Scale ladder
Place N limit orders evenly spaced between two prices, with the total size split across the rungs. Use this when you have a band of prices you'd be happy filling at — a support zone for entries, a resistance zone for exits. Unlike a chaser, the orders sit static; unlike a TWAP, they're all live at once.
Minimum viable
scale buy $1000 into 10 from -0.25% to -1%
Ten limit buys totalling $1000 notional, evenly spaced between -0.25% and -1% from the last price on the focused symbol. Each rung is $100.
Variations
scale sell $2000 into 20 from 50000 to 48500 reduce
Reduce-only sell ladder using absolute prices. Use this to scale out of a long with 20 rungs between 50000 and 48500.
scale buy 5 into 10 from 31000 to 32000 ETHUSDT
Raw contract size (5) instead of notional, with an explicit symbol
override. Mix and match — size + range can each be absolute or relative.
scale sell $10000 into 25 from 50000 to 48500 reduce taker
taker drops the default post-only TIF on every rung. Use this when you
want the ladder to be immediately fillable if price walks through it
(e.g. a panic-exit ladder) rather than rejecting at exchange-side post-only
checks.
scale buy $500 into 5 from $bid -0.1% to $bid -0.5%
Anchor both endpoints to $bid with inline offsets. Same anchors that work
on at <price> work here — see Variables.
loop longs: scale sell 50%pos into 5 from $entry +1% to $entry +3% reduce
Per-long ladder-out at 5 rungs between +1% and +3% of each position's
entry. Combines with loop for
fan-out.
Gotchas
cubicandicubicare accepted by the parser as distribution modifiers, but distribution today is still even — they're no-ops. Don't rely on them for weighted ladders.- Default TIF is post-only. If any rung would cross the book at placement
time the exchange rejects it. Add
takerto drop post-only. - The ladder errors before placing any order if rounding would shrink any
rung to zero size — similar to
swarm. Either reduceinto <N>or increase total size. - Order of
from/todoesn't matter — the ladder fills the range either way. But the rung atfromis placed first, so if you want the closest-to- market rung in first, put it on thefromside. - Stops are not ladderable via
scale— for trailing exits across rungs use a per-rungstopor Trailing stop. reducehere is wired through to each rung's reduce-only flag (unliketwap reduce). It's a real per-order guarantee.
Related
scale— full syntax- Sizing & prices —
$,%,%pos,%bal - Variables → anchors —
$bid +N%inline offsets - Recipe: TWAP — time-spread alternative
- Recipe: Fan out across symbols