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Getting started ​

In about 10 minutes you will have a bot that trades on paper, and you will know how to watch it, stop it and take it live. Paper means the bot trades on real market prices, but its orders are simulated: nothing is sent to the exchange. The tradectl Lab, our desktop app, does everything on your computer, so you never open a terminal there. A server, if you want one later, is different: you set it up by pasting one line into its console once, and you stop or start the bot there with one line too.

Today the bot trades perpetual futures on Binance.

1. Download the Lab ​

Go to tradectl.com/download.html and download the Windows (64-bit) .exe installer. The Lab for macOS and Linux is coming soon.

The Lab comes with everything a bot needs: the bot program and the shot strategy are inside the installer.

The installer is not signed yet, so the first time you run it Windows may show "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway.

Windows protected your PC, with the More info link

After More info: the Run anyway button

After a reboot

Windows does not start the bot again after a reboot yet. After a reboot, open the Lab and press Start on your bot.

2. Create your first bot ​

When the Lab has no bots, it shows Start with a paper bot in three steps: Create, Pick a strategy, Watch it trade.

  1. Press Create your first bot.
  2. Give the bot a Name. Use a-z, 0-9, - and _, up to 32 characters.
  3. Press Create. The Lab starts the bot on your computer. This takes a few seconds.

Later, to add more bots, press + at the top of the left list.

TIP

The default settings are fine to start. A new bot runs on paper: no real money. Open the Orders tab to see what it does.

3. Set it up and start on paper ​

The Lab now shows Set up <name>. It has three steps.

  1. Choose a strategy. Pick shot, the strategy that comes with the Lab. You do not need to know how it works to start. When you want to, read shot settings.
  2. Settings. You can leave them as they are:
    • Market: Coin-margined perpetuals. You can switch to USDT perpetuals.
    • Symbols: BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and BNB. Click a symbol to turn it on or off. These five are also the coins you can trade live on the Free plan.
    • Contracts per order: 1. One contract is $100 for BTC and $10 for the others. On USDT perpetuals this field is Order size, in USDT per order.
    • Strategy settings: entry distance, take profit, stop loss and the rest. The shot settings page explains each one.
  3. Press Start on paper.

The bot now trades on live market prices without real money. If it cannot start, the Lab says why and shows the last lines of the bot's log.

4. Watch it trade ​

Click the bot in the left list. You see:

  • The chart. The price, the bot's orders as lines, and its trades. A tag shows the mode: Emulator (paper, no real orders) or Live (real orders on your exchange account).
  • Orders. The orders the bot has open right now.
  • Logs. What the bot is doing, line by line. Look here first when something seems wrong.
  • Trades. The trades the bot has closed, with their profit or loss.

On a quiet market it can take a while before the first trade. Leave the bot running for a few hours, or a day, before you judge it.

Paper results are a best case

On paper, fills are simulated. Real orders fill less often, and real fees and funding apply. Treat paper results as the best case, not as a promise.

Paper also fills some take-profits at prices the market did not reach after your entry. So paper results can look better than live. The Lab marks paper numbers with a PAPER tag.

5. Stop, start and delete ​

Right-click a bot in the left list:

  • Stop. The Lab asks "Stop <name>? It cancels its orders and closes every open position." Confirm. On paper this closes only paper positions.
  • Start. Starts a stopped bot. For a live bot the Lab asks first and shows a red Start live button. A bot that failed to start has Show error and Start again instead.
  • Show log. The bot's log, when it is not running.
  • Settings. Opens the Strategy editor, where you change the strategy's settings, add exchange keys and go live.
  • Copy to… Copies this bot's strategies to another bot, for example a server bot.
  • Delete… Removes the bot. Tick Keep trade history to keep its trades and logs. A running bot is stopped first.

6. Sign in to the Lab ​

You do not need an account for paper trading. You need one to:

  • see your plan in the Lab, and pay for Starter or Pro,
  • see bots that run on a server under My bots,
  • get alerts on Telegram.

To sign in:

  1. Go to app.tradectl.com and sign in with Google or GitHub.
  2. On the Home page, in the step Sign in to the Lab, press Create a key. Copy the key now: we show it only once. (You can also make keys on your Account page, under API Keys.)
  3. In the Lab, click Profile at the bottom of the left list. Paste the key and press Sign in. The Get API key button there opens your account page.

Telegram alerts ​

In the Lab's Profile, press Connect Telegram. It opens @tradectlbot in Telegram. Tap Start. The Lab shows Connected as … when it is done. See Telegram for the alerts and commands.

7. Plans and Free limits ​

PlanPriceWhat you get
Free$0Paper bots: any number, any symbol. Live trading on BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and BNB perpetuals, up to $20 an order (or the exchange minimum, if that is larger).
Starter$20 a monthEverything in Free, plus 1 live bot with any symbol and any order size.
Pro$54 a monthEverything in Free, plus 3 live bots with no limits. Each extra bot is $18 a month.

Paper trading is never limited. Every plan gets the same strategy and the same tools. More bots than your plan pays for still run, with the Free limits. You pay with Binance Pay for 1 or 3 months at a time; the plan does not renew by itself. Details: Paying for your plan.

8. Going live ​

When you like what you see on paper:

  1. On your exchange, make an API key with Futures on and withdrawals off, locked to your IP. Today that is Binance.
  2. In the Lab, right-click the bot → Settings → Exchange tab. Paste the key and secret and press Save keys. The Lab tests them with the exchange and shows a checklist: connected, trading allowed, Futures on, withdrawals off, locked to IP, your balance, and the leverage the bot will use on each symbol.
  3. In the Strategies tab, untick Emulator (paper) and press Save. Then press Restart 1 strategy at the bottom of the strategy list. Now it trades live.

The full steps, with the key guide: Going live. A one-page list: Go-live checklist.

9. Running on a server ​

Your PC sleeps, updates and restarts, and each time the bot stops. For real money, run the bot on a small rented server (about $10 to $12 a month). You still watch and control it from the Lab on your PC.

  1. Rent a small Linux server (1 vCPU, 2 GB, Ubuntu 24.04) in the region nearest to your exchange. For Binance that is Tokyo.
  2. In the Lab, open Profile. Under pair key, press Make a pair key (once). Under add a server, press Bot server and Copy command.
  3. Open the server's console in your browser (every provider has one), paste that line and press Enter. It installs the bot, keeps it running, and links it to your account. You type nothing else.
  4. In the Lab, the server bot shows in the left list. To move your paper setup there, right-click your PC bot and choose Copy to…. The copies arrive in paper mode, and exchange keys are never copied.

Step by step: Path B: on a server.

10. The watchdog, in short ​

If the bot's machine dies, the stop-loss and take-profit orders already on the exchange keep working. But some positions can be left without protection. The watchdog is a small program on a second machine. It reads your exchange account every few seconds. In Alert only mode it tells you on Telegram about any position without a take-profit or stop-loss. In Auto-protect mode it also closes such positions.

You set it up on a second server the same way: in Profile → add a server, press Watchdog server. See A watchdog on a second machine.

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