Costs, fees and funding
Three things affect a grid's economics: the GRIDer software licence, the exchange's own trading fees, and funding on perpetual positions. GRIDer does not charge builder fees and does not take a percentage of trading volume, assets or results.
GRIDer licence
GRIDer is paid software. You buy a licence to download and run it within the capacity and term of your plan and to receive the updates included in that plan.
- There is no GRIDer builder fee.
- There is no per-trade fee paid to GRIDer.
- GRIDer does not custody funds or route trades through a GRIDer backend.
- Your trading costs come from the exchange and from your own infrastructure.
The exchange's own trading fees
The selected exchange charges its own standard trading fee on every order — a maker/taker fee paid to the venue, exactly as for any trade you place yourself. GRIDer neither sets nor receives it.
- It applies on both perpetual and spot markets, on every fill the grid makes.
- Maker and taker rates differ, and most venues lower them as your trading volume grows. Check the exchange's published fee schedule for the current numbers — on Hyperliquid, see its fee documentation.
- For normal grid spacing, the exchange fee is usually a small cost relative to the distance between levels.
Why fee transparency matters for grids. Fees are usually small compared with typical grid spacing, but they are still part of the real result. GRIDer shows them separately so your PNL reflects what actually happened, and so unusually tight grids can be reviewed with the backtesting tool.
Funding (perpetuals only)
On perpetual markets, traders pay or receive funding roughly every hour. It's a periodic payment between longs and shorts that keeps the perp price tethered to the spot price.
- If you're long and funding is positive, you pay; if it's negative, you receive. For a short, it's the reverse.
- Funding can be a tailwind or a headwind depending on direction and market conditions. On some markets, a SHORT grid earns funding while it trades; on others it costs.
- Spot grids have no funding.
How GRIDer handles funding
GRIDer treats funding as a real part of your result, everywhere you see PNL:
Grid PNL = position PnL + closed PnL - exchange fees + funding
- Funding is pulled from the exchange for your grid's window — it is never guessed.
- The sign matches your perspective: funding received is positive, funding paid is negative.
- The same formula is used in the live panel and in the record saved when a grid closes, so the number is consistent from screen to history.
You can see the breakdown behind the combined number via the info icon next to Grid PNL in the trading panel, and a dedicated funding history for coins with an active grid.
Putting it together
For a perpetual grid, your net result is the sum of:
- Closed trade profits — the spread captured on each completed buy/sell pair.
- Open position PnL — the unrealized value of whatever the grid currently holds.
- - Exchange fees — the exchange's own trading fee on each trade.
- +/- Funding — accrued over the life of the grid.
For a spot grid, drop funding. Your GRIDer licence is a software cost, not a per-grid or per-trade deduction inside Grid PNL.
Next: Risk and range breakouts.