Grid step, multiplier and order count: what each setting does

In short: In a martingale grid the lot multiplier matters most: the bigger it is, the faster lots pile up and the less room the balance has before stop-out.

The multiplier and the number of orders decide how many lots a martingale grid piles up, and that decides how much room a balance has before stop-out. The step decides how deep the ladder reaches. On a $1,000 cent account the multiplier alone moves the room from $9,080 of gold price at ×1.0 to $46.1 at ×2.0.

This is a tour of the grid calculator. We change one setting at a time from a baseline and read the same six numbers. It is arithmetic, not a forecast: none of the combinations below is advised, and none was tested for results.

One limit first: the page keeps the multiplier at ×2 (the Midas default) and the account at cent. Orders, step, start lot, leverage, stop-out level and spread are editable. The other multipliers below use the same formulas with only the multiplier changed, short enough to check by hand.

See also: 7 protections for a martingale grid bot on gold →

What do step, multiplier and order count each control?

Order count and multiplier set how many lots a martingale grid piles up; the step sets how far apart the orders sit and where the heavy lots land. Three settings, three jobs:

• Step is the price distance between neighbouring orders. With a constant step, N orders reach (N − 1) × step below the first one.
• Multiplier is how much each lot grows. In the calculator, order j has the lot start lot × multiplier^(j − 1), rounded down to the lot step.
• Order count is how many orders the basket can hold, the first one included. After the last order nothing more opens; the account just carries the whole basket, all the open orders.

Midas shows start lot, orders and step on the Grid tab of its panel, with the total lots, the loss at the last order and the room left for the current settings (Panel settings explained).

Baseline: the default calculator settings

Open the calculator and change nothing: cent account, balance $1,000, start lot 0.01, ×2, 11 orders, step $1.95, leverage 1:2000, stop-out at a 40% margin level. We used a gold price of $4,170; the page reads the latest price from its data file (about $4,119 on 8 October 2026), which moves the room by cents.

Martingale grid on gold: the arithmetic of stop-out walks through these eleven orders one by one.

What happens when the multiplier goes from 1.0 to 2.0?

On $1,000 with 11 orders and a 0.01 start lot, raising the multiplier from ×1.0 to ×2.0 lifts total lots from 0.11 to 20.47 and cuts the room after the last order from $9,080 to $46.1. This is the sweep a martingale multiplier calculator runs: only the multiplier changes. We kept 11 orders, the 0.01 start lot and the $1.95 step.

Depth stays $19.50 in every row: the multiplier changes the size of the orders, not their levels. Going from ×1.5 to ×2.0 is a third more multiplier and twelve times the lots (1.67 to 20.47), because the last lot grows with the multiplier to the tenth power. Room falls almost 13-fold, from $594 to $46.1.

One caution on the rows with large room. The calculator holds margin at the gold price of the day and flags its own figures as rough once stop-out lies deeper than about 10% of that price (about $417 here). That covers ×1.0, ×1.3 and ×1.5, where stop-out sits more than $600 below the first order, and the 7-order row in the next table. Read those rows as arithmetic of the settings, not as a price gold is expected to reach.

At ×1.0 the room is larger than the gold price itself, so on paper a buy basket runs out of price before it runs out of room. But ×1.0 means equal lots, closer to averaging than to martingale. Grid vs martingale vs averaging sorts the names.

What does one more order cost in a martingale grid?

There is no fixed number of orders, only a price for each one: at ×2 on $1,000, 9 orders leave $192.9 of room after the last order, 11 leave $46.1 and 13 leave $9.4. Back to ×2 and the defaults; only the order count changes (type it into Orders).

Each extra order about doubles the lots and the loss at the last order and cuts the room by half or more, while depth grows by only $1.95. Distance grows in a straight line, weight by doubling.

The last column is the surprise: more orders put stop-out closer to the first order, not further ($32.8 at 13 orders against $65.6 at 11), because the extra orders add far more lots than distance.

