Crypto trading bots compared, grid, DCA and rebalancing bots side by side on fees

2026-10-15

Open a bot's setup screen and a few empty boxes come first.

A grid bot asks for the top and bottom of the price range and the number of grids. A DCA bot asks for an interval and an amount. A rebalancing bot asks for coin ratios and a threshold.

None of them has a box for fees.

Fees are charged every time the bot places an order. So the same money put in can lose a very different share to fees depending on the type of bot.

We set the three bots side by side using the official fee tables of Upbit and Binance. This post does not recommend any bot or coin, and the amounts, gaps and counts are assumptions made for the sums. Amounts are in Korean won.

1.When each bot places orders

• Grid bot: splits a set price range into grids, buys at a lower grid and sells at a higher one. Orders go out each time the price moves up and down
• DCA bot: buys a set amount at a set interval, whatever the price
• Rebalancing bot: keeps set coin ratios, and when a ratio drifts past the threshold it sells what has grown and buys what has shrunk

OKX's help center says orders placed by bots pay the same fees as orders placed by hand (OKX spot grid guide). Binance also says its rebalancing bot charges no extra fee and pays the normal spot fee.

No bot fee also means paying the trading fee once for every order.

2.What is left after fees: the three bots side by side

The base is the two official tables. Upbit's KRW market charges 0.05% on regular orders, VAT included (Upbit fee guide). Binance charges regular users 0.1% on spot, or 0.075% when paid in BNB (Binance fee table).

Round-trip fee: the two fees paid to buy once and sell it back. About 0.1% on Upbit, 0.2% on Binance.

Grid bot: the grid gap minus the round-trip fee

What one grid keeps is the gap between the sell and buy price minus the buy fee and the sell fee. OKX's grid FAQ writes this formula out (OKX grid FAQ).

We took three grid gaps (assumed) and subtracted the round-trip fee.

• 0.2% gap: 0.1% left on Upbit, 0% on Binance
• 0.5% gap: 0.4% on Upbit, 0.3% on Binance
• 1% gap: 0.9% on Upbit, 0.8% on Binance

A 0.2% grid keeps nothing after one round trip at Binance's standard fee. On Upbit, half of what it earns still goes to fees.

With 100,000 won per grid and a 0.5% gap (assumed), one round trip on Binance earns a 500 won spread, of which about 200 won is fees. About 300 won is left.

Splitting the range into finer grids fills orders more often, but each grid keeps less. The box that sets the number of grids is, in effect, the box that sets the fee share.

DCA bot: fees only on each buy

Buying 100,000 won every week for a year (assumed) is 52 buys, 5.2 million won in total. Buy fees come to 2,600 won at Upbit's 0.05% and 5,200 won at Binance's 0.1%. The sell fee is paid once, when selling later.

With DCA, the number of orders is tied to the interval, so fees stay at 0.05~0.1% of the money put in. Because it keeps buying while the price falls, the result is decided more by price than by fees. Buying bigger amounts as the price falls is worked out separately in the crypto bot strategy post.

Rebalancing bot: trades only the drift

Say 10 million won is split half coin, half cash (assumed). If the coin rises 10%, the coin is worth 5.5 million won and the cash 5 million won. Getting back to half and half means selling 250,000 won of coin, and the fee is 125 won on Upbit or 250 won on Binance.

Binance's rebalancing bot lets the threshold be set from 0.5% to 50% and the check interval from 30 minutes to 28 days (Binance rebalancing bot FAQ). The smaller the threshold, the less money moves each time and the more often it trades.

Where the fee comes out also differs by bot. For a grid it comes out of the spread each grid earns, and for DCA out of the money put in. For rebalancing it comes out of the money moved.

3.What each bot does when the price runs one way

As important as fees is when a bot stops acting. OKX says a grid bot places no new orders once the price leaves the set range. It also notes that in a strongly trending market, buy or sell orders may stay unfilled.

If the price drops below the range, a grid bot ends up holding the coin it bought at each grid. If it breaks above, it has sold everything and sits on cash. A DCA bot keeps buying on schedule, and a rebalancing bot keeps buying the coin that fell to restore the ratio.

!Below the minimum order value, Binance's rebalancing bot skips that rebalance and tries again.

Before switching a bot on, write down the fee rate and what the bot will hold after the price leaves the range. API key permissions and order limits are covered in the Binance auto trading post.

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