Long Leverage Calculator
Leverage lets a long position control more assets than the cash behind it, and it multiplies losses at exactly the same rate as gains. This calculator answers the four questions leveraged traders actually ask in four tabs: what is my leverage ratio, what is my profit or loss, how much margin do I need, and where would I be liquidated. Each tab is independent, and the liquidation tab is an isolated-margin approximation for planning, not an exchange quote.
Enter a position size greater than 0.
Enter margin greater than 0, not exceeding position size.
Enter an entry price greater than 0.
Enter an exit price greater than 0.
Enter a position size greater than 0.
Enter leverage of 1x or more.
Enter a position size greater than 0.
Enter leverage of 1x or more.
Enter an entry price greater than 0.
Enter leverage of 1x or more.
Isolated-margin approximation: liquidation near entry x (1 – 1/leverage). Exchanges add maintenance margin and fees, so treat this as a planning estimate.
Quick Answer
A $75000.00 long position backed by $25000.00 of equity runs at 3.00x leverage, with $50000.00 borrowed. The other pre-filled tabs show the companion numbers: entry $100 to exit $110 on a $5000.00 position at 5x makes a $500.00 profit (50.00% on margin), a $10000.00 position at 10x needs $1000.00 margin, and a 10x long entered at $50000.00 estimates liquidation near $45000.00. Amounts print exactly as the tool prints them, with no thousands separators.
Key takeaways
- Leverage is position size divided by your equity. The dollar profit on a trade does not depend on leverage at all; leverage decides how much margin the position ties up, and therefore the percentage return on that margin.
- The liquidation estimate is entry x (1 - 1/leverage) for an isolated-margin long, before maintenance margin and fees. Real exchange liquidation prices sit closer to entry than this estimate.
- Warnings start at 20x. At 20x a 5.0% adverse move approaches liquidation; at 50x the warning is 2.0%, and ordinary volatility can end the trade.
- Every number here is before costs. Fees and funding are charged on the full position size, so their bite grows with leverage even though they never appear in these results.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the Long Leverage Calculator, tab by tab
- The four formulas, including the one traders get backwards
- Worked examples: one verified run per tab
- Leverage risk table: how much room each level leaves you
- What these numbers leave out: fees, funding, maintenance margin and cross margin
- What competitors miss
- Frequently asked questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the Long Leverage Calculator, tab by tab
Each tab answers one question and ignores the others, so fill in only the tab you need and click Calculate. Switching tabs hides the previous result; nothing carries over between tabs.
- Leverage ratio: enter the total position size and your equity (margin). The result is the ratio to two decimals, plus the borrowed funds line: position minus equity. Margin cannot exceed the position size, and entering it that way round produces the message "Margin cannot exceed position size."
- Profit / Loss: enter entry price, exit price, position size and leverage. You get the price change percentage, position units to six decimals, margin used, the dollar profit or loss, and both returns: leveraged (on margin) and unleveraged (the raw price move).
- Margin required: enter position size and leverage. Required margin is size divided by leverage, and the margin percentage is always 100 divided by the leverage, so 10x always reads 10.00%.
- Liquidation: enter entry price and leverage for the isolated-margin estimate and the adverse move percentage that reaches it. Read the warning line under every liquidation result: it repeats that maintenance margin and fees are excluded.
This tool is about position leverage on a trade. It is not a borrowing quote: if you are pricing an actual margin loan from a broker, the loan margin calculator covers that separate question, and the balance-sheet sense of leverage used in company analysis is a different ratio again, covered by the lease adjusted leverage calculator.
The four formulas, including the one traders get backwards
All four tabs are one-line formulas. The one that surprises people is profit and loss: leverage never appears in the dollar profit, only in the return on margin.
Profit or loss ($) = (Position size ÷ Entry price) × (Exit price − Entry price)
Leveraged return = Profit ÷ (Position size ÷ Leverage) = Leverage × Price change %
Required margin = Position size ÷ Leverage
Liquidation estimate (long, isolated) = Entry × (1 − 1 ÷ Leverage)
Work the profit line by hand once and the structure sticks. A $5000.00 position entered at $100 holds 50.000000 units; a rise to $110 is $10 per unit, so the profit is $500.00 whether the trade ran at 1x, 5x or 50x. What leverage changes is the denominator of the return: at 1x the margin used is the full $5000.00 and the return is 10.00%, at 5x the margin used is $1000.00 and the return is 50.00%, at 50x the margin used is $100.00 and the return reads 500.00%. The exchange-side definition agrees: as the Deribit support guide to leverage puts it, leverage is position size divided by margin, and profit and loss are counted on the full position.
Worked examples: one verified run per tab
Each row is the pre-filled run on its tab, reproduced exactly as the calculator prints it. Open the tab, leave the pre-filled values alone, and click Calculate to see the same lines.
| Tab | Inputs | Headline result | Detail worth noting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leverage ratio | Position $75000.00, equity $25000.00 | Long leverage: 3.00x | Borrowed funds $50000.00 |
| Profit / Loss | Entry $100.00, exit $110.00, size $5000.00, 5x | Profit: $500.00 (50.00% on margin) | Units 50.000000; margin used $1000.00; unleveraged return 10.00% |
| Margin required | Size $10000.00, 10x | Required margin: $1000.00 | Margin percentage 10.00% |
| Liquidation | Entry $50000.00, 10x | Estimated liquidation: $45000.00 | Adverse move to liquidation 10.00% |
Leverage risk table: how much room each level leaves you
The adverse move to liquidation is always 100 divided by the leverage, so the room a position has shrinks fast. The risk bands below are the same bands the badge in the results area uses.
| Leverage | Adverse move to liquidation | Margin needed per $10000.00 position | Risk band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2x | 50.00% | $5000.00 | Low |
| 5x | 20.00% | $2000.00 | Low |
| 10x | 10.00% | $1000.00 | Medium |
| 20x | 5.00% | $500.00 | High |
| 50x | 2.00% | $200.00 | Extreme |
| 100x | 1.00% | $100.00 | Extreme |
Read the middle column as bars and the squeeze is plain: the cushion halves and halves again while the payoff per 1% move only grows linearly.
