Kraken API Order Rules for a Trading Bot (2026): Order Minimums, Lot Sizes, Two Rate Limiters, Exits Without a Bracket and No Sandbox
Kraken's spot API has no sandbox, no broker-held bracket and two separate rate limiters, and it enforces an order minimum and a cost minimum per pair before it will take an order. Those four facts decide how a bot has to behave on Kraken. This page lists the rules as Kraken's rate-limit guides state them and as JorgAI's integration applies them, verified from the integration code on November 6, 2026. For the same rows across all six connected brokers, see the broker API capabilities page.
The rules in one table
| Rule | What Kraken's API provides | What JorgAI sends |
|---|---|---|
| Order types | Market, limit, stop-loss, take-profit, stop-loss-limit, take-profit-limit, trailing stop and conditional close | Market (including dollar-sized buys), limit, stop-loss and stop-loss-limit |
| Exit orders | No bracket order class; a conditional close can attach one exit to an entry | No broker-held exits. JorgAI's monitor sends a protective exit as a limit a tenth of a percent under the price and re-sends it at market if it misses; a profit target keeps its limit; trailing stops run in the monitor |
| Time in force | GTC, IOC and GTD on limit orders | GTC or IOC |
| Order size | Each pair has a lot size, an order minimum and a cost minimum | Sizes are floored to the lot size; orders below the minimums are refused before sending; holdings below the minimum are treated as dust |
| Session | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Assets | Spot crypto; Kraken's US stocks are not on this API | Spot pairs in USD, USDT and USDC |
| REST call counter | Starter: 15 maximum, decaying 0.33 a second; Intermediate: 20, decaying 0.5; Pro: 20, decaying 1. Most calls add 1, ledger and trade-history calls add 2 | Balances cached 15 seconds, trade history 60 seconds, to stay inside the Starter budget |
| Matching-engine counter | Per pair: Starter 60 with 1 a second decay, Intermediate 125 at 2.34, Pro 180 at 3.75; an add is +1, a cancel adds up to +8 if the order is under 5 seconds old; open orders capped at 60, 80 or 225 | Exits are placed once and amended rarely; a nonce error is retried once |
| Sign-in | API key and private key; requests signed with a nonce | Keys with funds and orders permissions and no withdraw permission; no IP allow-list required; keys encrypted at rest and checked every six hours |
| Sandbox | None for spot | None; practice on JorgAI's demo simulator |
| Price feed | Public ticker and order book | Alpaca's feed for decisions; Kraken's ticker to size and price orders and value positions |
What the rules mean for a bot
Minimums before anything else
Every Kraken pair carries a lot size, an order minimum in the base asset and a cost minimum in the quote currency. A $20 rule on a pair with a $25 cost minimum never places an order, and a position that falls below the order minimum cannot be sold through the API and is treated as dust. JorgAI checks all three before sending, so a refusal shows up in the activity log with the reason rather than as a rejected order at Kraken.
Two counters, not one
Kraken limits REST calls with one counter (15 on a Starter account, decaying a third of a point a second) and order placement with a second, per-pair matching-engine counter (60 on Starter, decaying one a second). Polling balances every few seconds would exhaust the first; cancelling and re-placing exits every tick would exhaust the second. JorgAI caches balances and history and places exits once. The tier figures are from Kraken's REST guide and matching-engine guide.
Exits without a bracket
Kraken has no bracket order class, so JorgAI's monitor holds the exit rules and sends the order when a level is hit. Protective exits go in as a limit a tenth of a percent under the price, which fills against the top of the book in normal conditions, and are re-sent at market if they miss. What happens if the connection drops covers the outage case.
Quick answers
Does Kraken have a sandbox for spot trading?
No. Kraken offers no spot sandbox; the practice environment is JorgAI's demo simulator.
What permissions does a Kraken API key need for a bot?
Funds (query) and orders (create and cancel). No withdraw permission, and no IP allow-list is required. The key-permissions page walks through each toggle.
What is the Kraken API rate limit for a Starter account?
A REST counter of 15 that decays 0.33 a second, and a per-pair matching-engine counter of 60 that decays 1 a second, with 60 open orders at most.
Can a bot trade Kraken's stocks?
Not through the spot API, which is crypto only. Kraken's stock offering is a separate product.
How we put this together. The Kraken column is from Kraken's REST and matching-engine rate-limit guides read on November 6, 2026, plus the order-type list in its REST reference; the JorgAI column is a line-by-line read of the Kraken adapter and auto-trader workers the same day. For setup, how to automate crypto trading on Kraken; for cost, Kraken's fee tiers for a bot; for the platforms that connect, the Kraken bots comparison.
To see a crypto rule run before you create a key, start on the free plan.
The figures in this article describe broker API behaviour and are not a prediction or a recommendation to buy or sell any security or digital asset. JorgAI is software that carries out the rules you set in your own brokerage or exchange account; it is not an investment adviser. Trading involves risk of loss.
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