With the futures grid strategy, investors can earn from market volatility by buying low and selling high, or selling high and buying low. This strategy allows investors to keep up with market fluctuations and generate profits.

The core of this strategy lies in "arbitrage in fluctuation." It is particularly suitable for investors who anticipate longer periods of sideways markets. The futures grid strategy offers three modes: long, short, and neutral, providing investors with flexibility in their investment approach.

Step 1: Download/update and log in to the latest version of the Pionex app to access Futures Grid.

Step 2: Click on [Bot] in the bottom menu bar, then click on [Create] - [Futures], where you will find the [Futures Grid] option.

Step 3: Once you are in the "Futures Grid" section, select your preferred futures trading pair, then click on "Copy Strategy." The system will present three options: "Long," "Short," and "Neutral". Choose any grid type, and the system will recommend corresponding AI strategies. You can then select your preferred strategy by clicking the [Copy Bot] button.

You can also choose "Customize" to manually set up your grid parameters, adjust the leverage, and create a grid.

Step 4: After copying the strategy, enter your investment amount, and then click [Create] - [Confirm] to place your bot order.

You can simply click on the [Bot] page to view the detailed profit information of all your futures grid orders.
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Step 1: Open the Pionex website, log in to your account, click on [Futures] in the top menu bar, then click on [Futures Bot], where you will find the [Futures Grid] option.

Step 2: Once you are in the "Futures Grid" section, select your preferred futures trading pair, then click on "Copy Strategy." The system will present three options: "Long," "Short," and "Neutral". Choose any grid type, and the system will recommend corresponding AI strategies. You can then select your preferred strategy by clicking the [Copy Bot] button.

You can also choose "Customize" to manually set up your grid parameters, adjust the leverage, and create a grid. The process of creating a grid using "Customize" is as follows:

Step 3: After copying the strategy, enter your investment amount, and then click [Create] - [Confirm] to place your bot order.

A running Futures Grid has three separate fund actions. None of them changes your grid's price range or the number of grids, and each shifts your estimated liquidation price:

Add Investment and Reduce Investment can each be run manually, or preset with a trigger price so the bot acts automatically when the market reaches it (see below).

Trailing Move lets a Futures Grid bot's price range automatically follow the market instead of staying fixed, so you don't have to manually reset the range every time the price trends in one direction.
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Where it's available:

How it works
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Open the bot from your bot list and tap [Detail], then go to the Parameter tab and tap the Trailing Move row (it shows "Not Set" when off). Inside, you'll see two independent switches:

You can turn on either switch on its own, or both at the same time.
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Both switches share an MA change setting — Default / 1% / 2% / 3% / Custom — the percentage change in the underlying's moving average that triggers the range to move.
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Important: When Trail Down is enabled on a Long bot, each downward move opens additional long positions at lower prices — your position size and required margin keep accumulating with every move, and your estimated liquidation price changes after each move.
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Q: Why isn't there an option to edit Trailing Move on Web?
A: The ability to turn Trailing Move on/off (or edit its settings) while a bot is running is currently App-only; Web doesn't support it yet. If you need to adjust Trailing Move on a running bot, please use the App.
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Q: Does Trailing Move change how I add/reduce investment or adjust margin?
A: No. [Add Investment], [Reduce Investment] (including their triggered/price-preset versions), and [Adjust Margin] all keep working exactly the same whether or not Trailing Move is on.

Open the running bot, tap [More], then select Adjust leverage to change your leverage without closing the bot. The screen shows a before/after comparison — Investment Amount and Estimated Liquidation Price — so you can see the impact before confirming.

Q: What is a Futures Grid bot?
​A: Futures grid bots are tools for automated trading strategies. They are designed to establish long and short positions at regular intervals within a predetermined price range. Grid bots seek to capitalize on price fluctuations. They perform best in volatile markets.

Q: What trading pairs are supported by Futures Grid Bots?

A: Pionex supports USDT perpetual futures as well as cryptocurrency pairs, including BTC, ETH, and SOL as quotes.