One display quirk to know about before it confuses you: on the Leverage ratio tab, the warning line prints the computed leverage at full precision. A $100.00 position on $3.00 of equity reads "Elevated leverage: at 33.333333333333336x, a 3.0% adverse move approaches liquidation." The headline ratio is still rounded normally (33.33x); only the warning sentence carries the long decimal. The other tabs print the leverage you typed, so their warnings stay tidy.
What these numbers leave out: fees, funding, maintenance margin and cross margin
Every result on this page is a before-costs, isolated-margin estimate. Four real-world items move the true numbers, and none of them is hidden: the tool names two of them in its own liquidation warning.
- Maintenance margin: exchanges liquidate before your margin reaches zero, holding back a maintenance percentage. Real liquidation prices therefore sit closer to entry than entry x (1 - 1/leverage). Several crypto tools add the maintenance rate back into the formula; this one does not, so treat its estimate as the far edge of the danger zone, not the trigger line.
- Fees and funding: entry and exit fees, plus funding payments on perpetual contracts, are charged on the full position size. At 50x, a 0.1% fee round trip costs 10% of the margin before price moves at all. The profit and loss tab excludes all of it.
- Cross margin: this estimate assumes isolated margin, where only the margin assigned to the position backs it. Under cross margin the whole account stands behind the trade, the liquidation point moves, and a loss can consume other positions' margin. The cross margin liquidation calculator handles that account-wide case.
- Gaps and slippage: in a fast market the closing fill can be worse than the liquidation estimate, which is why the high-leverage warning says a move "approaches" liquidation rather than naming an exact exit.
What competitors miss
The pages ranking for this keyword each cover a slice of the problem, and most slices are crypto-only:
- BraveCalculator Long Leverage Calculator: the closest name match, and it stops at the ratio: position value divided by equity, one worked example (the same $75,000 on $25,000 used here), no profit and loss, no margin solver, no liquidation estimate.
- Crypto leverage tools (CryptoYaan, OnlineMiniTools, BitcoinMargin, Flicker): deeper on liquidation, with maintenance margin in the formula and fee fields, but framed entirely around crypto pairs, long and short mixed together, and none offers the plain equity-ratio tab a stock or futures trader starts from.
- TradingView leverage indicators (Yuki Leverage RR and similar): rich risk-to-reward planning on a chart, with stop and target ladders, but they require TradingView and an indicator install; there is no quick web answer for "what is my ratio" or "what margin does this size need."
- Exchange help pages (Deribit and peers): correct definitions and formulas, written for their own account structure, and no calculator at all.
- The gap this page fills: all four long-position questions in one place for any market, pre-filled worked examples on every tab, warnings that switch on at 20x and harden at 50x, and an honest statement of what the simplified liquidation formula leaves out, instead of presenting it as an exchange figure.
Frequently asked questions
Your $1,000 margin controls a $5,000 position. A 10% price rise becomes a 50% gain on your margin; a 10% fall becomes a 50% loss.
Leverage is the multiplier (5x); margin is your cash in the trade ($1,000 of a $5,000 position). Required margin = position size / leverage.
The price at which the broker or exchange closes your position to prevent further losses. For an isolated-margin long it sits near entry x (1 - 1/leverage), before maintenance margin and fees.
On isolated margin, losses are generally capped at the margin posted. On cross margin or in fast markets with slippage, losses can exceed it. Check your broker's terms.
A demand to add funds when equity falls toward the maintenance level. This calculator's liquidation estimate marks the region where that pressure becomes critical.
Rarely for beginners. Above 20x, single-digit percentage moves decide the trade, and fees plus funding eat a large share of the margin. Most professionals size positions so that leverage stays in single digits.
The dollar profit comes from position size and the price move alone: units times the price change. Leverage enters through the margin used (position size divided by leverage), so it sets the return on margin, not the dollars. The same $500.00 profit is 10.00% on margin at 1x and 50.00% at 5x.
No. Every tab works before costs: the profit and loss tab ignores entry and exit fees and funding, and the liquidation tab uses the simplified isolated-margin formula entry times (1 - 1/leverage) with no maintenance margin. Real liquidation prices sit a little closer to entry than the estimate here, so treat the estimate as the optimistic edge of the range.
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References
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov. Margin (glossary). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Margin: Borrowing Money to Pay for Stocks. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Regulation T: Credit by Brokers and Dealers (12 CFR Part 220). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- CME Group. Margin: Know What Is Needed. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Deribit Support. Leverage. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- The Options Clearing Corporation. Margins (risk management). Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Cboe. Margin Requirements. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Margin Accounts. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Margin: Borrowing Money to Pay for Stocks. Accessed October 22, 2026.
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Board Interpretations of Regulation T. Accessed October 22, 2026.