Two traders can take the exact same setup on the exact same day — and without realizing it, end up risking completely different amounts of money because they never checked the tick value of what they’re trading. Ten points on crude oil are not remotely the same as ten points on the S&P 500.
Trading without knowing your tick value is really just guessing with real money, because that single number decides what every price move is actually worth.
So what is tick value, and how do you calculate it? This guide defines it, separates it from tick size, and works through the formula behind every major contract, then covers dollar risk and how tick value shapes a funded futures account. By the end, you’ll know exactly what one tick costs you on any contract.
- What tick value is, and how it differs from tick size
- The simple formula to calculate it for any contract
- The difference between a tick and a point, with real examples
- Tick values for ES, NQ, CL, GC, and the micros
- How to turn tick value into dollar risk on a funded account
What Is Tick Value?
Tick value is what one tick, the smallest price move a futures contract is allowed to make, is worth in real dollars. It’s the number that turns a small chart wiggle into an actual gain or loss in your account.
Tick Size Versus Tick Value
People mix these two terms up constantly. Tick size is the smallest price increment a contract is allowed to move, set by the exchange. Tick value is what that move is worth in dollars once you’re holding a contract.
Table 1 breaks down how the two relate, along with point value, using ES as the reference. A common assumption is that a bigger tick value means a more volatile market.
That doesn’t hold up: tick size is an exchange rule about price granularity, not a measure of how much a market moves in a day. Crude oil ticks in pennies and still swings harder on a bad news day than a slow-moving bond contract with a larger fixed tick.
What a Tick Actually Is
A tick is the smallest price movement a futures contract is permitted to make, and every product carries its own preset increment defined by the exchange. Floor-traded contracts once used fractional ticks; most electronic contracts today trade in cleaner decimals. Whatever the size, the tick is the building block from which the tick value is calculated.
| Term | What It Means | ES Example |
| Tick size | The smallest price move allowed | 0.25 index points |
| Tick value | The dollar value of one tick | $12.50 |
| Point | One full unit of price | 4 ticks |
| Point value | The dollar value of one point | $50 (tick value ÷ tick size) |
🔗Contract Specs
How to Calculate Tick Value
The Formula: Tick Size Times Multiplier
The math is refreshingly simple once you have the two inputs. Take the contract’s tick size and multiply it by its dollar multiplier, and the result is the tick value.
ES trades in 0.25-point ticks with a $50 multiplier, so 0.25 times $50 works out to $12.50 per tick. Swap in NQ’s $20 multiplier, and that same tick is worth just $5.00 instead. The multiplier, set independently for each product, is really the whole story.
Who Sets Tick Values, and Can They Change
Tick sizes and tick values come from the exchange itself, CME Group for most contracts covered here, and they’re published in the contract specification for anyone to check.
Tick value has nothing to do with which broker you use, since a broker controls margin and commissions, not the tick. Two traders at two different firms trading the same ES contract pay exactly $12.50 per tick every time, because the spec comes from the exchange, not the broker.
Tick sizes aren’t permanently frozen, though. CME has occasionally adjusted increments on certain products, though changes are rare for the contracts most day traders rely on, so a quick check against CME’s own product page confirms the spec hasn’t shifted since this guide was last updated in 2026.
Tick vs Point (the Confusion That Trips Up Beginners)
How many ticks are in a point
A tick and a point sound like they should mean the same thing, and that trips up plenty of newer traders. On ES and NQ, one point equals four ticks, since both trade in 0.25-point increments.
Crude oil works differently: one point equals 100 ticks, because CL moves in penny increments. Saying “I made ten points” means something different depending on which contract is being discussed.
Point Value and Why Points Mislead
Point value is the dollar value of a full one-point move, and you get it by dividing tick value by tick size. On ES, that’s $12.50 divided by 0.25, or $50 a point. On NQ, the same math works out to $20 a point instead, which is exactly why thinking purely in points can mislead a trader comparing markets.
Some traders figure they can skip tick value entirely and just think in points. That doesn’t hold up: a point is worth a different dollar amount depending on the contract, so points can’t be compared across products without converting first.
Ten points on ES is $500 for one contract. Ten points on crude oil is $10,000 per contract, twenty times larger for an identical-sounding move.
- ES: 1 point = 4 ticks, each tick worth $12.50
- NQ: 1 point = 4 ticks, each tick worth $5.00
- CL (crude oil): 1 point = 100 ticks, each tick worth $10.00
- GC (gold): 1 point = 10 ticks, each tick worth $10.00
- MES: 1 point = 4 ticks, each tick worth $1.25
- Always confirm the current spec with CME or your broker before trading
Tick Values by Contract
ES, NQ, CL, and GC
Every contract carries its own tick value, and the spread across products is wider than most beginners expect. One ES tick is worth $12.50. One NQ tick, despite sharing the same 0.25-point tick size as ES, is worth only $5.00 because its multiplier is smaller.
Crude oil and gold both land at $10.00 per tick, arrived at through different math: CL uses a tiny $0.01 tick against a large multiplier, while GC uses a $0.10 tick against a smaller one.
Why Tick Values Differ
Tick values differ from one contract to the next because the exchange sets tick size and multiplier independently for every product.
A market can tick in fine increments with a large multiplier, or coarse increments with a small one, and either combination can land at the same dollar value or a completely different one.
It’s tempting to assume a bigger tick value is automatically riskier, but actual risk comes from tick value times ticks moved times contracts held, so stop distance and position size matter just as much.
It’s also easy to assume every contract behaves the same way once you’ve learned one; each has its own independently set tick size and value.