Beyond these examples, the Futures Grid Bot supports other perpetual futures pairs currently listed on Pionex, and new USDT-margined pairs are added regularly.

To check if your specific pair of interest is supported, open the Futures Grid Bot creation screen and search for it:

If the pair appears in the search, it is supported. If you do not see a pair you expect, please contact Pionex Support with the pair name so we can check its availability.

Q: Why is there a division into actual investment and dynamic margin after opening an order?
​A: The actual investment amount is the amount you use to open an order, while the dynamic margin is the reserved "safety cushion." You can reserve a portion of the total investment amount as dynamic margin when opening an order, or you can add it later. This amount is used to hedge against your floating losses and reduce the risk of liquidation.

When you go long, adding dynamic margin will lower your estimated liquidation price, and when you go short, it will increase your estimated liquidation price. When your grid is close to the liquidation price, you can reduce the risk by adding dynamic margin. If your grid becomes profitable later and moves away from the liquidation price, you can withdraw the margin.
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Q: Can I set slippage when increasing or reducing a position, and what is the pop-up I see if I turn Slippage Control off?

A: Yes. On the Add Investment or Reduce Investment feature, Slippage Control is turned on by default, with an AI-recommended slippage value already applied for you. You can open Slippage Control at any time to adjust the tolerance yourself, anywhere from 0.0001% to 5%.

With Slippage Control on, your average execution price is more likely to stay close to your expected price, especially during periods of high market volatility.

If you switch Slippage Control off, a one-time confirmation pop-up appears. It warns that, with the control disabled, the average price at which your position is opened or closed may deviate further from your expected price — because the order will then execute at the current market price. This pop-up is triggered only by turning the toggle off; it is not based on your order size or any price threshold.

What to do: We recommend keeping Slippage Control on (or on the AI-recommended value) so your fills stay close to your expected price, unless you specifically want the order to fill immediately at the current market price and accept a potentially larger deviation. You can turn it back on again at any time.

Q: Can I add/withdraw margin to my Futures grid bot?
​A: Yes, to manage the margin in your bot, click on the running bot, then go to [More] - [Adjust Margin]. If you want to add more margin, select [Add Margin]. If you want to withdraw margin, select [Withdraw Margin]. The added margin will be used as an available balance to maintain your position or for fee deduction and will not affect any of the bot parameters.

Q: Is it necessary to enable the margin reservation? When is it better to reserve margin?
​A: When you open an order, if you enable the margin reservation, the system will reserve a portion of the investment amount as a "safety cushion," which is the dynamic margin. It will lower your estimated liquidation price when you go long and raise it when you go short. If you don't want to reserve dynamic margin, you can uncheck the option and leave the dynamic margin field blank, only filling in the actual investment amount.

To protect your grid from approaching the liquidation price, we generally recommend enabling it, especially when using higher leverage.

If you are already experienced with futures grids and prefer to have more control over your funds, you can uncheck it first and then use the margin management feature to add or reduce margin after opening an order.

Q: Will grid profits automatically convert into margin?
A: Yes, your grid profits will automatically be used as margin, reducing the bot's risk of liquidation.
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Q: Can grid profits be withdrawn?
​A: Yes, they can be withdrawn — but not when the bot's grid profits are currently being used as margin (please refer to the page for actual details). Futures Grid lets users redeem grid profit with one click.

Q: Can I set a price that automatically reduces my Futures Grid position (Triggered Reduce)?

A: Yes. On Reduce Investment you can preset a trigger price and direction, and the bot reduces the position automatically once the market reaches it — the mirror image of a triggered Add Investment. A triggered reduce fires only once and is then cleared. It fires on the price condition alone and does not check whether the position is in profit or loss at that moment. If the bot is paused when the trigger price is reached, the triggered reduce is skipped and does not run.

Q: When I reduce my position, how much comes back if that portion is at a loss?

A: A reduce returns the reduced share of your actual investment, plus that share's realized profit or loss, minus fees. If that share is at a loss large enough to use up the principal being returned, the payout is floored at 0 — you are never charged extra and it never shows as a negative amount. Any loss beyond the returned principal stays with the bot as part of the remaining position's margin, and is settled later as the price moves or when you finally close the bot.

