Kalshi provides the tools for you to make trades happen exactly the way you want.

An order is a request to buy or sell event contracts on Kalshi. Just like the stock market, Kalshi offers different types of orders that can be useful for different strategies and levels of experience. Quick orders and sell orders are ideal for beginners, or anyone who wants their trades to happen immediately. Limit orders offer more control and allow you to fine-tune the timing and prices of each trade.

All quick orders and sell orders are subject to fees, but limit orders and limit sell orders are only charged fees for trades that execute immediately. You can read more about fees in the Kalshi Fee Schedule.

Quick orders

A Quick Order, also known as a market order, is a request to immediately buy a specific number of contracts at the best available prices.

Quick orders are guaranteed to execute with no delay, interacting with the order book at the moment you place the order. For this reason, quick orders are the simplest and fastest way to make a trade on Kalshi. They are ideal when you like the price that the market is currently at and care more about trading quickly than setting exact prices.

When placing a Quick Order, you specify the quantity and direction (Yes or No) that you want, and Kalshi gets you those contracts as cheaply as possible. If your order is large, there may not be enough shares available at the best price to fulfill the quantity you want. This means your order can span multiple prices.Quick order example: For example, consider a market where the Yes sides of 500 contracts are offered at the best price of 10¢, and more are offered at 12¢. If you place a quick order for 1000 contracts, you’ll buy 500 at 10¢ each and another 500 for 12¢ each, for an average price of 11¢. The order panel accounts for this automatically; it would show you an average price of 11¢ in this example.

Sell orders

A sell order is a request to sell contracts you currently own.

Sell orders are only available when you have a position in that market. Like a quick order, sell orders are carried out immediately at the best possible price. Use sell orders when you want to quickly reduce your investment and lock in current profits or losses.

Under the hood, a sell order is actually a buy order for the opposite direction. Remember, the Yes and No sides of a contract together are always equal to $1 in locked-in value because exactly one of the two directions will always be correct. So, by buying the side opposite to your own, you're collecting "pairs" that necessarily yield $1. Kalshi automatically exchanges every pair you own and credits $1 to your available funds.

Limit orders

A Limit Order is a request to buy a specific number of contracts at a specific price or better.

For example, you could place a limit order to buy the Yes side of up to five contracts for ten cents each or cheaper. This type of order could result in trades that occur some time in the future, or possibly never at all. However, it is guaranteed that any trades will occur at the specified price or better. Use limit orders when you want precise control over the prices of your trades and are willing to wait, or don’t want to pay trading fees.

If a limit order doesn’t execute immediately in its entirety, the remaining number of contracts will become a Resting Order that appears in the order book for the market. Other Kalshi members can then come and trade with your resting orders. Resting orders are important for healthy markets, so they’re exempted from trading fees.

Kalshi also offers control over the lifetime of a limit order, allowing you to choose how long the order stays valid for. Shorter order lifetimes can act as a defense against sudden and unpredicted market movements.

Limit sell orders

A Limit Sell Order is a request to sell a specific number of contracts you own at a specific price or better.

Limit sell orders are similar to limit orders, except that you specify the quantity and price that you want to sell, rather than buy, at. Like a sell order, limit sell orders are only available when you have a position in that market.

Unlike a sell order, limit sell orders don’t necessarily result in immediate trades. Instead, whatever is left will become a resting order that other Kalshi members can see and trade with.