Can a trading bot beat fees?
Enter what a strategy makes per trade and what each trade costs. The calculator shows whether it can make money at all.
Calculations run in your browser. Nothing you type is sent or stored. Results are estimates for information only, not investment advice.
How it works
Every round trip pays the fee twice (buy and sell) and the slippage twice. Net result per trade = gross gain − 2 × (fee + slippage). The 30-day figure compounds that net result over all the trades in 30 days.
The minute-signal preset uses what our first paper trader actually measured: a gross edge of about +0.06% per trade against a median round-trip cost of 0.46%. The trend preset uses the rough average of our four-hour rule (+2.6% per trade, about five trades a month); remember that its live two-week result was still a loss.
Questions
Why does a 60% win rate still lose?
Because the size of the wins matters more than how often you win. If an average trade gains 0.06% and costs 0.46%, every trade loses 0.4% on average, whatever the win rate.
What cost should I use for my exchange?
Use the taker fee on your fee tier for market orders, and add half the bid-ask spread plus a small amount for slippage. For cheap coins one price tick can be 0.3% to 0.8%.