Q: What is the maximum number of futures grid bots that can be created simultaneously?
​A: Restrictions based on "actual investment" amount:

Restrictions based on trading pairs:

Q: Is there a limit to the number of Futures grids?
​A: Yes, there is. The minimum number of grids is 2, and the maximum number of grids is 1000.

Q: Difference between Mark Price and Last Price?
​A: The mark price refers to the estimated real value of the futures trading pair. It considers the fair value of an asset to avoid unnecessary liquidations during market fluctuations. Pionex futures grids use the mark price as the trigger condition for liquidation and also calculate floating profits and losses based on the mark price. Please refer to the official website documentation for the calculation method of the mark price: Mark Price.

Q: What is the funding rate, and why am I charged a fee?
​A: Funding rate is a special mechanism in perpetual futures aimed at anchoring the futures price to the spot price. The funding rate applies to both manual and grid trading and is settled every 8 hours. If the funding rate is positive, long position holders pay short position holders, and if it is negative, it is the opposite. Please refer to the official website documentation for the calculation method of the funding fee: Funding Fee.

Q: After charging the funding rate, will it be deducted/increased in which column? How can I view the historical details?
​A: The income and expenditure of the funding rate will be reflected in the Unrealized profit. You can find the historical data on the bot by going to [Detail] - [Transaction] - [Funding History] - [Funding Fee].
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Q: Why is there no buy order within the grid range?
​A: This is due to the use of dynamic orders by Pionex to achieve a two-tier buffer technology. When you have multiple grid cells, to maximize the utilization of your margin, the system will not place all orders at once but will place orders near the current price and adjust your orders as the price moves.

Due to the maintenance of margin requirements, when an order is close to liquidation and remains unfilled, it is usually automatically canceled. In this case, some exchanges may choose to close grid trading and liquidate positions automatically. However, if the market quickly rebounds after a dip, this approach can cause unnecessary losses to users. In such a scenario, Pionex does not close the user's orders but automatically restores the maximum amount of unfilled orders based on the current position and margin. After the user adds margins, more orders are automatically placed.

Thanks to the two-layer buffer, Pionex futures grids support leverage of up to 100 times, and users can freely set parameters such as range and grid count without considering the correlation between parameters, greatly improving the user experience.
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​Q: When a Futures Grid bot triggers take-profit/stop-loss, what happens to the pending (unfilled) orders?
A: Once take-profit or stop-loss is triggered, the bot immediately stops running and settles: all pending orders — including the buy and sell orders placed in batches under the "dynamic placing orders" mechanism that are still waiting to be filled — are automatically canceled by the system and will not be executed; the position currently held is then closed in full at market price in one go. After the cancellation and position closure are complete, the remaining funds are returned to your primary account balance, and the bot's status changes to "Stopped."

Q: Why am I prompted with "order close to estimated liquidation price" even though the current price is far from the estimated liquidation price?
​A: Due to the leverage of the futures trading, profit and loss fluctuations are often significant. To avoid situations where you may not have enough time to add dynamic margins during volatile market movements, we will provide a warning when the estimated liquidation price is not far away.
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​Q: Can I dispute a liquidation triggered by my Futures Grid?
A: Liquidation is a normal risk-control mechanism that occurs when margin is insufficient. It is executed automatically by the system based on the mark price and maintenance margin rules, and once triggered, it cannot be reversed or restored. If you have questions about the trigger price or execution time of a specific liquidation (for example, if you suspect abnormal market conditions or a system delay), please provide the bot ID and the approximate time it occurred so that our support team can look into it quickly.

Q: Why can't I open a futures grid even though there is money in the futures account?
​A: For risk management purposes, Pionex futures manual trading operates in a separate account, while robot strategies and spot trading are associated with the main account. If your main account balance is insufficient, but there are funds in the futures account, you can transfer the funds to the main account and then open a futures grid. You can find the transfer button on the account page or the manual setting page of the futures grid, as shown in the image.