What does a wider step change?

A wider step puts the same lots over a longer distance: with ×2 and 11 orders, steps of $1.00, $1.95 and $3.00 reach $10, $19.50 and $30 below the first order, while the room after the last order barely changes ($47.0, $46.1, $45.0). Now only the step changes (open "Change settings" and type it into Step).

Depth, the loss at the last order and the rebound all scale with the step. Total lots do not change (20.47 in every row), so the room barely moves; a wider step takes a little away, because the same lots sit over longer distances.

What the step really moves is where the heavy lots sit on the price axis. A $10 drop from the first order opens all 11 orders on a $1.00 step, 6 on $1.95 and 4 on $3.00.

One number does not move at all: the calculator's third line, the way back from the bottom, is about $48.0 in every row. It depends on balance, margin and total lots, not on the step.

Why does a gentler grid need a bigger rebound?

A gentler grid needs a bigger rebound because its break-even sits further from the last order: $9.75 at ×1.0 against $1.94 at ×2.0.

Break-even is the lot-weighted average of the entry prices. With equal lots (×1.0) the average is the middle of the ladder, $9.75 below the first order, so after the last order opens price must climb $9.75, half of the $19.50 depth. At ×2.0 the last order is half the basket, the average is pulled to $17.56 below the first order, and the climb is $1.94, a tenth of the depth.

So the weight on the last order that shortens the way back also shortens the way to stop-out. ×1.3 asks for a $4.89 rebound and leaves $1,955; ×2.0 asks for $1.94 and leaves $46.1. They are two shapes of the same risk, and whether price comes back is a question for the market, not for arithmetic.

How does 0.01 lot rounding distort small multipliers?

The multiplier you type is a target, and rounding to the lot step can flatten a small one: ×1.3 from a 0.01 start keeps the first three orders at 0.01. The lots you get are rounded to the symbol's lot step, the minimal volume change step for a deal (SYMBOL_VOLUME_STEP in the MQL5 reference). The calculator assumes 0.01; check the step in your own symbol specification. Think of the lot step as the smallest measuring spoon in the kitchen: a recipe that says "add 30% each time" cannot be followed with a spoon that measures only whole units.

The calculator rounds down to 0.01. At ×1.3 from 0.01 the first three orders are all 0.01 (unrounded: 0.010, 0.013, 0.017) and the fourth is 0.02. At ×1.5 the 11 lots are 0.01, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.05, 0.07, 0.11, 0.17, 0.25, 0.38, 0.57: 1.67 lots against 1.71 unrounded. From a 0.10 start, ×1.5 loses only 0.3%.

The rounding rule is part of the setting. If each lot is instead rounded to the nearest 0.01 from the previous rounded lot, ×1.5 gives 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.05, 0.08, 0.12, 0.18, 0.27, 0.41, 0.62, 0.93: 2.72 lots, 63% more than 1.67. And ×1.3 never leaves 0.01 at all (0.11 lots in total, the same as ×1.0). Same label, different grid. Check the rule before comparing numbers.

How do you share your settings by link?

The grid calculator writes every non-default setting into the page address as you type, so the address is the link: copy it from the browser bar. For example, https://midasgrid.com/tools/grid-calculator.html?n=13&step=3 opens the 13-order, $3.00-step case.

The keys are dep (balance), n (orders), step, lot (start lot), lev (leverage), so (stop-out level, %), sp (spread), dir (buy or sell) and cmp (comparison balance). Defaults are left out. The multiplier has no key: the page keeps it at ×2.

