A Cryptohopper alternative without the subscription

If you live in the Netherlands and start looking for a way to automate your crypto, you’ll find Cryptohopper quickly, and probably weigh it against Coinrule and a few others. Cryptohopper is an Amsterdam company, it’s been around since 2017, and it’s genuinely capable: a polished platform with strategies, backtesting, a marketplace, and a large community.

It’s also a monthly subscription. Before you compare a single feature, that one fact is worth sitting with, because it’s the real fork in the road: are you renting your tools, or owning them?

What a subscription actually costs

Cryptohopper is priced the way most of the category is: a free starter tier, then paid plans that climb as you need more (roughly $25 to $100+ per month as of mid-2026, cheaper if you pay yearly). On top of the tier, some signals and marketplace strategies cost extra.

Take the middle of that range and run it forward. Around $50 a month is $600 a year, and roughly $3,000 over five years, for software, on top of the trading fees you already pay your exchange. None of it buys something you keep. Stop paying and the automation stops.

To be clear, this isn’t a knock on Cryptohopper specifically: it’s how nearly every crypto trading bot is priced. They’re just the most visible Dutch example, which is exactly why it’s a fair one to use.

What a subscription costs beyond the money

Three things, and none of them are on the pricing page.

If the company goes away, so does your setup. A hosted bot runs on someone else’s servers. If that company is acquired, pivots, or simply shuts down, and crypto companies do, your automation stops and the dashboards and trade history you built up go with it. You’re renting continuity, not just features. Aurono runs on a device in your own home: if Aurono Labs vanished tomorrow, the software you installed keeps doing exactly what you told it. That independence is the whole reason we build local-first.

A cloud platform has to see everything you do. To place your trades it sits between you and your exchange, so it knows your balances, your positions, and exactly how much you trade. Aurono runs on your own device and talks to your exchange directly. We never see any of it, by design.

The pricing model shapes the product. When a company’s revenue depends on you logging in next month, the tool slowly bends toward engagement: more dashboards, more notifications, more reasons to come back, whether or not any of it grows your portfolio. The long version is here: Why most trading bots are subscription traps.

Aurono’s model: pay once, run it yourself

Aurono Start works the other way around. You pay once for the software license (€99), and it runs on hardware you already own or buy a single time: a Raspberry Pi, a Mac, a small always-on machine at home. No monthly fee. Your exchange keys stay on your own device and are scoped so withdrawals are never possible; we never see them. Connect it to Bitvavo (more exchanges are coming), set your rules, and it executes them.

Because we’re not funded by your next payment, the product can afford to be calm. It does what you told it, sends you a short summary, and otherwise leaves you alone. Someone who checks in once a fortnight is a success here, not a problem to re-engage.

The honest trade-offs

This isn’t a free lunch, and Aurono isn’t a Cryptohopper clone:

You run it yourself. That means a little setup on your own device (we’ll walk you through it on a free call). A hosted subscription is click-and-go; local-first asks slightly more up front in exchange for control and no recurring bill.
It’s rule-based, not signals or AI hype. Aurono executes the rules you set. It won’t claim to predict the market or sell you someone else’s “winning” strategy.
It’s deliberately narrow. Fewer features, fewer screens, less to misconfigure. If what you want is a sprawling toolbox, that’s a legitimate preference, and it isn’t us.

If you’re a fast day-trader chasing signals, something like Cryptohopper is honestly the better fit. Aurono is for people who want a few simple rules followed patiently, on their own hardware, without paying rent forever.

See for yourself, free

You don’t have to take our word for any of this:

Play with a rule-based strategy right in your browser, no install. It’s a simplified version, meant to give you a first idea of how you simulate a strategy on historical data: try the Lab.
Or install the real thing and run it free in shadow mode (real prices, no real money) until you’re ready: download Aurono Start.

The deeper, mechanics-level comparison (candle-close execution, limit orders, the average-cost guard) lives in Aurono vs trading bots.

Aurono is local-first, rule-based, and one-time licensed. No subscription, no engagement metrics, no need to log in unless you want to.