Q: Can the futures trial funds be used to offset futures grid fees?
​A: No, they cannot. For risk management purposes, Pionex futures manual trading operates in a separate account, while robot strategies and spot trading are associated with the main account. Futures trial funds are only available for use in the manual trading account (i.e., the futures account) and cannot be used in the main account.

Q: Why is my total P&L showing a loss while my Grid Profit is positive?
​A: Grid Profit represents the sum of the profits generated by each completed buy and sell order pair in a trading strategy. However, total P&L includes both realized and unrealized profits and losses. If the open positions in the bot are currently suffering losses and the realized Grid Profit is not enough to offset them, you may see a negative Total Profit and Loss.

Q: Why is the total number of Buy and Sell orders not equal to the number of my grids?
​A: Our Futures Grid Robot uses a dynamic order-placing model, where the number of pending orders is always a limited number of orders near the current price, thus increasing your capital utilization and profitability, and reducing the risk of a potential blowout.

Q: Can I edit the parameters of the Futures grid bot without closing it?
​A: Yes, the bot will adapt to your new parameters without needing to be closed. When you modify the price range via [More] - [Modify Price Range], the system asks you to choose how your P&L is handled:

Note that any new price range changes your grid structure, so future grid profits are calculated on the new grid, and your estimated liquidation price changes under all three options. For a full comparison of investment amount, P&L display, funding requirements, and liquidation price, see Modifying Futures Grid Price Range: Choosing Your P&L Reset Option.

Q: Why can't some parameters be set when creating a Futures Grid bot?
​A: The parameters you enter when creating a bot — such as price range, leverage, and investment amount — need to fall within the system's currently allowed range, and are checked in real time. If a value you enter is outside that range, the setting won't be accepted until you adjust it. If it still won't go through after adjusting, please contact support for help.

Q: What happens to my Futures Grid if the market price exceeds the upper limit I set for a Short bot

A: The bot will hold a maximum Short position and become idle, meaning it will stop trading until the price drops back into your grid range.

"Idle" does not mean your P&L is frozen. The maximum Short position stays fully open and is still valued at the mark price, so your floating (unrealized) P&L keeps changing with the market the whole time the bot is idle:

Important: Because the market price is moving against your position — and your floating loss can keep mounting while the bot is idle — you face a serious risk of forced liquidation if your margin isn't managed properly. (Note: The same rules apply to a Long bot if the price drops below the lower limit — the bot holds a maximum Long position and its floating loss keeps growing as the price falls further.)

Q: Can Grid Profits be withdrawn from a Futures Grid bot opened using a Futures Grid Bonus?

A: For bots opened using a Futures Grid Bonus, Grid Profits cannot be withdrawn while the bot is actively running — this is a stricter rule specific to Bonus-funded bots (unlike regular Futures Grid bots, which can withdraw Grid Profit anytime via [More] - [Redeem profit] while running, as described above). To access your profits from a Bonus-funded bot, you will need to either close the Futures Grid bot manually or wait for the bot to close automatically upon reaching its take-profit target.

​Q: Can opposite directions of futures grid bots hedge each other to minimise risk?

A: Opposite-direction grid bots (long direction against short direction) can only partially hedge against each other — full hedging is not achievable. Even when both bots are configured with identical parameters, the positions held by each bot will differ at any given moment, making a complete offset impossible.
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When the price of a long direction futures grid bot rises above the upper limit, the bot closes all long direction positions and holds the entire investment in USDT. It will no longer benefit from any further price increase since no long direction positions remain open. Conversely, when the price falls below the lower limit, the bot uses the full investment to maintain long direction positions — meaning any further price drop will result in mounting floating losses and an increased risk of liquidation.
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The opposite applies to a short direction futures grid bot. When the price falls below the lower limit, the bot closes all short direction positions and holds the entire investment in USDT, no longer benefiting from further price declines. However, when the price rises above the upper limit, the bot uses the full investment to maintain short direction positions — meaning any further price increase will result in mounting floating losses and an increased risk of liquidation.
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​Q: How does the Futures Grid Bot's position-opening logic differ from Manual Futures trading? Why is the directional profit different?

