Crypto trading bots compared: pricing, backtesting and copy trading
We checked 29 tiers across eight crypto trading bots and dated every price July 29, 2026. The subscription is the half that gets published: the exchange holding your account charges a fee on every order a bot sends, and no plan page prints that.
Where does the money go when you run a crypto trading bot?
Paid access to a crypto trading bot begins at $4.95 each month, with $25 at the midpoint. A bot here is software that places orders on an exchange account you already hold. The exchange charges a fee on every order it sends. 4 of these charge nothing to start, checked July 29, 2026.
The field opens at $4.95 and its priciest first tier is $32. Half of it sits below $25, checked July 29, 2026. By the standards of this site these are cheap tools.
The subscription is one of two charges. Every order a bot places is priced by the exchange holding the account, and that side of the bill follows activity rather than the calendar.
Only two tiers in the whole category go unpriced: a custom step and a multi-client plan for people trading on behalf of others. Everything else on the page carries a figure.
Higher tiers here mostly raise limits. More bots, more connected accounts, more open positions. A few vendors do put a whole strategy behind a higher step, and futures bots are the usual one held back.
Annual billing is uneven. One vendor halves its top tier on yearly billing and barely moves its entry plan, so the yearly maths rewards heavy users and nobody else.
Three different things go by the name free among the 4 vendors that offer it. One is a demo that trades nothing real. One keeps a single bot of each type. One is an exchange that never sold software in the first place.
Ranked by a transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. Capability is not scored. It is the condition grid below. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked per product on the dates shown. ComparEdge sells no crypto trading bots and takes no payment for placement. How the score is built.
01 / 06
Crypto trading bots ranked: fee disclosure, backtesting and futures
The grid answers what each bot can run, not what it costs. Grid and dollar-cost-averaging bots sit on nearly all eight of these, so neither gets a column of its own. The four that do separate this field are signal following, backtesting, futures and copy trading. Where a cell is unmarked we hold no record of that feature. That is weaker than saying the product cannot do it.
Sorted by transparency scorePriced tiers 27 / 29Full disclosure 6 / 8How to read this table
Reading the console
The axis is the price column, drawn logarithmically with $4.95 at its floor. That is the smallest monthly fee any of these vendors will take. Nobody here charges per person. Every marker is a diamond, which on this site marks one fee for the whole account. Pionex sits off the axis entirely: it sells no plan, and the trading fee on each order is where its money comes from. A lens sits under the axis. Name a number and the field narrows to the bots that fit.
Price axis
One shared logarithmic axis, $4.95 to $149. A tick further right is genuinely dearer. The tall tick is the cheapest paid tier.
Diamond
A flat platform fee, billed per month, not per seat.
Granted
Listed on the vendor’s own pages on the verify date.
Conditional
Present, but some tiers carry no published price.
Not on the record
Absent from the recorded feature set. It means unlisted, not incapable.
01PionexFree, no paid plansFree tierAll tiers pricedSignal following not on the recordBacktesting not on the recordFutures listedCopy trading not on the recordFree86Alternatives to Pionex
02BitsgapFree tierAll tiers pricedSignal following not on the recordBacktesting listedFutures listedCopy trading not on the record$29flat84Alternatives to Bitsgap
03AltradyNo free tierAll tiers pricedSignal following listedBacktesting not on the recordFutures listedCopy trading not on the record$32flat84Alternatives to Altrady
04CryptohopperFree tierAll tiers pricedSignal following listedBacktesting listedFutures not on the recordCopy trading listed$29flat80Alternatives to Cryptohopper
06TradeSantaNo free tierAll tiers pricedSignal following not on the recordBacktesting listedFutures listedCopy trading listed$25flat78Alternatives to TradeSanta
073CommasNo free tier1 of 4 tiers unpricedSignal following listedBacktesting listedFutures listedCopy trading not on the record$20flat70Alternatives to 3Commas
08CornixNo free tier1 of 5 tiers unpricedSignal following listedBacktesting listedFutures not on the recordCopy trading not on the record$24.99flat70Alternatives to Cornix
GrantedSome tiers sealedNot on the recordFlat account fee, not per seatScore ranks pricing transparency and user ratings, not capability. Capability is the grid.
