What Is a Grid Trading Bot in Crypto? How It Works in India
A grid bot buys low and sells high at fixed steps inside a price range. See a worked ₹10,000 example, spot vs futures grids and how fees and TDS bite.
A grid trading bot places a ladder of buy orders below the current price and sell orders above it, inside a price range you choose. Each time the price dips to a lower level it buys, and each time it rises to the next level up it sells, earning the gap between levels minus fees. Grids make small, steady gains when a coin moves sideways, but lose when the price trends out of the range, and in India fees, GST and 1% TDS on spot sells take a large share of each small gain.
Key takeaways
- You set a lower price, an upper price and the number of grids; the bot does the rest with limit orders.
- In our illustrative example, a ₹20 gross gain per completed grid shrinks to about ₹9 to ₹11 after assumed fees, GST and tax.
- Arithmetic grids use equal rupee steps; geometric grids use equal percentage steps and suit wide ranges.
- A spot grid ends up holding coins if the price falls below the range; a leveraged futures grid can be liquidated.
- Too many grids means each step is smaller than the fees. No grid setting guarantees a profit.
How a grid bot works, step by step
- Choose a range. You set a lower and an upper price, for example ₹90 to ₹110 for a coin trading at ₹100.
- Choose the number of grids. The bot splits the range into levels. Ten grids across ₹90 to ₹110 gives a level every ₹2.
- The bot places its orders. It puts buy limit orders at each level below the current price and sell limit orders at each level above. On a spot grid it first buys enough of the coin to cover those sell orders.
- Buys and sells swap roles. When a buy fills, the bot places a sell one level higher. When that sell fills, it places a buy one level lower again.
- Each buy-then-sell pair is one completed grid. It earns the gap between the two levels, minus fees on both orders.
- It runs until something stops it: you end it, a stop-loss or take-profit you set triggers, or the price leaves the range and the bot has nothing left to do.
Because the bot uses limit orders that wait on the order book, it usually pays the maker fee rather than the taker fee where the exchange charges different rates. Our guide to limit orders and market orders explains the difference.
A worked ₹ example of one grid
This example is illustrative. It uses a made-up coin trading at ₹100, a range of ₹90 to ₹110, 10 arithmetic grids, ₹10,000 of capital split into ₹1,000 per order, and an assumed trading fee of 0.2% per order. Check your own exchange's fee schedule.
At the start, ₹5,000 buys 50 coins at ₹100 to cover the five sell orders at ₹102, ₹104, ₹106, ₹108 and ₹110. The other ₹5,000 waits as buy orders of ₹1,000 each at ₹98, ₹96, ₹94, ₹92 and ₹90. Now suppose the price dips to ₹98 and comes back to ₹100:
| Step | Amount |
|---|---|
| Buy order fills at ₹98 | ₹1,000 buys about 10.2 coins |
| Sell order fills at ₹100 | The 10.2 coins sell for about ₹1,020.41 |
| Gross profit | ₹20.41, or 2.04% |
| Fees at 0.2% plus 18% GST on both orders | About ₹4.77 |
| Net before tax | About ₹15.64 |
| 1% TDS deducted on the sell (Indian INR pair) | About ₹10.20, credited against your tax later |
| Tax at 30% plus 4% cess on the ₹20.41 gain | About ₹6.37, if fees cannot be deducted |
| Left after fees and tax | About ₹9.27 |
So a grid that looks like it earns 2% per cycle keeps roughly 1% after costs and tax. The VDA rules allow no deduction except the cost of acquisition, so how fees are treated can move the last line by up to about ₹1.50; either way, costs and tax take roughly half of every gain.
How the number of grids changes the result
More grids fill more often but earn less per fill. Using the same range, the same assumed fees and a ₹1,000 order near ₹100:
| Grids across ₹90 to ₹110 | Step | Gross per completed grid | Fees and GST | Net before tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | ₹4 | ₹41.67 | ₹4.82 | ₹36.85 (3.7%) |
| 10 | ₹2 | ₹20.41 | ₹4.77 | ₹15.64 (1.6%) |
| 20 | ₹1 | ₹10.10 | ₹4.74 | ₹5.36 (0.5%) |
| 40 | ₹0.50 | ₹5.03 | ₹4.73 | ₹0.30 (0.03%) |
At 40 grids almost everything goes in fees. Binance's futures grid warns users when the profit per grid is less than the maker fee, and the same logic applies on any platform: the step must be several times larger than your round-trip fees.
