How many grids should you run? The spacing vs fill-frequency trade-off

More grids means tighter spacing, which means more fills per unit of price movement. That sounds strictly better — until the spacing gets so tight that fees consume the profit on every round trip. Grid count has a hard ceiling set by your fee rate, and a soft ceiling set by your capital. Getting either wrong is one of the most reliable ways to run a grid bot at a loss.

What grid count actually controls

Given a fixed price range, grid count determines two things: the spacing between levels and the order size per level. With the same capital deployed across more grids, each individual order is smaller. With fewer grids, each order is larger but fills happen less frequently.

This is a genuine trade-off with no universally correct answer. The right grid count depends on how much price is expected to move, how tight the fee structure is, and how much capital is available per level to keep order sizes above the exchange's minimum notional.

The fee floor: the hard lower limit on spacing

Every round trip costs two maker fees — one on the buy fill, one on the sell fill. For a round trip to be profitable, the grid spacing must exceed those combined fees as a percentage of price. If spacing equals fees, every round trip breaks even. If spacing is below fees, every round trip loses money — and more fills means faster losses.

Fee floor formula:

  Minimum spacing (%) = 2 × maker fee rate

Example with 0.02% maker fee:
  Minimum spacing = 2 × 0.02% = 0.04% of price

At BTC $100,000:
  Minimum spacing = $100,000 × 0.0004 = $40 per grid level

Maximum grids within a $10,000 range ($95,000 – $105,000):
  Max grids = $10,000 range ÷ $40 minimum spacing = 250 grids

This is a theoretical ceiling. In practice, spacing should be
several multiples of the fee floor to leave meaningful profit
per round trip after slippage and spread.

A practical rule: grid spacing should be at least 5× the combined fee rate to produce a worthwhile net profit per round trip. At 0.02% maker fee on both sides, that means spacing of at least 0.2% of price. At $100,000 BTC, that is $200 minimum spacing — and a maximum of 50 grids across a $10,000 range.

The capital floor: the soft lower limit on grid count

Exchanges impose a minimum notional value per order — typically $5–$10 USDT equivalent. With fixed capital and more grids, each order gets smaller. Once order size drops below the exchange minimum, the bot cannot place all its orders and the configuration breaks.

Capital floor formula:

  Min order notional = exchange minimum (e.g. $5)
  Max grids = (capital × leverage) ÷ min order notional

Example:
  Capital:    $1,000
  Leverage:   3×
  Notional:   $3,000
  Min order:  $5

  Max grids = $3,000 ÷ $5 = 600

At $1,000 capital and 1× leverage:
  Max grids = $1,000 ÷ $5 = 200

Small accounts with no leverage hit this ceiling quickly
on wide ranges with many grids.

A practical sizing table

The table below shows how grid count, spacing, and net profit per round trip relate for a 10% range on BTC at $100,000, with 0.02% maker fee and $1,000 order size per level.

At 200 grids, the net profit per round trip is $0.10 — technically positive, but fragile. Any slippage, spread widening, or taker fill wipes it out. At 50 grids the profit per round trip is meaningful, and 20 grids gives a comfortable margin. Fewer grids, larger profit per fill, lower fill frequency — but total income depends on how often price oscillates across each level, not just how tight the grid is.

High volatility vs low volatility regimes

In a high-volatility environment, price moves more per day and crosses more grid levels. Tighter grids capture those moves more granularly. In a low-volatility environment, price moves less and a tighter grid may simply sit idle most of the time — the fills never materialise to justify the narrower spacing.

A practical approach: in high-vol regimes, more grids across the same range can increase total income by capturing small oscillations that wider grids miss. In low-vol regimes, fewer grids with wider spacing preserves meaningful profit per fill even if fill frequency drops. The simulator's Market Analysis panel shows the current vol regime — use it to calibrate grid count alongside range.

A starting point for most setups

Conservative default (prioritise profit per fill):
  Grid count:  10 – 20
  Spacing:     0.5% – 1.0% of price
  Best for:    Low-to-medium vol, wide range, small capital

Balanced (standard starting point):
  Grid count:  20 – 50
  Spacing:     0.2% – 0.5% of price
  Best for:    Medium vol, standard range, adequate capital

Aggressive (high fill frequency):
  Grid count:  50 – 100
  Spacing:     0.1% – 0.2% of price
  Best for:    High vol, tight range, larger capital, low fees
  Risk:        Thin margin per fill — fee creep wipes profit quickly