Limit order
A limit order is an order to buy or sell at your price or better. You control the price, but a fill is not guaranteed: the market may never reach it.
How it works
You set a price and a size, and the order sits in the order book (the list of all buy and sell orders). A buy limit goes below the current price, a sell limit above it. If the market reaches your price, the order fills there or at a better price.
The main plus is no slippage: you never pay more than you decided. The minus is that you may not trade at all, or get only a partial fill if there were not enough opposite orders at your price.
Traders use limit orders to enter on a pullback to a level, take profit at a target or buy without rushing. A limit order adds liquidity to the book, so many venues charge a lower fee for it (the maker fee) than for a market order.
BTC trades at $60,500. You place a buy limit for 0.1 BTC at $60,000. If the price dips to $60,000, you buy $6,000 worth. If the price runs straight up to $63,000, the order just keeps waiting unfilled.
You hold ETH bought at $3,000 and place a sell limit at $3,300. When the price hits $3,300, the position closes with a 10% gain without you watching the screen.
A common mistake is placing a limit order and forgetting it. Conditions change, and the old order fills at the worst moment, for example during a sharp drop. Another is confusing a limit with a stop-loss: a sell limit above the price does not protect you from a fall. Review your open orders and set a separate stop.
Questions and answers
What is a limit order in simple terms?
It is an order that says "buy or sell, but only at this price or better". Until the market reaches your price, the order waits in the order book.
What is the difference between a limit order and a market order?
A market order fills right away at the best available price, which can be worse than you expected. A limit order fills only at your price or better, but it may not fill at all.
Why did my limit order not fill?
The price never reached your level, or it touched it but other orders were ahead of yours in the queue and there was not enough opposite volume. Sometimes an order fills only in part.
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Updated: 2026-10-19