What can go wrong

• The calculator is kinder than the market. It assumes every order opens exactly at its level. Swap, commission, slippage and gaps are not in it, and spread is zero by default, so a real stop-out can come earlier.
• Your account is not the baseline. For gold the calculator takes margin as lots × 100-ounce contract × gold price ÷ leverage, divided by 100 on a cent account; MT5's forex formula is lots × contract size ÷ leverage, converted to the account currency, and the terminal has other calculation modes for other instrument types (MetaTrader 5 Help). Margin call and stop-out are account properties, given either as a margin level in percent or as a sum of money (MQL5 book; see margin call vs stop-out), so read the levels your broker applies. At 1:100 leverage and a 50% stop-out the same ladder leaves $26.1 instead of $46.1; the margin calculator shows margin for your own leverage. Rules differ by country: ESMA's 2018 package limited leverage for retail CFD clients to 20:1 on gold and required close-out at 50% of the minimum required margin (ESMA, 1 June 2018); ESMA let those EU-wide measures lapse on 31 July 2019 because most national authorities had adopted permanent measures of their own (ESMA, 31 July 2019). Check that your broker accepts clients from your country and read its real terms.
• Big baskets meet broker limits. The 13-order ladder needs a 40.96-lot order and 81.91 lots in total. Each symbol has a maximum volume per deal and may cap the aggregate volume in one direction (MQL5 reference); look both up in your symbol specification.
• No row is protection. A martingale grid has no cap on loss. If price moves past the room, the broker starts force-closing positions and the whole deposit can be lost. Wide room means a bigger move is needed, not that none is possible. See Risk, plainly.

This is arithmetic of the settings, not a forecast. Trading with leverage carries risk: if the deposit is too small, a stop-out is possible. Size your deposit with a safety margin. Nothing here is individual investment advice.

Related: Martingale 2.0: why a doubling grid exits after a pullback of about $2 shows how the lot rule of a grid EA shortens the way back to break-even.

FAQ

Which lot multiplier should I use in a martingale grid, 1.5 or 2?

There is no single answer, only trade-offs. With 11 orders, a 0.01 start lot and $1,000 on a cent account, ×1.5 leaves $594 of room after the last order and needs a $3.55 rebound to break even. ×2.0 leaves $46.1 and needs $1.94. A lower multiplier buys room and a longer way back, a higher one the reverse. Neither is advised, and neither removes the risk of losing the deposit.

How many orders should a martingale grid have?

The arithmetic gives no fixed number, only a price for each order. At ×2 every added order about doubles the lots and cuts the room by half or more: on $1,000, 9 orders leave $192.9 after the last one, 11 leave $46.1 and 13 leave $9.4. The useful questions are how much room the balance leaves after the last order and whether the broker allows lots that large.

How big should the grid step be on gold?

The step sets depth: (orders − 1) × step. With ×2 and 11 orders, steps of $1.00, $1.95 and $3.00 reach $10, $19.50 and $30 below the first order. Room after the last order barely changes ($47.0, $46.1, $45.0) because the lots are the same. The step moves where the heavy lots sit and sets the bounce needed ($0.99, $1.94, $2.98). We do not advise a step.

What do grid step, multiplier and order count control in a martingale grid?

Order count and multiplier set how many lots the basket piles up; the step sets how far apart the orders sit, where the heavy lots land and the bounce needed. On the baseline ($1,000 cent account, 0.01 start lot, ×2, 11 orders, $1.95 step) the full basket is 20.47 lots, reaches $19.50 below the first order and leaves $46.1 of room after the last order.

Does a lower multiplier remove the risk of stop-out?

No. A lower multiplier buys room and shrinks the loss at the last order (−$5.93 at ×1.5 against −$39.70 at ×2.0), but a martingale grid has no cap on loss. If price moves past the room, the broker starts force-closing positions and the whole deposit can be lost. Wide room means a bigger move is needed, not that none is possible.

Is a grid with a multiplier of ×1.0 a martingale?

No. A multiplier of ×1.0 means equal lots, which is closer to averaging than to martingale. On $1,000 the room at ×1.0 is $9,080, larger than the gold price itself, so on paper a buy basket runs out of price before it runs out of room. Such a grid still averages down, and nothing in it caps the loss.