Binance Recurring Buys vs the Spot DCA Bot: Settings and Rules for Each
Binance has two products that both get called a "DCA bot". They sit in different places and follow different rules. One is the Recurring mode under Convert, which buys on a schedule. The other is Spot DCA on the Trading Bots page, which only adds to the position when price has moved by a set percentage and sells once a take-profit percentage is reached. Set up the second as if it were the first and it will sell when you had no intention of selling, and in a steady fall it will run through the money you set aside in a handful of orders.
How Binance's Recurring buys differ from the Spot DCA bot
| Compared | Recurring (Convert) | Spot DCA bot |
|---|---|---|
| Where it is | The Recurring mode in Convert | [Trade] – [Trading Bots] – [Spot DCA] |
| When it buys | When the scheduled time arrives | After the base order, one more order each time price deviates by the set percentage |
| Does it sell? | No, it only buys | Yes, at the take-profit percentage measured from the average price, then a new round starts |
| Cost | Binance says zero fees; fills at the Recurring price from Convert | Spot trading fee rates, no additional fees |
| If money runs short | That purchase fails and the next cycle tries again | The Help Center only says the rounds repeat while your wallet has enough funds; within a round nothing more is bought once the DCA orders are used up |
| Can you change it? | Pause, cancel or edit | Binance says you cannot edit or pause it; you can only end it |
Setting up Recurring buys: frequency, execution time and failed purchases
One change to know about first. The Help Center page What Is Auto-Invest and How to Use It now states that Auto-Invest has transitioned to Convert Recurring and that the Auto-Invest service was scheduled to discontinue after 31 March 2025. The rules for what exists now are in Frequently Asked Questions on Binance Convert "Recurring":
- Frequency. Hourly, daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Hourly plans come in 1, 4, 8 and 12-hour versions.
- First execution. For hourly plans the first trade happens 1 hour after the plan is created, and later executions keep the same minute as the creation time. Binance's example: an hourly plan subscribed at 14:13 first executes at 15:13.
- Not enough balance. "If your selected Wallet balance is insufficient to cover the Recurring plan purchase, the purchase will fail." The system tries again in the next cycle, and a plan that keeps failing for 6 months is cancelled.
- How many plans. The limit is 20 Recurring plans.
- Two advanced settings. Maximum Period limits the number of purchases, and Limit Price sets a price range for order execution.
- Fill price. "Recurring prices may be different from market prices on Binance Spot." Zero fees does not mean filling at the spot order-book price.
- Editing and history. Pausing, cancelling and editing are done from the Recurring homepage. Each purchase is recorded under [Orders] – [Convert History] – [Recurring History].
Nothing on that page offers a take profit, a target price or an automatic sell. Recurring only buys. When to sell is a separate decision, and yours to carry out.
How much to put into each recurring buy
A recurring buy puts in the same sum each time. Two principles for choosing that sum:
- Use spare money, at an amount you can keep up long-term. It takes many consecutive cycles before the averaging shows; one or two buys won't show it. So each amount should be small enough that keeping it up for a long time doesn't affect your life, rather than a one-off large sum that you then stop.
- A fixed amount, not a fixed quantity. The point of a recurring buy is putting in the same money each time (say 100 each time), not the same number of coins. That way you automatically buy more when price is low and less when it's high, which is what makes averaging work.
There's no standard answer for exactly how much to invest; it depends on your total budget and how long you plan to keep it up. To see clearly how much you might stack and where your average cost lands under different amounts and durations, run a few numbers through the DCA Return Calculator — far clearer than picking an amount by feel.
Daily, weekly or monthly: which frequency to pick
The frequency is how often the plan buys: once a day, a week or a month. When choosing, look at two things: whether you can keep it up and whether your balance can keep pace with the debits.
| Interval | Characteristics | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | Averages finest, but debits every day, so the balance has to be there every day | People who want even averaging and keep funds in the account |
| Weekly | Fine enough averaging, and an easy debit rhythm to keep up with | Beginners looking for a safe starting point |
| Monthly | Fewest debits and least effort, but coarser averaging each time | People paid monthly who want it hands-off |
The higher the frequency, the more even the averaging, and the more often you have to check the balance. On cost: Binance describes Recurring as zero-fee, so splitting the same total budget into 10 buys or 100 buys makes no difference on that count. If you're unsure, weekly is a reasonable place to start.
Recurring buys can average out your cost, but they can't average a long-term declining coin into a profit. If the coin keeps falling, the average cost drops but stays above the current price. Recurring buys deal with short-term volatility and timing; they do nothing about picking the wrong coin, so which coin you buy matters more than how you set the parameters.
