balance than ever, right when you feel most confident. Put your room after the payout into the calculator and trade the size that room supports, not the size you traded last week.