Bybit Retail Price Improvement (RPI) order: Improved orders for retail users

A Retail Price Improvement (RPI) order is a specialized order type designed to provide retail traders with better execution prices than the publicly available order book prices. It’s widely utilized in both traditional financial markets and cryptocurrency exchanges. 

With its focus on fairness and market integrity, Bybit introduced RPI orders on February 24, 2025 on its intuitive and user-friendly digital asset trading platform, driving a strong surge in liquidity across its Spot market. With retail price improvement, Bybit aims to enhance liquidity and improve pricing for retail traders by integrating it as a specialized order type under the Unified Trading Account (UTA).

In this article, you’ll learn what an RPI order is, how it works, its benefits for retail traders — and how to place one on Bybit. Let's get started!

Key Takeaways:

• As a specialized order type under the Unified Trading Account (UTA), Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders offer optimized execution prices for retail traders, creating a fairer trading environment while ensuring market integrity and stability.

• While RPI orders are governed by a wide range of rules, they’re visible only on the trading interface, without special labels (except for crossed RPI orders), in order to maintain a fair execution environment for retail users.

• You can place RPI orders via Bybit's OpenAPI as an authorized market-maker.

What is a Retail Price Improvement (RPI) order?

A Retail Price Improvement order is a specialized order that’s designed to offer more favorable execution prices for retail traders, in contrast to order book prices that are available to the public. On Bybit, RPI orders work under the UTA and match the orders of retail traders exclusively with non-algorithmic orders. Doing so improves liquidity and pricing for retail traders, maintaining market integrity and a balanced trading environment while ensuring fair and targeted liquidity provision.

How do RPI orders work?

Bybit executes RPI orders according to the following three rules:

• Rule 1: RPI orders are exclusively matched with orders from non-algorithmic users, and will not execute against orders submitted through OpenAPI.

• Rule 2: All RPI orders are Post-Only, ensuring that they function as maker orders and contribute liquidity to the order book.

• Rule 3: RPI orders have the lowest execution priority, irrespective of their placement time. Bybit will only fill them after all non-RPI orders at the same price level have been executed.

Bybit's RPI rules create a fairer trading environment for retail users by preventing competition with high-frequency algorithms, ensuring greater liquidity and offering better price execution. These measures help retail traders secure more favorable trades, while minimizing market impact and unnecessary fees.

Trading rules for RPI orders

In addition to the above three rules, Bybit RPI orders are also subject to the following trading rules:

1. They are available in Spot markets, and will be available for Derivatives (except for Options) from Apr 1.

2. RPI orders support three margin modes: isolated margin, cross margin and portfolio margin.

3. RPI orders on Bybit function like limit orders, sharing the same margin requirements as standard limit orders. Their minimum and maximum order sizes, along with price limits, depend upon the corresponding Spot or Futures symbols.

4. RPI orders support batch placement, partial execution, order modifications (such as price and quantity adjustments) and cancellations.

5. You cannot use RPI orders with conditional orders, such as stop loss, take profit and stop orders.

Order visibility in the market

Bybit's visibility rules ensure a streamlined trading experience by excluding RPI orders from the API order book, while displaying them on the trading interface without special labels. This prevents algorithmic traders from targeting RPI orders, thus maintaining a fairer execution environment for retail users.

Additionally, crossed RPI orders — in which bid prices exceed ask prices — are hidden to keep the order book organized and prevent confusion. These measures enhance order execution transparency and market stability, benefiting retail traders.

How to place an RPI order

You can place an RPI order via Bybit OpenAPI, a powerful application programming interface trusted by over 100,000 developers globally. Via OpenAPI, you can place and cancel active orders, check market data and manage your account.

To place an RPI order via OpenAPI, refer to the Time-In-Force section in the V5 API documentation. You can learn more about Bybit's API and how to create and set up an API key on your chosen trading platform by reading this article.

Please note that only selected market-making partners can place RPI orders on Bybit. Unless you are an authorized market maker, placing an RPI order on the platform will trigger an error message.

Benefits of RPI orders for retail traders

Retail traders can realize the following benefits from the introduction of RPI orders on Bybit:

• Improved pricing through exclusive matching with non-algorithmic orders

• Protection against algorithmic trading

• Enhanced liquidity via Post-Only maker orders

• Fairness in prioritizing order execution and retail trader needs while maintaining market integrity

• Increased transparency on retail orders without added complexity

Creating a fair market environment

Bybit's Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders are designed to enhance the trading experience for retail users by offering better execution prices, increased liquidity and a fairer market environment. By restricting execution to non-algorithmic orders (thus ensuring Post-Only functionality) and maintaining low execution priority, Bybit prioritizes retail traders' needs while preserving market stability.

With the launch of RPI orders, Bybit is reinforcing its commitment to fairness, transparency and liquidity in the crypto market. This new feature empowers retail traders by minimizing market impact and providing superior price execution. To learn more about RPI orders and how to take advantage of them for digital asset trading, visit Bybit's Help Center.

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