Automated crypto trading program costs compared, what the order book takes from a market order round trip on three Upbit coins

2026-10-31

Three lines first

Buying 10 million won of a coin at market on Upbit's KRW market and selling it right back costs about 10,000 won in fees, plus an order book loss on top
On five order book reads early on October 29, the round trip came to about 15,000 won in bitcoin and about 65,000 won in a coin with middle-of-the-pack volume
At 60 round trips a month (an assumption), the same 10 million won loses either 880,000 won or 3.88 million won

1.The cost that is not the fee: order book loss

Order book loss: spread plus slippage, the gap between the best price shown and the price a market order gets.

The spread is the space between the buy and sell price. Slippage is the cost of eating through several price levels.

Automated crypto trading programs are often set to buy and sell at market the moment a signal fires. A market buy takes the sell orders in the book from the cheapest level down. When the top level runs out, it moves to the next one, and the average fill price rises with each step.

Selling does the same thing on the buy side of the book.

Upbit's fee guide lists 0.05% for general orders on the KRW market, for both maker and taker (Upbit fee guide). Buy 10 million won and sell it straight back, and the fee is charged twice, about 10,000 won.

That part is the same for every coin. What changes from coin to coin is the order book loss. It is not on any fee table, so the only way to see it is to pull the order book and count.

2.A 10 million won market round trip, three coins

Upbit's order book API returns up to 30 levels on each side per coin and can be called up to 10 times a second (Upbit orderbook API).

We pulled it five times, 30 seconds apart, starting at 6:13 a.m. Korea time on October 29, 2026. The coins were bitcoin, XRP, and GAS, which sat right in the middle of Upbit's 299 KRW markets by 24 hour trading value (about 460 million won).

How we counted

We filled sell levels from the top until 10 million won was spent, then sold the coins received into the buy levels from the top. The difference between the money in and the money back is the order book loss. Adding the two 0.05% fees gives the round trip cost.

▲ Median of five order book reads. These are early morning values and change by time of day.

Bitcoin

All 30 sell levels added up to about 360 million won. Large orders sat in the top few levels, though, so 10 million won took one or two levels to buy and one to three to sell.

The median order book loss was about 4,750 won, and the round trip with fees about 14,700 won (0.15%). On the two reads where the spread narrowed to 0.001%, it was about 10,100 won, almost exactly the fee.

XRP

The 30 levels held about 3.15 billion won, the deepest of the three. But at a price of 1,784 won, one tick is 1 won, which is about 0.056% of the price.

On all five reads, the buy and sell price sat one tick apart. A market round trip pays that gap every time. The median round trip cost was about 20,800 won (0.21%).

A mid-volume coin

GAS had about 37 million won across its 30 sell levels, roughly a tenth of bitcoin and an 85th of XRP.

Its spread started at about 0.37%. Buying 10 million won went down 2 to 4 sell levels, and selling went down 5 to 6 buy levels.

The order book loss alone was about 54,800 won, more than five times the fee.

The round trip cost was about 64,700 won, or 0.65% of the money put in.

Counted the same way, 30 million won ate 14 to 26 sell levels and pushed the round trip cost to about 1.2 to 1.3%. A backtest run on closing prices or the top level price leaves this out.

3.Over a month (assumption)

Assumption: twice a day for 30 days, 60 round trips, each a 10 million won market buy and sell. Price moves are left out and only costs are counted.

▲ Median round trip cost multiplied by 60. The count and the amount are assumptions.

Bitcoin comes to about 880,000 won, XRP about 1.25 million won and GAS about 3.88 million won. Against 10 million won of capital that is 8.8%, 12.5% and 38.8%, and the fee part alone is about 600,000 won for all three.

Everything else is order book loss.

Run the same program the same number of times, and the monthly cost differs by more than four times depending on the coin. Profit has to clear this cost before it breaks even. How to read the monthly return figures in ads is covered in our automated trading return calculation post.

4.What to check in the program settings

▲ Order size and order book depth, side by side before the order goes in.

Order type: check first whether it uses market or limit orders. A limit order skips the spread. If the price moves away, it may not fill.
Order size: see whether it compares each order with the total of the 30 sell levels.
Backtest costs: see whether only the 0.05% fee is entered, or whether there is a separate line for order book loss.
Time of day: the values here come from one early morning, so pull the book again in the same way at the hours the program will run.
Call limit: pulling the book before every order uses the same 10 calls per second limit.

Q.Does a limit order avoid order book loss?

A.If it fills at the price set, there is no spread and no level skipping. If the price moves, it may sit unfilled. The 0.05% general order fee on the KRW market is the same for limit orders.

Q.Does splitting the order into small pieces help?

A.Sent at once, an order eats the levels that are there at that moment. Spread out over time, the levels may refill in between, but the price also moves. This post did not calculate split orders.

Q.What if 30 levels are not enough?

A.Putting 50 million won into GAS went past the roughly 37 million won in its 30 sell levels, so the fill price could not be counted from the levels the API returns. When an order gets close to the 30 level total, a market order on that coin is better avoided.

Q.Do reserved orders cost more?

A.Upbit's fee guide lists 0.139% for reserved orders on the KRW market. The same 10 million won round trip would cost about 27,800 won in fees alone.

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