Best crypto trading bots: Cryptohopper vs Coinrule vs Gainium

The short answer

All three platforms do the same core job: you connect an exchange with an API key, set up a strategy, and the bot places orders for you while your coins stay on the exchange. What separates them is the strategy type, how plans are limited, and where you can use them.

• Pick Gainium if you want DCA, grid or combo bots and want to start free or pay little. Its free-forever plan runs single-pair bots on Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin and Hyperliquid, and paid plans start at $15 per month.
• Pick Coinrule if you want to write if-this-then-that rules without code, or automate stocks and ETFs as well as crypto. The free Starter plan allows 2 live rules on 1 exchange. Coinrule does not serve customers in the EU or EEA.
• Pick Cryptohopper if you want a broad cloud bot with trading signals, templates, a strategy marketplace and copy trading across 11 exchanges, and you are fine paying from $29 per month after a 3-day trial.

Unsure? Start on a free plan or in paper trading before you connect real funds.

What a crypto trading bot does, and what it doesn't

A trading bot is automation, not a money machine. You decide the strategy: buy a fixed amount every time the price drops by a set percentage (DCA), place a ladder of buy and sell orders inside a price range (grid), or fire an order when an indicator such as RSI crosses a level.

What it does not do is make a losing strategy profitable. A grid bot earns in sideways markets and can be left holding a falling coin in a downtrend; a DCA bot keeps buying as the price falls. Backtests describe the past, not the future. The vendors say this themselves: Coinrule states it is not a regulated financial institution, gives no investment advice and accepts no liability for trading losses.

On security, all three connect through exchange API keys and say they do not need withdrawal permission. Create keys with trading rights only, keep withdrawals disabled, turn on 2FA and whitelist the platform's IP addresses where your exchange allows it.

How to choose a crypto trading bot

These criteria usually decide the choice, and they apply equally to other names you will meet in searches, such as 3Commas, Bitsgap or exchanges with built-in bots like Pionex.

1. Your strategy type. Grid and DCA bots (Gainium's focus) suit accumulating or trading a range. Rule builders (Coinrule) suit traders who think in conditions: if price drops 5% in 24 hours, buy. Signal and template platforms (Cryptohopper) suit people who want to follow ready-made strategies or other traders.
2. Your exchange. A bot is useless if it cannot reach your account. Check the exact exchange list, and for free plans check which exchanges are included: Gainium's free plan covers only four.
3. How plans are limited. Each vendor meters something different: Cryptohopper limits coins and open positions, Coinrule limits live rules, exchanges and monthly traded volume, and Gainium allocates bot credits. Translate your strategy into that unit before comparing prices.
4. Free plan, trial and testing. A paper-trading or demo mode lets you see a strategy fail without losing money. All three offer backtesting and some form of paper or demo trading.
5. Where you live. Coinrule excludes the EU and EEA, citing MiCA. Check the terms for your country before paying for any plan.
6. Refund terms. Refund rules are short and sometimes conflict between a vendor's own pages, so read the policy before you buy an annual plan.

Prices compared

Entry plans side by side, as listed on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026 (USD, monthly billing unless noted):

Cryptohopper's prices exclude VAT where applicable. Coinrule's homepage cost estimator has shown a different Pro price than its pricing page, so check the checkout page before you commit to that tier.

Gainium: best for DCA and grid bots on a budget

Gainium is built around grid, DCA and combo bots (a combo mixes grid and DCA in one bot), with bot backtesting, bar-by-bar manual backtesting and paper trading to forward-test on live data. It connects to Binance, Binance US, KuCoin, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase, Bitget, Hyperliquid and Kraken, and states that it takes no fees from your trades.

The free-forever plan includes 250 bot credits per month for single-pair bots on Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin and Hyperliquid, with no credit card needed. Credits are locked while a bot runs: according to Gainium's help center, a single-pair combo bot uses 200 credits, and multi-coin bots use 200 per pair they can trade at once. Paid plans run from Mini at $15 per month (1,000 credits) to Legend at $109 (32,000), with 20% off on annual billing and a 14-day trial. Developers can also self-host the free, open-source Community Edition.

The downside: the free plan is narrow (four exchanges, single-pair bots), and the credit system takes some arithmetic before you know which plan you need. The pricing page advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee, while the refund policy is stricter: monthly plans are refundable within 14 days only if the service was not used. More detail in our Gainium review.

Coinrule: best no-code rule builder, also for stocks

Coinrule lets you build trading rules in a visual editor, without code, and runs them 24/7 on crypto exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Hyperliquid, on-chain venues on Base, Arbitrum and BNB Smart Chain, and stock and ETF brokers including Trading 212, E*Trade, Webull, Public and Alpaca. It offers 350+ template strategies, TradingView signal automation (from the Trader plan), backtesting and a Demo Exchange that runs your rules on virtual funds with real market data.

The free Starter plan is a real plan rather than a trial: 2 live rules, 1 exchange and $3k of monthly volume. Investor costs $29.99 per month, Trader $59.99 and Pro $749, with up to 25% off on annual billing. You pay a flat subscription, not a percentage of your trades.

The downside: Coinrule does not onboard or serve customers in the European Union or European Economic Area, citing MiCA. The free plan's $3k volume cap is small, the Pro tier is expensive, and Coinrule's own pages disagree on the refund window (14 days on the homepage, 7 days in an older help article). More detail in our Coinrule review.

Cryptohopper: best all-in-one cloud bot with signals and copy trading

Cryptohopper is a cloud bot run by Cryptohopper B.V. in the Netherlands since 2017, available on the web, iOS and Android. It connects to 11 exchanges: Binance, Binance.us, Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, OKX, Crypto.com, Bitvavo, HTX, BingX and Bitmart. Bots can run on technical-indicator strategies, third-party trading signals or templates, and there is copy trading plus a marketplace for strategies and bot templates.

Every plan includes signals, paper trading, backtesting and the Strategy Designer. Explorer costs $29 per month (up to 15 coins, 80 open positions per exchange, 10-minute strategy interval), Adventurer $69 (up to 50 coins, 5-minute interval) and Hero $129 (up to 75 coins, 2-minute interval, AI strategies, market making and arbitrage). Yearly billing brings these to $24.16, $57.50 and $107.50 per month.

The downside: there is no permanent free plan, and the trial lasts only 3 days. Marketplace items, signals and AI credits cost extra, and credits are not refundable; bot subscriptions are refundable within 14 days. More detail in our Cryptohopper review.

Risks to understand before you start

Crypto is volatile, and automating trades does not remove that risk; it can magnify it when a bot keeps executing in a market that has turned. Nothing in this guide is investment advice.

• Start small. Run a strategy in paper trading or on the demo exchange, then go live with an amount you can afford to lose.
• Watch leverage. Futures and leverage features (offered on some paid plans) can liquidate a position quickly.
• Protect your keys. Never enable withdrawal permission on a bot's API key, and revoke keys you no longer use.
• Check your region. Crypto services are regulated differently in each country, and some platforms exclude whole regions.
• Keep records. In many countries each sale or swap is a taxable event, and a busy bot can produce thousands of transactions. Our guide to the best crypto tax software compares tools that turn that history into a tax report.

For more tools in this space, see our crypto tools category.