Perpetual Futures Calculator
Free Perpetual Futures Calculator. Calculate perp futures P&L with leverage, funding rate costs, and liquidation price.
Funding rates fluctuate each period. Actual liquidation depends on exchange maintenance margin. Not financial advice.
How to use Perpetual Futures Calculator
The Perpetual Futures Calculator models the complete economics of a perp position including entry, leverage, liquidation price, and cumulative funding rate costs. Enter your margin, leverage multiple, and entry price — the tool computes your notional exposure, liquidation price, and projects the total funding cost over your expected holding period.
Perps have no expiry date but charge a funding rate every 8 hours that can significantly erode profits on longer holds. The calculator shows how many funding periods you can afford before your margin is consumed, and compares the total cost of holding a perp position vs. opening a quarterly futures contract or simply spot buying with leverage on margin.
Input guide and assumptions
Margin is the collateral you deposit (in USD or USDT). Leverage ranges from 1x to 125x depending on the exchange and asset. Entry price is where you open the position. Direction (long/short) determines how funding flows affect your balance — longs pay shorts when funding is positive, and vice versa.
The funding rate field accepts a percentage per 8-hour period (typically 0.01% in neutral markets, but can spike to 0.1%+ during volatile moves). Holding period in days lets the calculator project cumulative funding costs. The output shows P&L at a target exit price, liquidation price, total funding paid/received, and effective break-even price including all costs.
How to interpret results correctly
The hero figure is Net P&L — your Unrealized P&L minus the Funding Cost Total minus the Trading Fees Total — paired with ROE, the return measured against margin (position size divided by leverage), not against notional. A +15% ROE on 10x leverage means the price moved only about 1.5% in your favor before costs. Read Net P&L and ROE together: a green Unrealized P&L can still flip to a red Net P&L once funding and two taker fees are subtracted.
Liquidation Price tells you how far the market can move against you before margin is wiped, and Effective Leverage shows how your real leverage drifts as the position gains or loses. The Funding Cost by Day table breaks the per-8h drain into daily and cumulative columns. If you trade with leverage elsewhere, the <a href="/liquidation-calculator/">liquidation calculator</a> cross-checks that liquidation distance against your stop placement.
Practical scenarios and planning workflow
Use it to size a directional swing before entering: set Direction, Entry Price, Exit Price, and Leverage, then watch how Net P&L and ROE respond as you nudge leverage from 5x to 20x. A SOL Long 20x over 8 hours shows a big ROE but a Liquidation Price uncomfortably close to entry — the calculator makes that trade-off visible so you can step leverage down to a survivable level instead of chasing the headline return.
It also exposes the cost of holding. Run a position over 168 hours with a 0.01% funding rate and the Funding Cost Total quietly compounds across 21 funding periods, often eating an otherwise winning trade. Compare a flat funding assumption here against the live signal from the <a href="/funding-rate-calculator/">funding rate calculator</a> before committing to any multi-day perp hold.
Risk and execution checklist
- Before opening: 1) Pick Direction and confirm whether you pay or receive funding — longs pay shorts when the rate is positive. 2) Enter Position Size as notional, not margin; the tool derives margin as size divided by leverage. 3) Set realistic Maker and Taker fees, since both entry and exit legs here charge the taker rate. 4) Check the Liquidation Price sits well outside your invalidation level, not just barely beyond it.
- After calculating: confirm ROE is computed on margin, so a small notional move is amplified by leverage. Verify the Holding Period covers your real plan — funding accrues every 8 hours whether the trade works or not. If Net P&L is positive but thin, ask whether one funding spike or a single wider fill would erase it, and size down until the cushion above break-even is comfortable.
Common mistakes to avoid
- The biggest error is confusing ROE with raw price return. ROE is Net P&L over margin, so 20x leverage multiplies a 1% price move into roughly 20% ROE — and the same multiplier applies to losses and to liquidation distance. Traders also forget that funding never stops: a flat 0.01% rate over a week is 0.21% of notional, which can outweigh a marginal Unrealized P&L on a slow-moving position.
- A second mistake is ignoring the fee structure. This calculator charges the Taker Fee on both entry and exit, so a 0.05% taker rate costs 0.10% of notional round-trip before funding even starts. Setting Position Size to your margin instead of your notional also silently understates exposure, fees, funding, and the real distance to your Liquidation Price.
Performance benchmarks and expectation ranges
Funding on major perps (BTC, ETH) typically sits near 0.01% per 8 hours in neutral markets — about 0.03% daily or roughly 11% annualized if it never reset — but can spike to 0.05–0.1%+ during crowded one-sided moves. Taker fees on large venues run roughly 0.04–0.06% per leg, so a two-leg round-trip costs about 0.08–0.12% of notional before any price move.
