Crypto liquidation price calculator

What liquidation is

When you trade a crypto perpetual future with leverage, you put up a fraction of the position's value as collateral, the margin. At 10x, $1,000 of margin controls a $10,000 position. Every move in the price is applied to the whole $10,000, so a 1% move is $100 of profit or loss on your $1,000.

The exchange will not let that loss eat beyond your collateral. Once the margin left in the position falls to the maintenance margin, a small percentage of the position's value set by the exchange, it closes the position for you at the market. That forced close is liquidation. Unlike a forex margin call, there is usually no warning period: the engine acts the moment the mark price reaches the level.

Liquidation is not a stop-loss you chose. It is the price at which you have already lost almost all of the margin, and the remainder typically goes to a liquidation fee or the exchange's insurance fund. The academy lesson on leverage and liquidation risk covers the mechanics in more depth.

The liquidation price formula

For isolated margin on a linear (USDT-margined) perpetual, ignoring fees and funding, the position is liquidated when the loss equals the initial margin minus the maintenance margin. Initial margin is 1 ÷ leverage of the position, so:

Long: Liquidation price = Entry × (1 − 1 ÷ Leverage + MMR)
Short: Liquidation price = Entry × (1 + 1 ÷ Leverage − MMR)

where MMR is the maintenance margin rate as a decimal (0.5% = 0.005). The distance to liquidation, as a percentage of the entry, is simply 1 ÷ Leverage − MMR. Two things follow. First, the margin amount does not change the liquidation price on isolated margin: $100 at 10x and $10,000 at 10x are liquidated at the same price, they just lose different amounts. Second, if the MMR is equal to or larger than 1 ÷ leverage, there is no buffer at all, which is why the calculator refuses 200x at a 0.5% rate.

Real exchanges add detail on top: maintenance rates that rise in tiers as the position grows, a liquidation fee, funding payments that drain or add to isolated margin while the position is open, and the use of a mark price rather than the last traded price. Coin-margined (inverse) contracts, where the collateral is the coin itself, use a different formula altogether. Treat the result here as a close estimate for planning, not the exchange's figure.

A worked example

A hypothetical position: you go long Bitcoin at $60,000 with $1,000 of margin at 10x, on a contract with a 0.5% maintenance margin rate.

1. Position size: $1,000 × 10 = $10,000, which is 0.166667 BTC.
2. Buffer: 1 ÷ 10 − 0.005 = 0.095, so 9.5%.
3. Liquidation price: $60,000 × (1 − 0.095) = $54,300.
4. Loss at that price: $10,000 × 9.5% = $950, leaving the $50 maintenance margin, which usually goes in fees.

Flip it to a short and the liquidation price is $60,000 × 1.095 = $65,700. The table under the result repeats the sum for common leverage levels at the same entry: about $48,300 at 5x, $57,300 at 20x and $59,700 at 100x, where a 0.5% move closes the trade.

Isolated margin, cross margin and the mark price

This calculator keeps to isolated margin on purpose. In isolated mode each position has its own collateral, the margin you assigned it, and the liquidation price depends only on that position. The worst case is known in advance: you lose the margin of that one trade, and the rest of the account is untouched.

In cross margin mode every open position draws on the whole account balance. A losing position is propped up by your free balance and by the unrealised profit of other positions, so it survives a larger move, but its liquidation price moves every time the balance or another position changes, and when it does go, it can take most of the account with it. There is no single formula for it without knowing everything in the account, which is why no honest calculator can give one figure for cross margin from these inputs alone.

The price that triggers liquidation is also not always the last trade. Most exchanges use a mark price, a fair-value price built from several spot exchanges and the funding basis, so that one large order on a single exchange cannot liquidate everyone. That protects you from some spikes, but in a broad sell-off the mark price falls with everything else.

How to use the liquidation price

Put your stop well inside it. A stop-loss should sit where your trade idea is wrong, and liquidation should sit comfortably beyond that, so the stop does the work and the exchange never has to. If the chart says the stop belongs 6% away, 20x leverage cannot hold the trade at all. The crypto position size calculator sizes the trade from the stop and warns you when the stop lies beyond liquidation.

Choose leverage last. Leverage changes how much margin a position ties up, not how much you should risk on it. Decide the risk in money, size the position from the stop, and then pick the lowest leverage that fits the margin you are willing to tie up. Higher leverage on the same position only moves liquidation closer.

Allow for wicks and funding. Crypto trades all day, every day, and thin hours produce sharp spikes that touch a liquidation level and reverse. Funding payments on perpetual futures are taken from isolated margin over time, which drifts the liquidation price toward you on a position held for days.

Check the exchange's own number. Every major exchange shows an estimated liquidation price on the order screen. If it differs from this one by more than a little, the difference is usually a higher maintenance tier for a large position or fees, and the exchange's figure wins.

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