Setting up the Spot DCA bot: base order, DCA orders and the two multipliers
The rules for Spot DCA are in the Help Center article What Is Spot DCA and How Does It Work? It runs in two directions: Buy mode if your initial investment is in the quote asset (e.g. USDT), Sell mode if it is in the base asset (e.g. BTC). What follows uses the Buy mode. The settings on the creation page, with Binance's definitions:
| Setting | Binance's definition |
|---|---|
| Price Deviation | The price difference percentage that triggers a DCA order |
| Take Profit | The target profit percentage, measured from the round's average price. Fix is the default; Trailing may not be available for certain pairs |
| Base Order | The initial investment amount; the bot will not exceed it |
| DCA Order | The amount of each later order; the bot will not exceed it |
| Max DCA | The maximum number of DCA orders placed per round |
| Trigger Price (advanced) | The price at which the bot starts |
| Price Deviation Multiplier (advanced) | Multiplies the price deviation percentage for each subsequent DCA order |
| DCA Order Size Multiplier (advanced) | Multiplies the amount of each subsequent DCA order |
| Cooldown Between Rounds (advanced) | 60 seconds by default |
| Price Range (advanced) | A price range for the base order; the bot only executes inside it |
| Stop-Loss (advanced) | A percentage that, once triggered, stops and ends the bot |
The two multipliers decide how far apart the DCA orders sit and how large each one is. Binance gives one example for each:
- Price Deviation Multiplier. Entry at $30,000, price deviation 1%, multiplier 2. DCA #1 is at 30,000 × (1 − 1%) = 29,700. DCA #2 is a further 1% × 2 = 2% down, 3% in total, at 30,000 × (1 − 3%) = 29,100. DCA #3 is a further 4% down, 7% in total, at 30,000 × (1 − 7%) = 27,900.
- DCA Order Size Multiplier. DCA Order 1,000 USDT, multiplier 2. The three orders are 1,000, then 1,000 × 2 = 2,000, then 1,000 × 2 × 2 = 4,000 USDT.
Put the two examples together and you get the two figures most worth checking before you create the bot (this is our own arithmetic, with a base order of 1,000 USDT and fees left out):
- The most one round can use. Base order 1,000 + DCA orders of 1,000 + 2,000 + 4,000 = 8,000 USDT. The base order is only 1,000, yet a 7% fall calls on 8,000.
- The average price once all four orders have filled. The quantity bought is 1,000 ÷ 30,000 + 1,000 ÷ 29,700 + 2,000 ÷ 29,100 + 4,000 ÷ 27,900 ≈ 0.03333 + 0.03367 + 0.06873 + 0.14337 = 0.27910, so the average price is 8,000 ÷ 0.27910 ≈ 28,663. With a 1% take profit the sell level is 28,663 × 1.01 ≈ 28,950, which is 3.5% below the entry at 30,000.
With a size multiplier above 1, the later orders are the larger ones and they pull the average price towards the lowest fills, so a small bounce is enough to reach the take profit. The price of that is capital use that multiplies, and if the market keeps falling the unrealized loss is measured on the enlarged position.
Spot DCA take profit, stop loss and what happens to the coins when it ends
Take profit. The percentage is measured from the round's average price. With Fix, reaching the take-profit percentage triggers a take-profit order and a new round starts. With Trailing, the position stays open while price keeps moving in your favour, and when price turns back by the set percentage the bot sells and starts a new round. Unless you end it, the bot keeps going round after round, with the cooldown between them.
Stop loss. It is a percentage, and when it triggers the bot stops and ends; no further round begins. Binance writes that it strongly recommends setting stop-trigger orders in advance. With no stop loss and the DCA orders used up, the bot buys nothing more and holds the coins until price gets back to the take-profit level.
Ending the bot. You can end a running bot at any time. The Help Center separates two cases. When a bot ends, the base coins from its open orders are sold automatically at market price and the funds return to your Spot Account; a triggered stop loss is one of the listed reasons a bot ends, so it is handled this way. When you cancel a Spot DCA order manually, you can choose to keep the base asset instead of selling it. Binance also states: "No, you cannot edit or pause your DCA trading bots." A wrong setting can only be fixed by ending the bot and creating a new one, which is why the two multipliers and Max DCA should be worked out beforehand.
Fees. Spot DCA is charged at the spot trading fee rates, with no additional fees. Every round has at least one buy and one sell, so with a very small take-profit percentage, check first that it covers those two fees.
Recurring buys or Spot DCA: which one to use
It depends on the result you are after. To accumulate one coin over a long period without thinking about when to buy, use Recurring: it ignores price, never sells, and leaves you two things to watch, the balance and whether the coin holds up over the long run. To buy in stages through a pullback and sell on a partial rebound, use Spot DCA: every round is closed out, but you have to know in advance the most a round can tie up, and accept that in a one-way fall it stops where the DCA orders run out.
Both can run at once as long as the same money is not counted twice. To see where the average cost of recurring buys lands for different amounts and frequencies, try a few sets in the DCA Return Calculator. What the other bots do (grid, arbitrage, rebalancing) is in Binance Trading Bots: The 8 Types. If the issue is an order large enough to move the order book, that calls for an order-splitting tool instead; see how to use Binance Futures TWAP.