Liquidation distance scales inversely with leverage: at 10x a long liquidates roughly 9–10% below entry, at 20x near 4–5%, and at 50x under 2%, before maintenance margin and fees tighten it further. Treat any ROE above 100% on a single trade as a leverage-and-luck artifact, and use the <a href="/leverage-calculator/">leverage calculator</a> to confirm the multiple you actually want to run.
Execution templates you can reuse
Workflow: 1) Load a Quick Scenario near your idea, then overwrite Entry and Exit with your real levels. 2) Set Leverage so the Liquidation Price clears your technical invalidation with room to spare. 3) Enter the current funding rate and a realistic Holding Period. 4) Read Net P&L, ROE, and Funding Cost Total together. 5) Only proceed if the trade survives one adverse funding period plus full round-trip taker fees.
Re-run the model whenever the funding rate flips or your exit target moves. Because Effective Leverage rises as the position loses, a trade that started at 10x can behave like much higher leverage near the Liquidation Price — so plan your stop with the <a href="/position-size-calculator/">position size calculator</a> and treat the displayed liquidation level as a hard backstop, never a stop-loss.
Data hygiene and model maintenance
Keep the funding input current: rates reset every 8 hours and the figure shown on most exchanges is for a single period, so confirm you are entering the per-8h rate the tool expects, not a daily or annualized number. Refresh Entry and Exit to live marks rather than stale screenshots, and update Maker and Taker fees whenever your 30-day volume bumps you into a new fee tier.
Log each closed trade: entered leverage, realized funding versus the projected Funding Cost Total, actual fills versus your taker assumption, and Net P&L versus the estimate. Over a few dozen trades the gap reveals how often funding ran hotter than 0.01% and how much slippage your fills carry — usually a sobering correction to the on-screen ROE.
Final validation before capital deployment
Sanity-check the core math by hand: Unrealized P&L equals notional times the price move, where the move is (exit − entry) / entry for a long and (entry − exit) / entry for a short. Funding Cost Total equals notional times the rate times holding hours divided by 8, and Trading Fees Total equals notional times the taker rate, twice. If those three reconcile, Net P&L is simply the first minus the other two.
Verify ROE against margin, not size: ROE equals Net P&L divided by (size / leverage), times 100. Then confirm the Liquidation Price direction makes sense — it must sit below entry for a long and above entry for a short, roughly 1/leverage away adjusted for fees. Cross-check the break-even implied here with the <a href="/break-even-calculator/">break-even calculator</a> when funding makes the true breakeven drift from entry.
Authoritative sources
Frequently asked questions
How is perpetual futures PnL calculated?
PnL = (exit price − entry price) × position size × side (+1 for long, −1 for short). Example: long 1 BTC at $73,000, exit at $75,000 = +$2,000. Add funding payments received/paid. With 10× leverage on $10K margin, a 5% BTC move = $5,000 profit (50% return on margin), but a 5% move against = liquidation.
How is liquidation price calculated?
Liquidation price = entry × (1 − 1/leverage × (1 − maintenance margin)). For 10× long BTC at $73,000 with 0.5% maintenance margin: liquidation ≈ $66,000 (a 9.5% drop). Short positions liquidate above entry. Higher leverage and lower MM ratio bring liquidation closer to entry. Always check the exchange's exact MM tier — it changes by position size.
What is funding rate and how does it work?
Funding is a periodic payment (usually every 8 hours on Binance, 1 hour on Bybit) between longs and shorts to keep perp price near spot. Positive rate: longs pay shorts. BTC funding averaged +0.01% per 8h in 2024 (~10% annualized cost for longs). During bull peaks it hit +0.3% per 8h (327% annualized) — making long perps brutally expensive.
What's a safe leverage level for crypto perps?
For most retail, 2–3× is the practical maximum. Even at 5× leverage, a 15% intraday wick (common in BTC) wipes you out. Pros use higher leverage but with tight stops set 0.5–1% from entry, sized so any single loss is <1% of total account. The biggest survival rule: never use leverage that lets a 20% adverse move liquidate you.
What's the biggest perpetual futures mistake?
Using cross margin with maximum leverage. With cross margin, your entire account backs every position — one bad trade can liquidate your whole portfolio. Also avoid "set and forget" — perps without stop-losses during overnight funding spikes have liquidated entire accounts. Use isolated margin until you have 1+ year of consistent profitability.
Binance vs Bybit vs dYdX — which perp exchange is best?
Binance: deepest liquidity ($30B+ daily perp volume), 0.02%/0.04% maker/taker, broadest altcoin coverage. Bybit: similar fees, slightly tighter spreads on alts, popular with copy traders. dYdX (now v4 on Cosmos): fully on-chain order book, no KYC, lower liquidity but trustless. For US users, GMX and Hyperliquid are the main DEX options since Binance/Bybit are restricted.
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