Arithmetic vs geometric grids
An arithmetic grid spaces levels by an equal rupee amount. A geometric grid spaces them by an equal percentage. In a narrow range the two look almost the same; in a wide range they behave very differently. Here is a range of ₹100 to ₹200 with 5 grids:
| Grid | Arithmetic levels | Gain per grid | Geometric levels | Gain per grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹100 to ₹120 | 20.0% | ₹100 to ₹114.87 | 14.9% |
| 2 | ₹120 to ₹140 | 16.7% | ₹114.87 to ₹131.95 | 14.9% |
| 3 | ₹140 to ₹160 | 14.3% | ₹131.95 to ₹151.57 | 14.9% |
| 4 | ₹160 to ₹180 | 12.5% | ₹151.57 to ₹174.11 | 14.9% |
| 5 | ₹180 to ₹200 | 11.1% | ₹174.11 to ₹200 | 14.9% |
An arithmetic grid earns a bigger percentage at the bottom of the range and a smaller one at the top. A geometric grid earns the same percentage on every level, which is why it is the usual choice for wide ranges or volatile coins. Binance's help pages describe the two modes the same way: equal price difference for arithmetic, equal price ratio for geometric.
Spot grid vs futures grid
| Spot grid | Futures grid | |
|---|---|---|
| What you hold | The coin itself plus rupees or USDT | A contract position backed by margin |
| Direction | Effectively long: you end up holding more coin as the price falls | Neutral, long or short modes on platforms such as Binance |
| Leverage | None | Optional; it magnifies gains and losses |
| Worst case | Holding coins bought at higher prices after the price falls below the range | Liquidation, which can take most or all of the margin |
| Extra costs | Fees, 18% GST, 1% TDS on each sell on Indian INR pairs | Fees, 18% GST and funding payments |
| Tax in India | 30% plus cess on gains, 1% TDS on sells | Not yet settled; see our futures tax guide |
A neutral futures grid can profit from sideways movement without owning the coin, and a short grid can work in a falling range, which a spot grid cannot do. The price is leverage: a leveraged grid keeps adding to a losing position as the price moves against it. Read how leverage works, how liquidation price is worked out and what the funding rate is before running one. Our spot vs futures guide covers the wider differences.
When grid bots work and when they fail
Grids work best when a coin swings up and down inside a range for weeks, with no strong trend. They fail in three ways. Using the same illustrative ₹10,000 spot grid:
- A strong rally out of the top. If the price climbs to ₹130, the bot sells its 50 coins at ₹102 to ₹110 for ₹5,300 and sits in cash. You finish with about ₹10,300 before fees. Simply holding ₹10,000 of the coin would have become ₹13,000. The grid caps your upside.
- A fall out of the bottom. If the price drops to ₹80 and stays there, the bot has bought at every level down to ₹90 and holds about 103 coins worth about ₹8,260, a loss of around ₹1,740 before fees and any grid profits. Holding the coin would have lost ₹2,000; holding cash would have lost nothing. A spot grid is mostly a long position that trades around the edges.
- Liquidation on a leveraged grid. At 5x leverage, ₹10,000 of margin can control up to ₹50,000 of positions. A 10% move against a fully built position costs about ₹5,000, and a move of roughly 20% would wipe out the margin; exchanges liquidate before that point. Binance says a futures grid stops opening positions once the price passes its highest or lowest grid, and ends if its risk ratio falls below 1.0.
Grid profits are real but small and frequent; grid losses are rare but large. Backtests over a quiet period make grids look far better than they are, so test yours across a trending month as well as a sideways one.
Fees, GST and 1% TDS on Indian spot exchanges
Grids trade often, so Indian costs matter more than for a buy-and-hold investor:
- Trading fees and 18% GST are charged on every order, including both halves of every completed grid.
