ES vs MES: What's the Difference?

The E-mini S&P 500 (ES) and Micro E-mini S&P 500 (MES) both track the S&P 500. The difference is size. That one difference affects what each move is worth, how precisely you can size positions, what you pay in commissions and which accounts each contract suits.

Side by side

Specs from CME Group; margins from NinjaTrader's pricing page and AMP Futures' website, checked November 3, 2026.

What a move is worth

Check any other move with the tick value calculator.

The same trade on both contracts

Here's one trade, placed once on ES and once on MES. The index levels are made up for illustration.

• You buy at 5,000.00 with a stop at 4,994.00 (6 points) and a target at 5,012.00 (12 points).
• On one ES: the stop risks 6 × $50 = $300 and the target pays 12 × $50 = $600.
• On one MES: the stop risks $30 and the target pays $60.
• On three MES: $90 of risk for $180 of reward, a size you can't get with ES at all.

The chart, the entry and the exit are identical. Only the dollar amounts change. That's why many traders build and test a strategy on MES first, then move to ES once the size makes sense.

Ten MES = one ES

Ten MES contracts carry the same dollar exposure as one ES. But commissions are charged per contract, so ten MES usually cost more to trade than one ES. With NinjaTrader's free plan, ten MES cost $3.90 per side versus $1.29 for one ES, before exchange fees.

Per round turn that's $7.80 versus $2.58. A trader who does 100 round turns a month at ten-MES size pays about $780 in commissions; at one-ES size, about $258. Once you regularly trade ten MES, switching to ES saves real money.

Position sizing

Say your account is $10,000 and you risk 1% ($100) per trade with an 8-point stop. On MES, each contract risks $40, so you can trade two ($80). On ES, one contract risks $400, four times your limit, so ES doesn't fit. MES lets you scale risk in $40 steps; ES only in $400 steps.

Read Position Sizing and Risk per Trade, and run your numbers with the position size calculator.

Margin and leverage

Low day-trade margins make both contracts easy to open, but they don't change the risk. With the index at 5,000, one MES controls $25,000 of exposure and one ES controls $250,000. A 1% move is $250 on MES and $2,500 on ES, five times the NinjaTrader day-trade margin in each case. Holding overnight usually needs much higher exchange margins. See Margin and Leverage in Futures.

ES and MES in prop firm accounts

Prop firm drawdowns are small relative to ES. On a 50K account with a $2,000 limit, a 10-point stop on one ES costs $500, a quarter of the drawdown. The same stop on one MES costs $50. Firms also cap size: Topstep's 50K Combine allows 5 contracts or 50 micros, and Tradeify's Growth 50K allows 4 contracts or 40 micros. Compare more firms in the prop firm rankings.

When to move from MES to ES

There's no fixed rule, but a few signs suggest ES may be the better tool:

• Your normal position is ten or more MES, so commissions on micros are eating into results.
• Your risk per trade is comfortably above the dollar value of your usual stop on one ES.
• Your journal shows you follow your plan consistently at your current size.

If you'd like more flexibility than one ES allows, you can combine them. One ES plus five MES gives the exposure of fifteen MES, with lower commissions than fifteen micros and the option to scale out in small steps.

Which should you trade?

Choose MES if your risk per trade is small, you're learning, or you want to scale in and out in small steps. Choose ES once your normal position would be ten MES or more, since it's cheaper per dollar of exposure.

Many traders use both: MES while building a track record or during volatile sessions, ES once size and confidence grow. Both trade nearly 24 hours on CME Globex, with most volume during US stock market hours. See Futures Trading Hours Explained.

Run the numbers with our tick value and position size calculators, and see full specs in our ES and MES guides. For the Nasdaq equivalents, read NQ vs MNQ.

Frequently asked questions

How many MES equal one ES?

Ten. MES's $5 multiplier is one-tenth of ES's $50.

What is the tick value of MES?

$1.25 per 0.25-point tick, or $5 per point.

Is MES good for beginners?

It's a common starting point because each point is $5 and the contract is cash-settled. It still needs a defined stop and position size.

Why is ES cheaper to trade than MES?

Commissions are charged per contract. One ES costs $1.29 per side on NinjaTrader's free plan, while ten MES cost $3.90 for the same exposure.

Can I trade ES and MES together?

Yes. Both track the same index, so you can combine them to fine-tune size, for example one ES plus a few MES.

Do ES and MES expire on the same dates?

Both trade in the same quarterly cycle (March, June, September, December) and are cash-settled. See Futures Rollover and Expiration.