Designing Your Safety-Order Grid on Freya: Distance and Volume
Most DCA tools ask you for a handful of multipliers: a base spacing, a step scale that widens each order, and a volume scale that grows each buy. It is a compact way to describe a grid, but it hides what your ladder actually looks like behind three abstract numbers.
Freya does it differently, and more directly. You build the grid order by order. Each safety order carries its own distance below your entry and its own volume as a share of your capital. There is no step-scale or volume-scale multiplier to reason about. You see and set every rung yourself, which means you can shape the ladder to exactly the risk you want.
Key Takeaways
- On Freya, each safety order has an explicit distance percentage and a volume percentage; there are no step-scale or volume-scale multipliers.
- You can build a grid of up to 40 orders, and the volume percentages across all of them must add up to 100%.
- Your first entry can be a market order (distance 0) or a limit order at a set percentage below price.
- Each safety order must sit deeper than your entry, so the grid only ever averages down, never up.
- The pre-placed order setting controls how many rungs rest on the exchange book versus firing live as price falls.
- Design is a trade-off: a shallow grid recovers small dips cheaply; a deep grid survives bigger drops but commits far more capital.
New to DCA entirely? Read the DCA bot strategy guide and how to create your first DCA bot first, then use this to tune the grid.
The academy's safety order calculator teaches the general DCA concept using the common step-scale and volume-scale model, which is a useful way to understand averaging down. Freya's actual bot uses the direct per-order grid described here, so treat the calculator as concept practice and this article as how the platform really works.
How Freya's Grid Is Built
A Freya DCA bot has a base entry and a table of safety orders. Two numbers define each row:
- Distance percentage: how far below your entry price this order sits. A safety order at 3 percent fills if price drops 3 percent from your entry.
- Volume percentage: how much of your total position capital this order commits, as a share of 100 percent.
The rules the platform enforces are simple and worth designing around:
- Up to 40 orders. You can build a very fine or very deep ladder, but 40 is the ceiling.
- Volumes must sum to 100 percent. Your base entry plus every safety order together allocate all of your position capital. Freya redistributes automatically as you add or edit rows so the total stays at 100.
- Safety orders sit deeper than your entry. Every safety order's distance must be at least your entry order's distance, so the grid can only average down.
Your entry order itself is flexible: set its distance to 0 and it is a market order that fills immediately, or set a percentage and it becomes a limit order waiting that far below the current price.
Distance: How Wide to Space the Rungs
Distance spacing decides what kind of dip your grid is built to catch.
- Tight spacing (rungs every 1 to 2 percent) fills quickly on small pullbacks. Your average entry improves fast, but the whole ladder can be committed on a modest 5 to 8 percent drop, leaving nothing in reserve if the fall continues.
- Wide spacing (rungs every 4 to 8 percent or more) holds fire through small noise and only averages down on real moves. It survives much larger drops before the grid is exhausted, at the cost of a worse average entry when a dip does reverse.
There is no universally correct spacing. It follows the asset's volatility and your thesis. A calm, range-bound market rewards tight spacing that harvests small oscillations. A volatile asset that can fall 30 percent in a week demands wide spacing, or the grid empties long before the bottom.
Volume: Front-Load or Back-Load
Volume weighting decides where your capital concentrates as price falls.
| Volume shape | Where capital sits | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Even volume across rungs | Spread equally down the grid | Balanced; simple and predictable average entry |
| Front-loaded (bigger early orders) | Most capital near the entry | Better fills on shallow dips, less power deep down |
| Back-loaded (bigger deep orders) | Most capital at the bottom rungs | Strong average improvement on big drops, but heavy commitment exactly when a trade is most underwater |
Back-loading is the classic aggressive DCA shape, and it is a double-edged sword. Putting your largest orders at the deepest levels dramatically improves your average entry if price bottoms and reverses there. But it also commits your most capital at the moment the trade is furthest against you, and if price keeps falling past your last rung, that large deep position takes the largest loss. Front-loading is gentler: you fill more on the common shallow dips and keep less exposure at the dangerous depths.
Depth: How Far Down to Plan For
The distance of your deepest safety order is your grid's maximum deviation, the total drop it is designed to withstand. This single number is where DCA risk lives.
If your deepest rung is at 15 percent and price falls 20 percent, your grid is fully committed and the position simply runs into a growing loss with all your capital in it. On leveraged futures, a grid deeper than your liquidation distance is worse than useless: you liquidate before the deepest orders ever fill. Always ask what happens one step past your last rung, because that is the scenario the grid does not cover, and see leverage versus grid depth for how leverage tightens that limit.
Pre-Placed Versus Live Orders
The pre-placed order setting controls how many of your grid's rungs rest on the exchange order book ahead of time versus firing live as price reaches them. Resting orders give you fill certainty and can earn maker fees, but they occupy exchange order slots. Live-fired orders keep the book clean and flexible but depend on the bot reacting in the moment. For most grids a few pre-placed rungs near your entry, with the deeper ones live, is a sensible balance.
Putting It to Work
- Match spacing to volatility. Tight for calm ranges, wide for assets that move hard. The wrong spacing empties the grid too early or never fills it.
- Design the depth first. Decide the maximum drop you want to survive, then place your deepest rung there and build inward.
- Be honest about back-loading. It flatters the average entry and concentrates risk at the worst moment. Use it deliberately, not by default.
- Keep the deepest trade in view. Backtest the strategy and study the trades that reached your deepest rungs, using the safety-order analytics, because those define your real tail risk.
- Mind leverage. A deep grid and high leverage do not mix. Confirm your grid fits inside your liquidation distance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Freya use step scale and volume scale for DCA?
No. Freya's DCA bot uses a direct per-order grid: every safety order has its own distance percentage and volume percentage that you set. Step-scale and volume-scale multipliers are a different way of describing a grid, used by some other tools and by the academy's concept calculator, but they are not how Freya's bot is configured.
How many safety orders can I add?
Up to 40, including your base entry, and the volume percentages across all of them must add up to 100 percent. Freya redistributes the volumes automatically as you add or remove orders so the total always stays at 100.
How deep should my safety-order grid be?
Deep enough to survive the drop you realistically want to withstand, but no deeper than your position can afford, and on futures no deeper than your liquidation distance. Start by choosing your maximum deviation, the drop your deepest rung covers, then decide whether the capital that grid commits is a loss you could absorb if price fell one step further.
Should I put bigger orders at the top or the bottom of the grid?
It depends on your risk appetite. Front-loading (bigger orders near the entry) fills more on common shallow dips and keeps less capital at dangerous depths. Back-loading (bigger orders at the bottom) improves your average entry more if price bottoms and reverses, but commits the most capital exactly when the trade is furthest underwater and takes the largest loss if the fall continues.