A: The core difference lies in how capital is deployed at launch.

The following uses a Long Futures Grid Bot as the example. The same logic applies in reverse to a Short Futures Grid Bot.

Example: Grid range set to 1,000–2,000 USDT, current price at 1,600 USDT. The current price is 40% from the top of the range and 60% from the bottom. At launch, only approximately 40% of your capital opens an active long position; the remaining 60% sits as buy orders distributed between 1,000–1,600, waiting to be filled.

This is one key reason why a Futures Grid Bot typically generates less directional profit than an equivalent manual futures position during a one-directional rally — rather than deploying all capital into a single directional bet, the bot distributes a portion across the range for grid arbitrage, trading some directional upside for more consistent range-bound profits and reduced liquidation risk.
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​Q: Even if the Futures Grid Bot opens 100% of its position at launch, why is the profit still lower than Manual Futures when the price reaches the take-profit level or upper boundary?

A: This comes down to a fundamental difference in how positions are closed.

The following uses a Long Futures Grid Bot as the example. The same logic applies in reverse to a Short Futures Grid Bot — partial short positions are closed at each grid level as the price drops.

As the price rises, the bot continuously sells partial positions along the way — by the time the price reaches your take-profit level or upper boundary, the majority of the position has already been closed at earlier grid levels, leaving far less exposure to benefit from the remaining upside.
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Example: Even with 100% of capital deployed at launch, as price climbs from the lower boundary toward the upper boundary, each grid level triggers a partial close. By the time the price reaches the top, only a small fraction of the original position may remain — and the profit on that remainder is far less than what a manual futures position would have captured over the same move.
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The key takeaway: Futures Grid Bots are not designed to maximize profit from one-directional price moves. Their strength lies in repeatedly buying low and selling high within the grid range during price oscillations, accumulating grid profits with each completed cycle. The more the price oscillates within your range, the more the strategy earns. In a strong one-directional trend, manual futures will outperform. Both tools serve different market conditions — the right choice depends on your outlook for price movement.

Q: Can I schedule a Futures Grid bot to start only when the price reaches a certain level, like a limit order?

A: Yes. When you create a Futures Grid bot in Customize mode, open the Advanced Settings and set a Trigger Price. The bot will not start immediately — it stays pending and only begins running once the market price reaches the Trigger Price you set, so it behaves like a limit order for the bot's launch. Leave the Trigger Price empty if you want the bot to start right away at the current market price.

Where to find it:

Note: This launch Trigger Price is separate from the Stop-Loss / Take-Profit trigger prices, which control when the bot closes a position, not when it starts.

Once a Trigger Price is set, a [Start now] option becomes available. Tapping [Start now] opens a "Parameters confirmation" popup summarizing your bot's settings (pair, direction, price range, grids, profit rate, leverage, investment, extra margin, and estimated liquidation price). Tapping [Confirm] on this popup will open the position immediately at the current market price — it will not wait for the Trigger Price you set. If you want the bot to wait until the market reaches your Trigger Price, do not tap [Start now]; leave the bot in its pending state instead.

Q: On the order confirmation screen, what does the "Estimated Fund Distribution" bar mean, and why is only part of my investment shown as "used"?

A: The Estimated Fund Distribution bar splits your total funds (Actual Investment + Extra Margin) into shares and shows them as percentages. Nothing goes missing — the part that isn't opening a position or waiting in orders is simply your reserved margin.

For a Long or Short grid the bar has three parts:

If you set no Extra Margin, the bar shows Reserved = 0% and folds everything else into Pending (Pending % = 100% − Position %). This is expected, not an error.

For a Neutral grid there is no Position part, because a neutral grid opens no position at launch. The bar instead shows Long pending / Short pending / Reserved, where the long-versus-short split follows the number of grid lines on each side of the current price.

The bar shows percentages only. To see the actual amounts, read it together with the Actual Investment and Extra Margin figures on the same screen. For example, a 99 USDT order may show about 71 USDT as Actual Investment (Position + Pending) and about 28 USDT as Extra Margin — together they add back up to your 99 USDT total.

