How grid bot profit really works
A grid bot slices a price range into levels and buys a little lower, sells a little higher, over and over. In a choppy, sideways market that prints small, steady gains. But two things quietly decide whether it actually makes money: fees and the range.
Every completed grid trade is a buy and a sell, so you pay the fee twice. If your grid spacing is narrower than roughly 2× the fee, every trade loses money no matter how busy the bot looks. This is why cramming in more grids — which sounds like more profit — usually backfires: tighter levels mean tighter spacing, and past a point you're just feeding the exchange. The table above shows exactly where that line is for your setup.
The other killer is the range. A grid only earns while price oscillates inside your bounds. Break below the lower bound and the bot has bought all the way down — now you're holding a bag at an unrealized loss, just like DCA into a downtrend. Break above the upper bound and the bot has sold out and stops earning while the asset runs without you. Pick a range you genuinely believe price will chop within, size it with the position size calculator, and compare the fee tiers across exchanges — at grid volumes, fees are the whole game.
FAQ
What fee should I enter? Use your real taker/maker fee. Bybit/Binance spot is around 0.1% standard, lower with maker rebates or VIP tiers. Many grid bots are maker-heavy, so check your actual fill fees.
Is this guaranteed profit? No. This shows the mechanical profit per grid if price cooperates. It can't predict how often price will round-trip your range, and it doesn't count the unrealized loss if price breaks out. Treat the round-trip number as a what-if, not a promise.
Geometric or arithmetic grids? This uses even (arithmetic) spacing for clarity. Geometric grids keep the percentage step constant; the fee-floor logic is identical — spacing below 2× fee still loses.