Three ways a trading bot can charge
Trading bot subscription pricing looks like a detail until the first invoice arrives. Almost every options bot pricing model on the market is one of three things, or a blend of them.
A flat subscription is a fixed amount per month. It does not move with account size, trade count, or results.
A performance fee is a percentage of the increase in the account over a billing period, usually described as a cut of the upside. Some vendors add a high water mark so the fee is only charged on new highs.
A per trade fee is a charge per order or per contract, sometimes layered on top of a smaller base subscription.
The flat fee vs performance fee trading bot debate is usually argued on cost alone. The more useful question is what each model pays the vendor to do.
A pricing model is an incentive structure
Revenue follows whatever the fee is tied to, and software gets built to protect revenue.
A per trade fee pays for activity. The vendor earns more when the bot trades more. Premium selling depends on the opposite habit: skipping entries when volatility is thin, when a loss limit has been reached, or when an event is too close. A tool billed by the order is paid less every time it correctly does nothing.
A performance fee sounds aligned with the trader, and partly it is. The vendor earns nothing in a period when the account is down. The alignment is one sided, though. The vendor shares the upside and none of the losses, so larger size and more risk raise the vendor’s expected fee while the account holder carries the whole downside.
A flat subscription pays for the software working. Revenue is the same whether the bot places forty orders in a month or four, so declining a trade costs the vendor nothing. The only way the vendor keeps the revenue is that the subscriber decides, month after month, that the tool is worth keeping.
The measurement problem with a percentage fee
A performance fee has to be calculated, and the calculation is harder than it looks. The vendor needs to read account balances, strip out deposits and withdrawals, decide whether open positions are marked at mid price or at close, set the billing period, and track a high water mark across periods. Every one of those choices changes the bill, and every one is a possible dispute.
It also changes what the vendor has to see. A flat fee needs no view of account value for billing at all.
Where a flat fee falls short
A flat subscription is not free of tradeoffs, and a vendor who says otherwise is selling.
The fee is owed in a losing month. Nothing about a fixed price adjusts to results.
A fixed fee is also a larger share of a small account. The comparison is simple arithmetic: twelve monthly payments divided by account size gives the yearly cost as a percentage of the account. On a small account that percentage can be high enough that no tool makes sense yet. On a larger account the same fee shrinks to a rounding error, while a percentage fee grows with the account.
Five questions to ask any trading bot vendor
- What is the fee tied to: time, trades, or account performance?
- What is billed outside the headline price? Data feeds, hosting, AI usage, and broker commissions are the usual extras.
- Who holds the money? Software that trades inside the trader’s own brokerage account is a different arrangement from a service that takes custody.
- What does a refund cover, and for how long?
- What happens to open positions when a subscription ends?
How ACondor answers them
ACondor is options trading software for tastytrade accounts, and its pricing page gives the short version: one flat monthly subscription, no per trade fees, no percentage of account growth. The bill is the same in a quiet month as in a busy one. The full statement is on the ACondor pricing page.
The subscription covers all four engines and the risk layer over them, plus dedicated hosting for each subscriber: a separate engine, database, and app service running against the subscriber’s own tastytrade account.
Two costs sit outside it. Broker commissions and fees go to the broker. Usage of the AI model that reads news headlines is billed to the subscriber directly by its provider, Anthropic.
ACondor never holds trading capital and cannot move money. It reads market data, positions, and balances, and it places, modifies, and cancels options orders in the subscriber’s own account.
First-time subscribers can request a full refund of the first subscription payment within 30 days. The refund covers the subscription fee only, never trading losses. Cancelling is available at any time, access runs to the end of the paid period, and cancelling does not close open positions. Those stay the account holder’s responsibility.
The exact monthly number is not public yet. ACondor is in early access, and the early access list hears the price first, with favorable terms for alpha participants.
The short answer
A performance fee pays a vendor for risk taken with someone else’s account. A per trade fee pays for activity. A flat subscription pays for software that does its job, including the days its job is to stand aside, and it leaves the trader to judge whether the fixed cost fits the account.
ACondor is software, not investment advice. Nothing here is a guarantee of any trading result, and options trading carries substantial risk of loss.
To see the software and get the pricing announcement first, request early access.
ACondor LLC
+1 575 312 9326
2521 North Main Street, Las Cruces
Unit 1-276
Las Cruces
New Mexico
88001
United States