(For what the reserved margin actually does, see "Why is there a division into actual investment and dynamic margin after opening an order?" above — "Extra Margin" and "dynamic margin" are the same reserved safety cushion.)

Q: On the order screen, what do "Estimated Profit per Grid" and "Estimated Quantity per Grid" mean?

A: Both are live estimates shown while you set up the bot; they update as you change the price range, number of grids, and investment, and the confirmation screen holds the final figures.

Q: My bot shows "Won't Liq." instead of a number — what does this mean?

A: "Est. Liq. Price" (estimated liquidation price) is a single field that shows either a price or "Won't Liq." The "Won't Liq." wording means that, under your current settings and the current market price, the system estimates no liquidation risk for that side — it is not a separate field or a different bot feature.

Q: Is the estimated liquidation price based on my current position, or the whole grid?

A: It's the worst case for the grid, not your position right now. The system assumes every pending order on the risk side of your grid has been filled — so the position has built up to its maximum for that direction — and then calculates the liquidation price from that maximum position. This is why the figure can sit far from your current position's break-even price.

Q: Why did my Est. Liq. Price change — even between two quick adjustments?

A: The estimated liquidation price is a live estimate, not a fixed guarantee. It is recalculated whenever your inputs change — leverage, reserved or added margin, added or reduced investment, an edited price range — and as funding fees are charged and the mark price moves. At high leverage, and on Coin-M in particular, it is very sensitive, so two adjustments made seconds apart can move it noticeably or even flip it between a price and "Won't Liq." Always rely on the current value on the bot's live detail page, not a figure from an earlier preview.

Q: For a Long or Short grid, why is there only one liquidation-price field?

A: A Long or Short grid carries directional risk in only one direction (Long → downside, Short → upside), so it shows a single "Est. Liq. Price"; there is no separate field for the opposite side. That one field shows either a price or "Won't Liq." — the two are mutually exclusive states of the same field, not a "number on one side, no-liquidation on the other" pair.

Q: Why does a Neutral grid show two liquidation prices?

A: A Neutral grid opens with no starting position and can build a position in either direction as the price moves, so it shows two independent estimates — "Liq. price (Rising)" and "Liq. price (Falling)." They are calculated separately, so each one can independently show a price or "Won't Liq."

Q: Does this work the same way on a Coin-M grid?

A: Yes — the direction logic is identical (Long → downside, Short → upside, Neutral → both sides). One Coin-M-specific note: grid lines are spaced on an inverted (1/price) scale, so on the price axis you see they sit denser near the bottom of your range and sparser near the top. That can make the initial position size and per-grid profit near the top of the range look smaller than a straight-line split of your range would suggest — this affects those estimates, not the liquidation-direction logic, and is expected behavior.

Q: Is a Futures Grid bot guaranteed to profit?

A: No. The grid earns from completed buy-low/sell-high cycles, so it profits when the price oscillates inside your range. Because it uses leverage, a sustained move against your direction can build a losing position and, in the worst case, trigger liquidation — you can lose more than the grid profit you have accumulated. Estimated liquidation price and profit figures are live estimates, not guarantees.

Q: Why is the "Starting Price" shown for my Futures Grid position slightly different from the current market price — is it slippage, mark price vs last price, or a fee?

A: A small difference between the Starting Price shown for your bot and the current market price is normal. It is not a fee, and it is not the mark-price-vs-last-price difference — the Starting Price is not based on the mark price. It comes from how the Starting Price is defined:

For the exact figures, open the bot's [Detail] - [Parameter] and its order/transaction history rather than reconstructing them by hand. A small difference is expected. If the Starting Price looks far off — not just a small difference — or the position's direction looks wrong for your settings, share your bot ID and the approximate time so our support team can check.
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​Q: What is the "Profit Reinvestment (Compound)" feature in Futures Grid, and what are its limits and impacts when used?

A: "Profit Reinvestment" refers to the feature that merges the grid profit earned by the bot into the initial principal to achieve compound growth.

Please note the following when using it: