Copy Trading Guide
Copy trading lets you mirror a trader you trust. When they buy, you buy. When they sell, you sell the same proportion. You control the sizing, filters, and risk limits.
Open from the main menu → 🤖 Copy Trading, or run /copy.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Start small, set daily caps, and use filters to manage exposure.
💡 Why copy trading?
Strategies encode your rules. Copy trading delegates the when and what to someone else — you only control the how much and under what conditions. It's built for when you've found a trader with edge and want to ride along without placing each trade manually.
🔍 Finding traders to follow
Leaderboard — Browse top traders ranked by profit or volume, filtered by category (Politics, Sports, Crypto, etc.) and time period (24h → All Time). Go to 🤖 Copy Trading → 🔍 Discover Traders.
Direct address — If you have a trader's wallet (0x...), go to 🤖 Copy Trading → ➕ Add and paste it.
Group card — When someone pastes a Polymarket profile link in a group, tap 🤖 Copy Trader to start a subscription in DM.
⚙️ Setting up a subscription
A subscription is your config for following one trader. You can have up to 3 active subscriptions per wallet — useful for different sizing or filters on the same leader.
💰 Sizing mode
The most important choice. It determines how your amounts relate to the leader's.
Fixed — every copied trade uses the same dollar amount regardless of what the leader spent. You set $10, the leader buys $500 → you buy $10. Predictable and consistent.
Proportional — your amount = leader's amount × your multiplier. At 0.5x, a leader buying $500 means you buy $250. Scales with the leader's conviction.
- Fixed minimum: $1.10 | Proportional range: 0.01x to 10x
📊 Daily cap
Limits total spending per day on this subscription. Once hit, trades skip until next day. Important because a high-volume leader can fire dozens of trades — without a cap, proportional mode can consume more than intended.
🎯 Price range filter
Not all prices carry equal risk. At 95¢ there's little upside; at 3¢ it's a long-shot gamble. The price range filter defines which outcome prices you'll copy (e.g., 20–80¢), keeping you in the mid-range where there's more room for edge.
📉 Slippage tolerance
Slippage is the price difference between the leader's fill and yours. It happens because time passes between their trade and yours — the market moves, liquidity shifts.
Set your own slippage % to control how much drift you'll accept:
- Tighter (e.g., 0.5%) → better prices, but some trades won't fill if the market moved
- Looser → more reliable fills, potentially worse prices
- 0% → limit order at the leader's exact price (may not fill)
- Unlimited → always execute regardless of price movement
For fast-moving crypto markets, slightly looser avoids excessive skips. For slower markets, tighter is fine.
📋 Managing subscriptions
Use /copy or /subs to see all subscriptions. Filter by All | Active | Paused.
Tap any subscription for its full config: sizing, daily cap usage, price range, slippage, copy mode, and links to 👁️ Activity and 📊 Performance.
⏸️ Pause — stops copying without losing settings. Good for temporary breaks.
❌ Cancel — permanent. You'd need to create a new subscription from scratch. Use pause if you might come back.
⚙️ Advanced settings
Access from subscription detail → Advanced ⚙️.
Trade size limits
Min per trade — rounds up small trades so you don't end up with tiny positions. Max per trade — caps large trades so one outsized leader bet doesn't blow your budget.
Per-outcome limits
Prevents overexposure to a single position (important when leaders average in aggressively):
- Single purchase per token — buy each outcome only once, must sell before buying again
- Max purchases per outcome — limit total buys (e.g., max 3)
- Max amount per outcome — limit total dollars (e.g., max $500)
🛡️ Risk controls
- Stop loss — auto-place a stop-loss on every copied position, protecting you even if the leader exits late
- Daily cap — same spending limit from setup, adjustable here
🎯 Market filters
- Max expiry — skip markets resolving too far out
- Leader min — ignore leader trades below a minimum size (likely tests or low-conviction plays)
- Categories — whitelist or blacklist categories; Sports and Crypto have subcategory controls (e.g., only basketball, or block dogecoin)
🔄 Copy modes
- Counter trade — buy the opposite side. For fading a leader you think is consistently wrong.
- Buy only — copy buys, skip sells. You manage your own exits.
🔄 How sells work
PolyBot sells the same percentage, not the same dollar amount. Leader holds 100 shares, sells 50 (50%) → you hold 80 shares, PolyBot sells 40 (50% of yours).
In Buy Only mode, sells are skipped. In Counter Trade mode, the sell side is inverted.
⏭️ Skip reasons
Not every leader trade gets copied. Common skip reasons:
| Reason | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Daily limit reached | Hit your daily cap |
| Slippage too high | Price moved beyond tolerance |
| Price outside range | Outside your min/max filter |
| Insufficient balance | Not enough USDC.e |
| No shares to sell | Leader sold, you don't hold it |
| Purchase/amount limit | Hit per-outcome limits |
| Category filtered | Blocked by your category filters |
| Expiry too far | Exceeds max expiry setting |
| Leader trade below min | Leader's trade below your Leader Min |
A high skip rate usually means your filters are too tight for this leader's style — adjust accordingly.
📊 Activity & performance
👁️ Activity — last 3 days of trades (✅ executed, ⏭️ skipped, ❌ failed) with leader and your trade details.
📊 Performance — realized/unrealized PnL, positions, win/loss, win rate. Use 🧹 Reset Stats for a clean slate.
Use /recent for a cross-subscription view.
🔔 Notifications
Each copied trade triggers a notification with market, outcome, and fill details. Mute per subscription if it gets noisy — trades still execute.
💡 Tips
- Start small — low amounts while learning a leader's style
- Set daily caps — your circuit breaker for high-volume days
- Use price filters — avoid extreme prices (near 1¢ or 99¢)
- Use category filters — trust them on crypto but not sports? Filter it
- Monitor skip reasons — too many skips = misaligned config
- Multiple subscriptions — different configs for the same leader across categories
- Review weekly — leaders' edge decays; adjust settings
Commands
| Command | What It Does |
|---|---|
/copy | Open copy trading menu |
/subs | Alias for /copy |
/recent | View recent copy trade activity |
Troubleshooting
- Trades not copying — check subscription is Active, balance is sufficient, daily cap not hit
- Too many skips — loosen slippage, widen price range, or raise caps
- Wrong amounts — in Proportional mode, amount = leader's size × multiplier
- Sells not executing — you must hold the position
- No notifications — check if muted for this subscription