How to create a DCA bot: Immediate, Indicator or Price move

A DCA bot opens a position, lines up safety orders below it and closes the position at your take profit or stop loss. You decide when it opens: straight away, when your indicator conditions turn true, or when price moves by a percentage you set. Creating one takes about five minutes.

Before you start: you need a connected exchange account or a demo account. DCA bots require a paid plan.

Choose a bot kind

1. Open Bots in the left-side menu.
2. Click + Create at the top right of the Trading Bots page.
3. The Create a bot dialog lists every kind of bot. Pick DCA Bot.

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The other cards open their own flows: HODL Bot buys on a schedule, TradingView Bot follows your Pine Script alerts, QFL Bot trades Crypto Base Scanner signals, and Signal bot follows a signal provider. See How to set up and configure a DCA / signal bot for the provider-based signal bot.

Your new bot is named after its kind and market, for example BINA USDT DCA Bot. On the Trading Bots page its card shows a DCA Bot badge and how it starts: Immediate, Indicator or Price move.

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🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

Pick how the bot starts

The first step asks How should this bot start? There are three choices:

• Immediate: opens a position on your picked markets right away, then opens a new one after each completed cycle.
• Indicator: waits until your indicator conditions turn true at a candle close. It can watch a whole quote currency at once.
• Price move: opens once price drops (or, on futures, rises) by the percentage you set.

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Account, markets and investment

On Trading account and investment:

1. Account: pick a Live or Demo account. The balance shows next to each one.
2. Markets: pick one or more markets. For an Indicator bot you can switch to All markets and choose a quote currency (USDT, USDC or Other): the bot then screens every pair on that quote currency with your conditions.
3. Investment: the total the bot may use. The buttons are amounts based on your balance.
4. Reinvest profits: adds profit from closed positions back into the investment.

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

Click Next. Immediate bots go straight to the review. Indicator and Price move bots first ask for their start settings.

Indicator start: set your conditions

The Start conditions step sets when the bot opens and, optionally, when it closes.

1. Side: Long or Short.
2. Timeframe: the candle size the conditions are checked on.
3. Entry condition: click a condition to edit the indicator, comparison and value, or Add condition to combine several.
4. Exit condition (optional): turn it on to close the position at market when this condition turns true. Take profit and stop loss still apply.

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The bot opens when the condition becomes true, not while it stays true. A market that already matches when you start the bot is skipped until the next time the condition turns true.

Already built a rule in the TA Scanner? Click Import to load one from My rules, or start from one of the Templates.

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Price move start: set the trigger

The Price move step sets how far price has to move.

1. Buy when price drops: the percentage.
2. Measured from: what the percentage is measured against.
   • Last position close: from the price when the bot starts, and after that from the close price of each previous position.
   • A candle interval, such as 4 hours: from the open of the current candle. The entry price resets at every new candle, and the bot opens at most once per candle.

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

The buy order waits on the exchange at the trigger price, so it also fills on a sudden wick down. With a candle interval, the waiting order moves to the new trigger price when the next candle starts (candles follow UTC). If you edit that waiting entry by hand, the bot replaces your edit at the next candle. The entry order type and entry price deviation settings don’t apply to Price move bots.

On a futures account you also get Long, buy the drop and Short, sell the spike. With Short selected the field changes to Sell short when price rises.

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Review your DCA bot

The review step shows a summary of what the bot will do. Pick a risk variant (Conservative, Balanced or Aggressive) to change the safety orders, take profit and stop loss in one go.

The Start condition line shows how the bot opens, for example Immediate, Indicator, 1 hour timeframe or Price down 5% within 4 hours.

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

Indicator and Price move bots also show a Backtest panel here. See Backtest a DCA bot before you start it.

Adjust settings, then start

Click Adjust parameters to fine-tune the variant. Adjust settings has five tabs, and the start button appears once you’ve opened every tab.

• Entry: safety orders (DCA) as a Ladder or Scales, and Auto close under Advanced settings. The card below shows the entry order and full position cost.
• Take profit: one or more targets with profit and volume, and trailing for the last target.
• Stop loss: stop distance and Protection (None, Break even, Follow TP or Follow price).
• Filters: Cool down after opening and Cool down after Stop loss. A bot on several markets also gets volume, price, white list and black list filters. A bot on one market shows only the cooldowns.
• Journal: Mark closed positions as reviewed in journal.

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

🔍 Click the image to see a larger version

Click Start Live DCA Bot, or Start Demo DCA Bot on a demo account.

After you start

Bot is ready confirms the bot is running and will open its position on your start condition. Immediate, Indicator and Price move bots drive themselves, so there’s no webhook payload to set up. Click Open bot to see its details.

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Don’t worry if an Indicator or Price move bot doesn’t open straight away: it waits for its condition. Altrady checks waiting bots every 15 minutes, and if opening a position fails, it tries again after 5 minutes.

Still stuck?

If your DCA bot isn’t doing what you expect, reach out via support chat and we’ll look at your bot with you.