Scroll the console sideways to reach the remaining conditions.
02 / 06
Every bot's plans, verdicts and the date we checked each price
Rank is disclosure, not performance. A bot that prints every tier and every limit sits above one holding a plan back for a quote, whatever either does to a portfolio. Pionex tops it at 86 while selling no software, and Bitsgap and Altrady follow at 84. Open a card for every tier, the limits on each step and the date beside each price.
Traders who will not pay monthly to automate anything. Pionex has no subscription: its Standard account carries sixteen or more built-in bots and the business runs on the trading fee instead, which also means one venue for everything you run.
Traders who never buy software still pay here, because the fee is the product. Pionex folds sixteen or more bots into a Standard account, doubles the rate on leveraged tokens, and keeps its VIP discount ladder in a support article rather than on the fee page.
Where Pionex holds up
16 bot strategies included for free
0.05% trading fees - no bot subscription cost
Highly polished Grid bot implementation
Mobile-first design with solid app
★★★★☆4.4CE scoreG2 4.3 · 2 reviewsFounded 2019Verified July 8, 2026
Grid and DCA work spread across several exchange accounts and run from one screen. Bitsgap's free plan keeps twenty demo bots open indefinitely, so a strategy can be rehearsed before real money moves, and the backtesting window widens with each paid step.
Critical gapAPI latency issues restrict execution speed across the 15 supported exchange integrations.
Plan table and expert take
Bitsgap: expert take
$69 is the number that matters on Advanced, because futures bots and trailing orders start there rather than on Basic. The free plan is a demo: twenty bots that run indefinitely on money which is not real.
Where Bitsgap holds up
Futures Grid bots with integrated Trailing Up/Down features
GRID bot backtesting engine uses historical exchange data
Unified terminal to manage spot/futures across all exchanges
Demo mode with live market data for risk-free strategy testing
SBot strategy optimized for profiting from sideways markets
Chart watchers with no interest in a second app for the bots. Altrady folds them into the scanning terminal, though the TA Scanner Plus add-on is only included on Premium and billing runs in euros, so the dollar figure shown moves with the rate.
Critical gapLive bot performance often results in realized capital loss.
Plan table and expert take
Altrady: expert take
Terminal-first traders are who this suits, and they should read the currency line first: billing is always in euros, so the dollar figures are conversions that move with the rate. TA Scanner Plus rides free on Premium and costs extra below it.
Where Altrady holds up
Base Scanner detects accumulation patterns automatically across all exchanges
Multi-chart dashboard for comparing multiple markets side by side
Smart orders with TP, SL, and trailing stops in one ticket
5-day free trial with no credit card required
★★★★☆4.3CE scoreG2 4.2 · 15 reviewsFounded 2018Verified July 8, 2026
Buying a ready-made strategy rather than building one. Cryptohopper runs a marketplace of community strategies alongside its own grid and DCA tools, and the backtester and strategy designer arrive on the entry paid tier rather than higher up.
Critical gapPerformance remains entirely dependent on manual strategy optimization to mitigate market variance.
Plan table and expert take
Cryptohopper: expert take
Strategy shoppers are the cohort Cryptohopper sells to, and the price they see is not the price they pay: every figure on the page excludes VAT. A Crypto.com partnership also hands Explorer over free, worth checking before paying the monthly rate.
Where Cryptohopper holds up
Strategy marketplace with 100+ community strategies
Cloud-based - no server required
Backtesting against historical data
Social trading and signal auto-execution
★★★★☆4.1CE scoreG2 4 · 2 reviewsFounded 2017Verified July 17, 2026
Wiring TradingView alerts into live orders before committing much money to the idea. WunderTrading's $4.95 Starter plan undercuts every other paid tier here, with a free tier that keeps one bot of each type on five open positions.