🔗Commodity Futures
Micro futures tick values
Micro contracts are exactly one-tenth the size of their full E-mini counterparts, and that ratio carries straight through to tick value.
MES ticks at $1.25 against ES’s $12.50. MNQ ticks at $0.50 against NQ’s $5.00. For a trader with a smaller account, or wanting finer control over position size, micros let the same chart-reading skill be expressed at a fraction of the dollar risk per tick.
| Contract | Tick Size | Tick Value | Ticks per Point |
| ES (E-mini S&P 500) | 0.25 | $12.50 | 4 |
| NQ (E-mini Nasdaq-100) | 0.25 | $5.00 | 4 |
| CL (Crude Oil) | 0.01 | $10.00 | 100 |
| GC (Gold) | 0.10 | $10.00 | 10 |
| MES (Micro S&P 500) | 0.25 | $1.25 | 4 |
| MNQ (Micro Nasdaq-100) | 0.25 | $0.50 | 4 |
See The5ers’ comparison of E-mini and Micro E-mini contracts for a closer look at when each size makes sense. A small tick value can feel inherently safer just because the number looks smaller.
It isn’t automatically safe: stacking twenty micro contracts, or running an unusually wide stop, adds up to just as much dollar risk as a single E-mini contract carries.
Nor is the smallest-tick contract always the cheapest, since matching one E-mini’s exposure with micros means paying commissions on every one of them, a cost that can outweigh the lower per-tick value.
Turning Tick Value Into Dollar Risk
The dollar-risk formula
This is where tick value stops being trivia and starts protecting your account. Dollar risk equals ticks in your stop, times tick value, times contracts held. A 16-tick stop on one ES contract, equivalent to a 4-point stop, works out to exactly $200. Twenty ticks on ES is twenty times $12.50, or $250.
Position sizing with tick value
Once the dollar risk per contract is known, sizing a position becomes arithmetic instead of guesswork. Divide the dollar amount you’re willing to risk by the per-contract risk on your stop, and the result tells you how many contracts fit the plan.
Risking $200 on an 8-tick ES stop, worth $100 per contract, points to two contracts. A higher tick value might sound like bigger profit potential, but it cuts both ways, magnifying losses exactly as much as gains.
And knowing your tick value can feel like the whole risk-management job is done; in reality, it’s just the input to the math, and the discipline to follow your own sizing plan on a stressful day is the harder skill it can’t provide.
🔗Position Sizing
| Scenario | Calculation | Result |
| Risk on a 4-point ES stop, 1 contract | 16 ticks × $12.50 × 1 | $200 |
| Risk on a 20-tick ES target, 1 contract | 20 × $12.50 | $250 |
| Contracts for $200 risk, 8-tick ES stop | $200 ÷ (8 × $12.50) | 2 contracts |
| Same 4 points on CL, 1 contract | 400 ticks × $10.00 | $4,000 |
Do not forget commissions and slippage
Tick value itself is a clean, fixed number, but it doesn’t account for the friction of actually trading. Commissions, exchange fees, and slippage sit on top of the tick math and need to be subtracted separately for a true net result.
A $200 winner on tick value alone can shrink meaningfully once round-turn commissions and a few ticks of slippage come out. See The5ers’ guide to futures slippage for how that gap forms in fast markets.
Tick Value on a Funded Account
How many ticks until you breach the limit
On a funded account, tick value stops being an abstract concept and becomes an early warning system. Every prop firm expresses its risk rules in dollars, and tick value converts that dollar figure into a number of ticks you actually have to work with before the session ends.
The5ers Futures runs its Day Trade program on a $25,000 account with a Max Loss (EOD) of 4%, or $1,000 of room. On NQ at $5.00 a tick, that’s 200 ticks before the account breaches. On ES at $12.50 a tick, the same $1,000 buffer is only 80 ticks, less than half the room.
Sizing to a The5ers Futures evaluation
The gap gets more pronounced with micros. That same $1,000 max loss equals 2,000 ticks on MNQ and 800 ticks on MES, giving far more margin for a normal losing session before the account is genuinely at risk.
The5ers Day Trade evaluation also caps position size at 2 mini or 20 micro contracts on the $25,000 tier, so sizing has to respect both the contract limit and the dollar buffer together.
Converting the max loss into ticks before the session opens, rather than mid-trade, is what keeps one bad afternoon from ending an evaluation.
| Contract | Tick Value | Ticks to Hit the 4% ($1,000) Max Loss |
| NQ | $5.00 | 200 ticks |
| ES | $12.50 | 80 ticks |
| MNQ | $0.50 | 2,000 ticks |
| MES | $1.25 | 800 ticks |
Figures reflect The5ers Futures Day Trade program’s published Max Loss (EOD) of 4% on a $25,000 account, verified directly from 🔗Futures in August 2026. Evaluation parameters can change, so confirm current terms before publishing.
Know Your Tick Value Before You Risk a Dollar
Tick value is the quiet number sitting behind every futures trade, and most beginners ignore it right up until it costs them. It turns an abstract chart wiggle into a real gain or loss in dollars, and it’s the foundation underneath every stop, target, and contract count a trader chooses.
Learning isn’t optional. It’s closer to step one. The math never stays complicated once you’ve run it a few times: tick size times the multiplier gives you tick value, and ticks times tick value times contracts gives you dollar risk.
Every contract carries its own numbers, so a quick check before trading something new beats guessing by points and hoping the comparison holds. On a funded account, that same number becomes a genuine safety rail, but only once it gets converted into ticks before the session starts.
For traders looking to put that discipline to work on real capital, The5ers Futures evaluation programs are built around exactly this kind of rule-based, ticks-first approach to risk.
