⚡ GridRunner — Setup Guide

🎉 Free 7-Day Trial: Your bot starts a trial automatically — no license key required. Skip that field during setup and you're good to go. After 7 days, buy a license to keep live trading.

What You Need

  1. A Solana wallet with some USDC (Phantom, Solflare, etc.)
  2. A free Render.com account — sign up here
  3. A free Alchemy.com account — sign up here (Solana chain)
⚠️ Important: Render requires a credit card on file even for the free tier. They do a $1 verification hold that is refunded immediately. You will not be charged unless you upgrade.

Step 1: Get Your Alchemy Key

1. Sign up at alchemy.com (free tier)
2. Create new app → select Solana → Mainnet
3. Copy the API key from your dashboard — you'll paste it into Render in Step 2

Step 2: Deploy to Render

1. Click this button to start the deploy:

🚀 Deploy to Render

2. On the Render setup page, check these settings:

SettingValue
Branchrelease
Blueprint Pathrender.yaml
PlanFree — click "Change" if it shows Starter

If it says "Blueprints require a paid plan":
Skip the blueprint. Instead go to Render dashboard → New Web Service → connect gridrunner-tools/gridrunner-bot → branch release → select Free plan. Then manually add the env vars below.

3. Add these environment variables:

VariableValueWhere to Find It
SOL_PRIVATE_KEYYour private keyPhantom → Settings → Export Private Key
SOL_WALLET_ADDRESSYour wallet addressPhantom — copy from top
ALCHEMY_KEYYour Alchemy keyAlchemy dashboard → API Key
LICENSE_KEYLeave this blankYour 7-day trial starts automatically ✨

Optional — Telegram alerts: add TG_BOT_TOKEN (from @BotFather) and TG_CHAT_ID (from @userinfobot) to get a message on every trade. 4. Click "Create Web Service" — your bot deploys in ~2 minutes
5. Your bot URL will be https://[name].onrender.com — find it on your Render dashboard

Step 3: Start Trading

1. Open your Render URL in a browser → you'll see the GridRunner dashboard
2. Pick a strategy — Grid, Limit Buy, or Limit Sell — and a pair like BTC/USDC or SOL/USDC
3. Start in Paper mode first to test safely
4. Click Start — the bot begins running
5. When ready, toggle to LIVE mode

Testing Checklist

☐Paper mode — run grid, confirm trades show in history
☐Manual buy (paper) — try a small manual buy/sell
☐Live $1 buy — switch to LIVE, buy $1 of SOL, verify on Solscan
☐Live sell — sell it back, confirm USDC returns
☐Grid live — let grid run, verify buy→sell cycles
☐PnL — after a buy→sell round trip, confirm PnL shows on the dashboard

⏰ Keep It Alive (Important!)

Render's free tier puts your bot to sleep after 15 minutes of no visitors.
You need a free ping service to visit your bot every 5 minutes:
  1. Sign up at cron-job.org (free)
  2. Click + Create cron job
  3. Give it a name (e.g. Keep GridRunner awake) and enter your Render URL (e.g. https://gridrunner-xxxx.onrender.com)
  4. Set the schedule to run every 5 minutes
  5. Click Create — it now pings your bot automatically, keeping it awake
Now your bot stays awake 24/7 and never misses a trade.

What Happens After 7 Days?

Your trial lets you trade live for 7 full days. After that:

Troubleshooting