Critical gapAutomated strategies frequently produce net capital losses during high volatility.
Plan table and expert take
WunderTrading: expert take
$4.95 on the Starter plan undercuts every other paid tier in this category, and the free tier keeps one bot of each type on five open positions. Premium comes free to anyone trading Hyperliquid through WunderTrading, which beats any discount on the ladder.
Traders with no appetite for a feature matrix who want a couple of bots running. TradeSanta prices by bot count first: forty-nine on Basic, ninety-nine on Advanced, unlimited on Maximum, with grid and DCA on all three.
Critical gapThe automated execution logic frequently fails to mitigate losses during high market volatility.
Plan table and expert take
TradeSanta: expert take
Heavy users are the only cohort the annual maths rewards: the Maximum plan halves on yearly billing while Basic gives up far less. The ladder counts bots, forty-nine to unlimited, and futures bots wait for the top tier.
Where TradeSanta holds up
Very beginner-friendly setup - bots ready in minutes
TradingView signal integration for custom entry conditions
Long and short bot strategies with standard indicators
Several exchange accounts worked from one dashboard, with DCA, grid and signal bots on each. 3Commas puts the same bot types and its AI assistant on every tier, and each plan includes a demo account for testing before real orders go out.
Critical gapHistorical API leaks necessitate strict manual key rotation protocols.
Plan table and expert take
3Commas: expert take
The $50 Pro plan is the real floor for futures work: Starter trades spot only and permits a single API key, with a third connected account arriving on Pro. Above that, Custom is the one price 3Commas does not print.
Anyone who never opens a chart and simply follows a channel's calls. Cornix runs through Telegram as much as the web and executes signals automatically, though its free plan is closed to new signups, which makes the entry question which paid tier rather than whether to pay.
Critical gapThe platform documentation lacks sufficient detail for complex configurations.
Plan table and expert take
Cornix: expert take
$44.99 on Advanced and $89.99 on Premium leave a doubling with nothing in between, and both tiers carry the same feature set, so the money buys bot slots and volume. The free plan is closed to new users, which makes Starter the real entry.
Where Cornix holds up
Auto-executes Telegram signals with DCA and trailing TP/SL
Supports Binance, Bybit, Bitget, and others
Multi-account routing for different signal channels
Trading bot questions: free options, first month, exchange fees
Which crypto trading bots cost nothing to run?
Pionex has no subscription to sell and earns from the trading fee its bots generate. Others are narrower. Bitsgap gives you a demo, twenty bots trading nothing real, while WunderTrading's free tier runs one bot of each type on five open positions. The free column on the console marks every vendor with a zero step. Whatever the tier, the exchange fee still lands.
What does the first month with a crypto trading bot cost?
Two numbers added together. The subscription runs between $4.95 and $32 for an entry tier, and the median is $25. The trading fee is the other number, and it follows how many orders your bot sends rather than how many days it ran. A grid bot working a narrow range sends plenty of them.
How do you keep the exchange fee from outrunning the subscription?
Start with the strategy rather than the plan. A DCA bot buying once a week places a handful of orders a month. A grid bot working a range places them constantly, and the venue you connected prices each one. Read your exchange's own rate before you weigh two subscriptions against each other, because the cheaper bot on a dearer venue is not the cheaper month.
Is the cheapest crypto trading bot still the cheapest after a year?
Not reliably. Annual billing here is uneven. TradeSanta's Maximum plan drops from $90 to $45 a month paid yearly, while its Basic plan gives up far less, and both Cornix and 3Commas hand back roughly a third for paying up front. The trading fee is the bigger swing, and no annual discount touches it.
What happens when a bot trial expires?
You land on a paid tier or on a thin free one. Trials in this market are short: TradeSanta gives three days, Altrady five, Cornix fourteen. The free plans that outlast a trial are not full products either. WunderTrading keeps one bot of each type on five open positions, and Bitsgap's free plan trades only in demo mode.
