Upbit tick size calculator: what one price step costs
Enter a coin's price in won to see Upbit's tick size at that price, what one tick costs as a share of the price, and the round-trip cost of a market order.
Calculations run in your browser. Nothing you type is sent or stored. Results are estimates for information only, not investment advice.
How it works
Upbit's won market only accepts prices on a fixed grid. The grid step, the tick, depends on the price band. When the order book is tight, the best buy and sell prices sit one tick apart, so a market order pays about half a tick against the middle price going in and half a tick coming out: one tick per round trip. In fast markets the gap is wider. Our backtests charged one tick on every trade, two per round trip, to stay on the safe side.
Inside each band, the tick is a fixed number of won, so it costs the most, as a share of the price, at the bottom of the band. A coin at 100 won pays 1% per tick; the same coin at 999 won pays 0.1%.
Upbit tick sizes for the won market
| Price of one coin (KRW) | Tick size (KRW) | One tick as a share of the price |
|---|---|---|
| 2,000,000 or more | 1,000 | 0.050% and falling |
| 1,000,000 to under 2,000,000 | 1,000 | 0.050% – 0.100% |
| 500,000 to under 1,000,000 | 500 | 0.050% – 0.100% |
| 100,000 to under 500,000 | 100 | 0.020% – 0.100% |
| 50,000 to under 100,000 | 50 | 0.050% – 0.100% |
| 10,000 to under 50,000 | 10 | 0.020% – 0.100% |
| 5,000 to under 10,000 | 5 | 0.050% – 0.100% |
| 1,000 to under 5,000 | 1 | 0.020% – 0.100% |
| 100 to under 1,000 | 1 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 10 to under 100 | 0.1 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 1 to under 10 | 0.01 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 0.1 to under 1 | 0.001 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 0.01 to under 0.1 | 0.0001 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 0.001 to under 0.01 | 0.00001 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 0.0001 to under 0.001 | 0.000001 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| 0.00001 to under 0.0001 | 0.0000001 | 0.100% – 1.000% |
| under 0.00001 | 0.00000001 | — |
Questions
Why does one tick matter so much for cheap coins?
Because it is a fixed amount of won. At 128 won a tick is 0.78% of the price, more than fifteen times Upbit's 0.05% fee, and a strategy that trades every few minutes pays it again and again.
Do limit orders avoid the tick?
A limit order that waits in the book can buy at the bid instead of the ask, so it does not pay the spread. In exchange it may not fill, and the orders that do not fill are often the ones that would have made money.
Why did the 1-minute backtests look so good with fees only?
Because a bar's close sits on the bid or the ask more or less at random, and a backtest that buys at one and sells at the other books the spread as profit. The one-minute trap.