On a CFD account, leverage is a single number attached to the account. You pick or are given a ratio, and every position uses it. That is how the CFD product works (see What Is Leverage? in the CFD help center).

Futures do not work that way. Each futures contract is a standardized agreement for a fixed amount of an underlying market. One ES contract always controls $50 per index point. One CL contract always controls 1,000 barrels of crude oil. You do not choose a ratio. You either hold the contract or you do not.

What you actually put up to hold that contract is margin: a good-faith deposit, not a loan and not a down payment. The exchange and the platform set it per contract. The ratio between the size of what you control and the margin you post is your effective leverage, and you calculate it rather than select it.

Two margin numbers matter, and they do different jobs.

Initial margin. The amount your account must have free to open one contract. If you do not have it, the order is rejected.

Maintenance margin. The amount you must keep in the account to hold the position open. If your equity falls below the total maintenance margin of your open positions, the position is at risk and can be liquidated.

On many platforms initial margin sits at or slightly above maintenance margin. The margin required per contract is shown on DXtrade for each instrument; treat initial margin as equal to or a little higher than maintenance unless the platform shows otherwise.

The margin figures used throughout this article are the confirmed maintenance margins from our platform data.

Two steps. First find the notional value of one contract. Then divide by the margin.

Step 1. Notional value = contract multiplier × current price. The multiplier is the dollar value of one full point of the underlying. For ES it is $50, so at a price of 5,000 one ES contract controls 50 × 5,000 = $250,000 of index exposure.

Step 2. Effective leverage = notional ÷ margin. With ES maintenance margin at $25,060, the leverage is $250,000 ÷ $25,060 = about 10:1. Roughly $10 of market exposure for every $1 of margin.

Because notional depends on price, leverage drifts as the market moves. If ES rises to 5,500, one contract controls $275,000, and against the same margin the leverage is about 11:1. Nothing on your account changed. The market did.

Each row below uses an example price to show the method. Notional = multiplier × price. Effective leverage = notional ÷ the confirmed maintenance margin. Your real numbers change with the live price.

Read the two extremes. ES and MES land at the same ~10:1 because the micro is exactly one-tenth of the mini in both notional and margin. The ratio is identical; only the dollar size changes. 6E, by contrast, controls 125,000 euros for $2,400 of margin, so its effective leverage is far higher (~57:1). Currency futures are naturally high-leverage because a small percentage move on a large notional is a large dollar move.

This is the core lesson: two contracts can require similar margin and yet carry very different real exposure. Always work from notional, not from the margin number.

The margins above are Upcomers-set values on DXtrade, and they run higher than the raw exchange (CME) minimums. Prop platforms commonly hold more margin than the exchange floor to control risk. That means the effective leverage you get on an Upcomers account is lower than what the same contract would show at a bare-minimum CME margin. Do not size a position off a CME margin figure you found elsewhere. Use the number DXtrade shows on the order ticket.

Only 12 instruments have confirmed platform-set margins in our data today:

The confirmed 12 are: ES, MES, NQ, RTY, YM, GC, MGC, HG, CL, MCL, NG, and 6E. For any of the other 38 instruments in the tradable universe, margins vary by instrument and are shown in DXtrade. Do not assume or invent a margin for those; read it off the DXtrade order ticket before you trade.

If your account equity drops below the total maintenance margin of your open positions, the position is under-margined. DXtrade can then auto-liquidate, closing part or all of your positions at market to bring the account back into line. You do not get to choose which positions close or at what price. This is a platform mechanism, separate from the firm rules.

In practice, though, this is rarely the first thing you hit on an Upcomers account, because the firm's drawdown rules bite well before you run out of margin.

On Upcomers futures, three risk limits sit on top of margin, and each one is much tighter than the full margin buffer:

Trailing drawdown (Dynamic Risk Shield™). Real-time equity trailing on every product: Thunderbolt Classic 4%, Thunderbolt Legacy 4%, Vanguard 3%. It trails your equity higher in real time as you profit, then locks permanently at your initial balance once the account grows by the trailing percentage (Classic and Legacy 4%, Vanguard 3%). After it locks it is static and no longer moves, exactly like the CFD Dynamic Risk Shield. Hit the limit and the account is done. See Trailing drawdown explained.

Daily drawdown. Thunderbolt Classic 3% in the challenge phase and 2% in the funded phase, Vanguard 2%, Thunderbolt Legacy 3%, reset at 5:00 PM ET. See Daily drawdown and the 5PM ET reset.

Max Trade Loss. 1.5% of account size on any single open trade on Thunderbolt Classic and Vanguard ($750 on a $50,000 account), 2% on Thunderbolt Legacy ($1,000). A hard automatic breach on all three products.

Why this matters for leverage. Take a $50,000 account. Your trailing limit is 4% ($2,000) and your daily limit is 2% ($1,000). Those are the losses that end or freeze your account. The maintenance margin on one ES contract is $25,060, which means you could not even open a full ES on a $50,000 account, and even where you can hold a position, you will breach a drawdown rule long before equity ever approaches the maintenance level. The drawdown rules, not the margin call, are your real ceiling.

This is why micros matter on smaller accounts. One MES ties up $2,506 of margin, yet the risk you actually take stays small and controllable: at $5 per point, a 10-point stop is $50, comfortably inside a 2% ($1,000) daily limit on a $50,000 account. A full ES is often impossible on margin alone on a small account, and reckless on drawdown even where you can hold it.

There is also a separate cap on how many contracts you may hold at once. See Contract limits explained. That cap limits your total leverage independently of margin.

If you traded the Upcomers CFD product, here is the mental switch to make.

The habit to unlearn: do not ask "what leverage is my account on?" On futures the right question is "what is one contract's notional, and how much margin does it tie up?" Read the CFD What Is Leverage? article for the old model, then use notional ÷ margin here.

The whole idea in one place:

Need the contract multipliers and tick values? Read Tick size and tick value explained.

Sizing a position under the rules? Read How to calculate P&L on futures and Max single trade loss.

Want the limit on how many contracts you can hold? Read Contract limits explained.