Max Per Trade: How Trader Bot Copies Are Sized
What Max Per Trade means on Polycopy Trader Bots: the flat size of every copy, never a filter on the trader's order size. Where to set it at setup and after launch.
Last updated September 14, 2026
Max Per Trade is YOUR copy size
Max Per Trade is what your bot spends on each copied trade. It does not mean "only copy when the trader's order is under $X". Nothing in the bot filters on the size of the trader's order. A filter like that was measured and found harmful.
How sizing works
Sizing is flat. Every copy on a new Trader Bot is your Max Per Trade amount, whatever the trader bet. No setting scales copies to the trader's size. We measured copies that follow the trader's bet size, and they did worse than flat copies.
Where to set it
When you create a Trader Bot, open Advanced settings on the setup page and enter Max Per Trade. It starts at $5, can't go below that, and can't be more than your budget. After launch, change the same number in Manage bot under Max Per Trade, or with the Trade size button on the bot's page. Older setups called it Trade amount. It is all one number.
The minimum order
No Trader Bot order goes below $5. The floor is not arbitrary. It is the exchange's 5-share minimum multiplied by the highest a share can cost, so anything under it can buy a position that is impossible to sell.
Total capital vs per-trade caps
Total capital is the pool allocated to the bot. Max per trade limits one order. Max Open Exposure limits how much can be in open positions at once. The three interact: you can be inside max per trade on every copy and still stop trading because capital is fully deployed.
When the size on screen is not the size you set
A few things move it legitimately. A copy is sized in dollars but placed in shares, so rounding to the market's tick shifts the total by cents. The fill price can land above or below the trader's price, within your Slippage setting, and the dollar total moves with it. Above roughly 62¢ the 8-share floor starts deciding the order instead of your ticket, because $5 buys fewer than 8 shares at that price. A copy is made smaller when a full one does not fit: the bot already holds a position in that market, Max Open Exposure is nearly used, or cash is low. And a limit order can fill only part of the way before it expires. If the size is off for another reason, send us the bot name and one order that looks wrong at help@polycopy.app.