- 1% TDS on each sell. Indian exchanges deduct it on qualifying crypto sales. If your grid completes 100 cycles in a month with sells of about ₹1,020 each, about ₹1,020 of TDS is withheld. It is credited against your tax, and any excess is refunded after you file, but you cannot trade with it meanwhile.
- Pair choice matters. CoinDCX, for example, deducts no TDS on spot buys in INR pairs but 1% on both sides of crypto-to-crypto trades, so a grid on a USDT pair loses twice as much to TDS as one on an INR pair.
- Tax on gains. Each profitable sell is taxed at a flat 30% plus 4% cess. If the grid ends in a loss, you cannot use it to reduce tax on gains from other crypto or on other income, or carry it forward.
On offshore exchanges registered with FIU-IND, Indian tax rules still apply to you, so check the tax statements the platform provides. Read how 1% TDS on crypto works for the detail.
Which platforms offer grid bots?
We checked official help pages on 1 October 2026:
- Binance offers Spot Grid and Futures Grid among its built-in bots and says they are free to use with normal trading fees. It offers arithmetic and geometric modes. Binance is registered with FIU-IND; check that the bot is available in your app. See our Binance review.
- KuCoin offers a spot grid bot and says it charges no subscription fee, only trading fees. KuCoin is registered with FIU-IND; check availability in your app.
- Bybit has grid bots, but says its Trading Bot is not available to users in India.
- Pionex, an exchange built around grid and other bots, was named by FIU-IND in September 2026 among 15 offshore platforms issued notices for serving Indians without registration. Avoid it.
- Indian exchanges: we did not find a built-in grid bot in the official help pages of the Indian exchanges we checked. Features change, so look in your exchange's app. You can still run a grid through an exchange's API with your own code or open-source software, as our guide to free crypto trading bots in India explains.
How to set up a grid sensibly
- Pick a coin that has actually been ranging. Look at the last few months of candles; if it has trended hard, a grid is the wrong tool.
- Set the range from real support and resistance, not from hope.
- Choose a step several times larger than your round-trip fees. Use the table above as a guide.
- Set a stop-loss below the range and decide in advance what you will do if the price breaks out above it.
- Start small, without leverage, with money you can afford to lose.
- Backtest and paper trade first. Our guide on how to backtest a crypto trading strategy shows free methods, and our guide to free crypto algo trading strategies compares grids with trend and mean-reversion rules.
A grid is one tool within algo trading, not a complete plan. For the full roadmap, from rules to API keys to monitoring, read our beginner's guide to crypto algo trading in India.
FAQ
What is a grid trading bot in crypto?
It is a bot that places buy orders at fixed steps below the price and sell orders at fixed steps above it, inside a range you set. It earns the gap between levels each time the price moves up and down, minus fees.
Is grid trading profitable?
It can make small gains in sideways markets, but it loses when the price trends out of the range, and fees, GST and tax take a large share of each gain. Like most retail strategies, many grids lose money after costs, and no setting guarantees a profit.
Which is safer, a spot grid or a futures grid?
A spot grid without leverage is generally less risky because it cannot be liquidated; its worst case is holding coins bought at higher prices. A leveraged futures grid can lose most or all of its margin in one strong move.
How many grids should I use?
Use few enough grids that each step is several times larger than your round-trip fees. In our illustrative example, 40 grids across a ₹20 range left almost nothing after fees.
What happens when the price leaves the grid range?
Above the range, a spot grid has sold its coins and sits in cash; below it, the grid holds coins bought on the way down and stops trading. Either way it earns nothing until the price returns or you reset it.
Can I use a grid bot in India?
Yes, on exchanges registered with FIU-IND that offer one, such as Binance and KuCoin if the bot is available in your app, or through your own code on an exchange's API. Bybit's bots are not available in India, and Pionex was named by FIU-IND in September 2026.
This article is AI-assisted, educational and general in nature. It is not financial advice and never a guarantee of profit. Every trade is at your own risk on your own exchange. See our risk disclosure and editorial policy.
