Auto Scale-In is the opposite number to Auto-Exit. Instead of picking a level to get out at, you pick a level to add more at — and the bot watches the price for you and adds to the position the moment that level is reached. You can shut your laptop and go to dinner — it still works, because the watching happens on your bot, not in your browser.

You'll find it on each active trade card on the Live Trades page, in the same row area as Auto-Exit. Click + Auto Scale-In, pick a level, confirm — that's the whole setup.

It isn't an order at your broker

This is the single most important thing to understand, and it's what makes Auto Scale-In different from simply leaving a buy limit order sitting at your broker.

A limit order to buy at $2.00 is a real working order. It sits on the exchange's order book, it's visible to the market, it ties up your buying power the whole time it's open, and it will fill on any print that touches your price — including a one-second wick down and straight back up that you'd never have chosen to buy into. Being filled on a spike like that is what traders mean by getting "picked off."

An Auto Scale-In level is none of those things. Nothing is placed. Nothing rests in the market. Nobody can see your level — not your broker's book, not another trader, nothing. There is no resting order to pick off, and no buying power is tied up until the moment it actually fires. Your bot simply watches the live price, and when your level is reached it does exactly what pressing the Scale In button does: sends the add, right then.

Note

Because nothing is resting at the broker, your armed level survives a bot restart — it's saved, not held in a browser tab.

Three ways to set a level

When you arm Auto Scale-In you first choose what your number means:

Setting	What you type	Reads as
Price	A price on the contract itself, like 2.00	"add more if this contract trades at $2.00"
P&L $	A dollar profit or loss for the whole trade, like -200 or 300	"add more if the trade is down $200 / up $300"
P&L %	A percent gain or loss, like -25 or 40	"add more if the trade is down 25% / up 40%"

There is one box, not two — Auto Scale-In arms a single level.

The direction is decided by where you put it

You never tell it "above" or "below." It works that out from where your level sits compared to where the trade is right now, and then it holds that answer for as long as it's armed:

• A level below the current value fires when the trade falls to it — that's buying a dip, adding to a position that's gone against you.
• A level above the current value fires when the trade rises to it — that's adding to a winner once it proves itself.

You don't have to commit to find out which way it landed. While you're typing, the editor shows you the direction your number would get, and once armed the chip on the card spells it back to you in words: Add when price falls to $2.00, Add when up 40%, Add when down $200.

The ▲ / ▼ arrows beside the chip nudge your level up or down without reopening the editor — one cent for Price, five dollars for P&L $, one percent for P&L %. They stop at the current price on purpose: an arrow that carried your level across where the trade is trading right now would silently flip a "buy the dip" trigger into an "add on strength" trigger, or fire it a second later. When you hit that boundary the arrow simply stops working. Use Edit if you genuinely want the level on the other side, and Clear to switch the trigger off entirely.

Warning

You can't arm a level that's exactly where the trade already is — it would fire on the very next tick. The bot refuses it and asks you to pick a level above or below. You also can't arm one before a live quote has come in for the contract; wait a moment and try again.

It fires once, then switches itself off

Auto Scale-In is a one-shot trigger. When your level is reached, the add goes in and the trigger disarms itself. It does not keep adding every time the price comes back to that level, and it never re-arms on its own. If you want to add again, arm it again — which also lets you pick a fresh level based on your new blended entry.

The size comes from your strategy, not the trigger

Notice there's no quantity box anywhere in Auto Scale-In. That's deliberate. How many contracts get added is decided by your strategy's own sizing rules — the capital allocated to the strategy, its Risk %, and its Max Capital Per Trade — exactly as they would be if you'd pressed the button yourself. The trigger's only job is deciding when, never how much. (See Capital Allocation for how a strategy's budget is set.)

That means the size is worked out at the moment it fires, against the price it fires at — so a cheaper contract naturally buys more of it, and your per-trade cap is respected either way. Your available buying power is the final word.

