What is a Best Bid/Ask limit order?
A Best Bid/Ask limit order is placed as a limit order at the best price in the order book, instead of being sent as a market order. A buy (long) order is placed at the best bid, and a sell (short) order at the best ask.
The goal is a better execution price and, when the order fills as a maker, lower trading fees. You can use it for entries, take profits and stop losses.
How it works
The order is placed as a limit order at the current best bid (for a buy) or best ask (for a sell).
If it is not filled within 40 seconds, it is cancelled and placed again at the new best bid or ask. Each placement counts as one attempt.
This repeats until the order fills or the Max attempts limit is reached.
When all attempts are used up, the Market fallback setting decides what happens: the remaining amount is either filled with a market order or cancelled.
Partly filled orders. If an order is only partly filled, the remaining amount is sent as a market order after 40 seconds.
Take profit. A take profit set to Conditional limit keeps being re-placed at the best bid or ask, even if the price has already moved past your take-profit level. In that case you may close at a better price than your take profit.
Where to find it
Entry: set Order type to Limit, then choose Best bid/ask in Limit price mode.
Take profit and Stop loss: set the Take Profit or Stop Loss order type to Conditional limit.
It is available in the tools below. Market remains the default everywhere, so existing bots and positions are not changed.
Where | Entry | Take profit | Stop loss |
Terminal | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Signal Bot | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DCA Bot | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Grid Bot | — | Yes | — |
Scale in / Scale out | Yes | — | — |
Edit position | — | Yes | Yes |
TradingView Strategy Signal Bots support it for the entry only, set through the JSON message. It is also available through the Open API and MCP.
Best bid/ask limit orders work on all supported exchanges.
Settings for entry orders
When you choose Limit price mode Best bid/ask for an entry, four settings appear.
Setting | What it does | Default |
Post only | The order is only placed as a maker (limit) order. If it would fill immediately as a taker, the exchange rejects it and the bot retries at the new best price. | Off |
Max attempts | How many times the order is placed or re-placed at the best bid/ask (1 to 5). | 5 |
Market fallback | What happens when the attempts run out. On: the unfilled amount is executed with a market order. Off: the remaining order is cancelled. | Off |
Max chase distance | How far (0.01% to 5%) from the starting price the order may follow the price. | 5% |
Take profit and stop loss orders set to Conditional limit have no extra settings and never use Post only. This makes sure you can always exit a trade, instead of getting an exchange rejection.
Important: the order can be cancelled
A Best bid/ask limit entry is not guaranteed to fill. With Market fallback off (the default), the order is cancelled once all attempts are used up, and your position may not open at all.
The order is also cancelled when the price moves further than your Max chase distance. In that case the position shows the issue "Best Bid/Ask Limit — last price is out of the chase distance range". When the attempts run out, it shows "Best Bid/Ask Limit — retry attempts reached max value".
If you need the position to open in every case, turn Market fallback on.
Good to know
Stop loss risk. A Conditional limit stop loss waits for the order book, so in a fast drop it can close well below your stop price. For full protection, a market stop loss is the safer choice.
Post only can delay your entry. With Post only on, you always pay the lower maker fee. The trade-off: if the price moves while the order is being placed, the exchange rejects it and the bot places it again at the new price. Each retry uses one attempt, so the entry can take longer, or all attempts can run out before it fills.
Not available for trailing stop and move stop loss to breakeven. These still use market orders.
Existing bots and positions are not changed. Market stays the default order type.