Going live with your Polymarket bot: 25-50 USD first deposit, take-profit and stop-loss rules, alert thresholds (Telegram/email), reconciliation cadence, and the first-week scaling plan.
Going live with your Polymarket bot: 25-50 USD first deposit, take-profit and stop-loss rules, alert thresholds (Telegram/email), reconciliation cadence, and the first-week scaling plan.
By Harley Young, lead writer at Polymarkets.co.il. Last reviewed: May 2026.
What this chapter covers
This is chapter 31 of our 32-part series on building a Polymarket trading bot. We cover the topic in depth across the sections below. Body content for each section is being written and rolled out chapter-by-chapter; FAQ answers and references are already complete and reflect production experience from running our own trader.
Pre-flight checklist
First deposit: 25-50 USD
TP/SL rules from production
Monitoring: Telegram, email, dashboards
Reconcile cadence: every fire_exits cycle
First week: stay close, stay small
Scaling: when to deposit more
Pre-flight checklist
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
First deposit: 25-50 USD
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
TP/SL rules from production
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
Monitoring: Telegram, email, dashboards
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
Reconcile cadence: every fire_exits cycle
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
First week: stay close, stay small
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
Scaling: when to deposit more
This section is in active development. Want to be notified when it goes live? Contact us or watch the authors page.
Frequently asked questions
How much should my first live deposit be?
25-50 USD. Enough to test real fills, real fees, real reconciliation. Small enough that a total loss does not affect your life. Most disciplined traders we know start at this size even if their bankroll allows much more - the ego cost of a small loss is far less than the ego cost of a big one.
What TP/SL should I set?
Symmetric to your edge. If your strategy expects +5% per winning trade, set take-profit at +5-7% and stop-loss at -3-4%. Asymmetric (small TP, large SL) is gambling, not trading. Our production trader uses TP+6% / SL-4% (FAK exits) on most strategies.
How should I monitor my bot live?
Three channels: (1) Real-time alerts on closed-trade outcomes >$0.30 PnL via Telegram bot. (2) Hourly dashboard view of cash + open positions + MtM. (3) Daily PnL summary by email. Failing any of those three means you are running blind.
What should trigger an emergency stop?
Any of: daily loss > 5% of bankroll, fill rate < 30% (suggests wedged orders), more than 5 consecutive losing trades, market data feed silent for >30 seconds, or any reconciliation mismatch between diary and on-chain. All can be coded as automatic halt-sentinel touches.
When can I scale up my live bankroll?
When you have at least 50 closed live trades, the live win rate matches paper within 10%, and there has been no reconciliation incident in 2+ weeks. Scale by 2x at most per checkpoint - 25 USD -> 50 -> 100 -> 200 -> 500 over months, not days.
Should I run multiple strategies live at once?
Not initially. Get one strategy live for 2-4 weeks, validated. Then add a second. Monitoring two strategies at once during the first weeks is a recipe for missing the bug that kills strategy 1.
FAQ
How much should my first live deposit be?
25-50 USD. Enough to test real fills, real fees, real reconciliation. Small enough that a total loss does not affect your life. Most disciplined traders we know start at this size even if their bankroll allows much more - the ego cost of a small loss is far less than the ego cost of a big one.
What TP/SL should I set?
Symmetric to your edge. If your strategy expects +5% per winning trade, set take-profit at +5-7% and stop-loss at -3-4%. Asymmetric (small TP, large SL) is gambling, not trading. Our production trader uses TP+6% / SL-4% (FAK exits) on most strategies.
How should I monitor my bot live?
Three channels: (1) Real-time alerts on closed-trade outcomes >$0.30 PnL via Telegram bot. (2) Hourly dashboard view of cash + open positions + MtM. (3) Daily PnL summary by email. Failing any of those three means you are running blind.
What should trigger an emergency stop?
Any of: daily loss > 5% of bankroll, fill rate < 30% (suggests wedged orders), more than 5 consecutive losing trades, market data feed silent for >30 seconds, or any reconciliation mismatch between diary and on-chain. All can be coded as automatic halt-sentinel touches.
When can I scale up my live bankroll?
When you have at least 50 closed live trades, the live win rate matches paper within 10%, and there has been no reconciliation incident in 2+ weeks. Scale by 2x at most per checkpoint - 25 USD -> 50 -> 100 -> 200 -> 500 over months, not days.
Should I run multiple strategies live at once?
Not initially. Get one strategy live for 2-4 weeks, validated. Then add a second. Monitoring two strategies at once during the first weeks is a recipe for missing the bug that kills strategy 1.