It behaves exactly like pressing Scale In yourself

This isn't "almost the same" as the button — it is the button. Everything that governs a scale-in you do by hand governs one your trigger does for you:

• It uses a trade from your daily count. If you've already hit your daily trade limit, an armed trigger simply can't fire. That's correct, not a bug — see Trade Limits.
• Your killswitch can block it. If your killswitch has tripped and locked you out for the day, nothing gets added. See Killswitch.
• Your normal trading hours and filters still apply, just as they do for any entry.
• It's sized by your settings (above), not by anything you typed into the trigger.

Note

Turning Allow Averaging off doesn't disarm your trigger. That switch governs whether repeat alerts are allowed to average into a position automatically — an armed Auto Scale-In is you deciding to add, the same as clicking the button, so it goes through regardless.

Market hours only

Adding to a position means opening more of it, and that can only be done sensibly while the market is actually trading. Auto Scale-In will not fire outside regular market hours, even if the quoted price wanders across your level in extended hours. If your level is touched while the market is closed, nothing happens; the trigger stays armed and waits for the open.

This is deliberately different from Auto-Exit, which does fire in extended hours — because getting out of a bad position is urgent in a way that getting further in never is.

Warning

A stale price never fires anything. If the quote for your contract goes quiet, the bot treats it as untrustworthy and waits for a fresh one rather than acting on an old number. And if the add is rejected a few times in a row, the trigger gives up and disarms itself rather than hammering your broker — check your trade card if you were expecting a fill that never came.

On the Copy Trade page

The Copy Trade page has the same trigger on its live alerts, and it works the same way — with one big difference in scope: when it fires, it fires for everybody following that strategy. One armed level, one add, broadcast to every subscriber.

Your own bot is one of those subscribers. The add goes out to everyone following the strategy, your bot included — so a real add lands in your own account, with real money, exactly as it would if you'd pressed + Scale In on that alert yourself. The usual guardrails still apply on your side of it: it uses a trade from your daily count, your killswitch and your trade limits can stop it, it fires once and then disarms, and it only fires during market hours.

Sizing is worked out account by account. Yours comes from your own strategy settings — your allocated capital, your risk percent, your per-trade cap — and each follower's comes from theirs. Nobody inherits your size, and the alert card itself displays the add as a one-contract average, since the real quantity is different for every person following along.

Unlike the trigger on your own trades, this one works on spread alerts too, using the spread's combined net price as the level.

Note

Auto Scale-In on the Copy Trade page does its watching on our servers rather than on your own bot, so the level stays under watch even with your browser closed. Auto Scale-In on the Live Trades page runs on your bot, on your own position. They're separate — arming one doesn't arm the other.

What it works on

On the Live Trades page, Auto Scale-In is offered on active single-leg positions — one contract, one level, no ambiguity. Multi-leg trades (runners and spreads) keep their ordinary Scale In button instead: their price is one combined net number whose profitable direction depends on how the trade was opened, so a bare level wouldn't say clearly what you meant. Spread alerts on the Copy Trade page do get the trigger, because that page knows how the spread was built.

Example

You're long 3 SPY $747 calls filled at $2.40, and the contract is trading at $2.40 right now. You think a pullback toward $2.00 is a gift, but you don't want to sit and watch for it. Click + Auto Scale-In, leave the setting on Price, type 2.00, confirm. Because $2.00 is below where the trade is now, the chip reads Add when price falls to $2.00. Later that morning SPY dips and the contract trades $2.00. Your bot adds — and with $10,000 allocated to the strategy and a $1,000 Max Capital Per Trade, that's 5 more contracts at $200 each. You now hold 8 contracts at a blended $2.15, an AVG pill appears on the card, and the trigger has switched itself off. You typed one number and never touched a quantity box.

Tip

If you're new to this, try it on a paper trade first — see Paper Trading. Arm a level a few cents from where the contract is trading, watch it fire, and you'll know exactly what to expect before you use it on real money.

Tip

Auto Scale-In and Auto-Exit are designed to be used together on the same trade: one adds on your terms, the other gets you out on your terms. Adding contracts doesn't break your armed exit levels — they're re-checked against your new blended cost, so a -25% stop still means "down 25% from what I actually paid."