Why did Cornix close its free plan to new users?
The row is still on the plan list, marked as legacy: existing accounts keep it and new ones cannot start on it. Whatever sat behind that decision, the effect on a comparison table is that Cornix reads as a free-tier vendor when it is not. Read the free column carefully elsewhere too. 3Commas prints no zero step at all.
Which bot strategies come with every tier, and which cost extra?
Grid and DCA bots are close to universal here and rarely gated. What sits higher up is narrower. Bitsgap holds futures bots and trailing orders for its Advanced plan, Cryptohopper puts market making and arbitrage on Hero, and 3Commas keeps futures off Starter. TradeSanta is the plain case, selling bot count before anything else.
Which crypto trading bot makes the most money?
We do not measure it, and it plays no part in the ranking. A bot has no return of its own: the result depends on the market, the pair and the settings you chose, so a figure attached to a product name proves nothing. What we do measure is the price of the tool and the fee the exchange takes on every order, which lands whatever the strategy does.
Does a grid bot do the same job as a signal bot?
No. A grid bot works a price range you define, placing buy and sell orders across it, and needs no outside input. A signal bot waits for a call from a channel, an indicator or a TradingView alert, then executes it on your account. Cornix exists for the second job, and the signal column on the console shows who else does it.
Do crypto trading bots take a cut of your profits?
Not in this group. Every one of the eight bills a flat monthly subscription or nothing at all, and none charges a performance fee on what a strategy returns. The variable cost sits with the exchange instead, which prices every order the bot places. That is the part of the bill that grows with activity.
Field note 01
The exchange bills every order a crypto trading bot sends
A bot exists to place orders, and the venue holding your account prices every one of them. That half of the cost tracks activity, not the calendar. A month of subscription costs the same whether the bot traded twice or a thousand times, and the fee underneath it does not sit still.
The comparison worth making runs across both numbers. Pionex is where that logic ends: no subscription, with the trading fee carrying the whole business. Cheap software on an expensive venue can cost more over a month than a pricier plan on a cheaper venue, and no pricing page on this list will tell you so.
Field note 02
Moving up a crypto trading bot tier mostly buys higher limits
The step up here usually buys more of the same. Cornix gives its paid plans a single feature set and separates them by how many bots and how much volume each allows. Altrady counts trading accounts, bots and price alerts, and every tier simply raises the three numbers.
Two lineups are worth a closer look before you pick an entry plan. Bitsgap keeps futures bots and trailing orders for its Advanced plan. Cryptohopper sells reaction time, moving the strategy interval from ten minutes at the entry step down to two at the top. Work out which limit you hit first, then buy the tier that clears it.
The verdict on crypto trading botsSigned review · Updated
Oleh KemFounder & Lead AnalystComparEdge Editorial
The subscription is the smaller of the two bills. Every trade the bot places is priced by the exchange, and at any real volume that line dwarfs the monthly fee. Some of these vendors charge nothing at all and earn from the same place. Add the two together, then start comparing.
After that, read what a tier actually sells. On this market the money mostly buys limits rather than capability: more bots, more volume, more open positions, with the strategy set often identical at every tier. The score covers the subscription, because that is the part we can verify. We do not measure returns and we do not rank on them.
MethodWe read 29 plans across eight vendors and noted what each tier raises, dating every figure .
DisclosureCollection is tool-assisted; every verdict is written and signed by a human analyst.
05 / 06
Not sure which? Answer one, take a shortlist.Pick the line that sounds like your team. Each one opens the vendor built for it.
How this review is made. Prices are read from vendor pricing pages and re-checked on the dates shown against each product. Condition columns reflect the feature set recorded on the vendor’s own pages on that date. ComparEdge sells no crypto trading bots and takes no vendor payment for placement. Where a vendor publishes nothing, this page says so rather than estimating. Ranking is by transparency score: pricing transparency 60%, user satisfaction 40%. What a product can do is shown in the condition columns and carries no weight in the number.
Oleh Kem
