Well it all depends on the profit that the bot is offering and the amount of risk you are willing to take. Also note that some of the bots don't upvote posts older than 5 days. So from the time you transfer your payment to the bot to when you get your post payout rewards and then you are able to trade that money (for availing the higher market price of SBD), it's a risk of about 2 days. Market is highly unpredictive and anything can happen in a day or two. But going by the trend in past week, if you decide to put money on bots, do check on profitability ratio. For example, if you only look for doubling your bid on a 6 day old post, you will still incur a loss.
EXAMPLE:
Say you paid $1 and got $2 upvote. So after deducting about 25% curation rewards, you will receive a payout of 1.5. On a 50-50 split, you will get 0.75 SBD and 0.37SP (on current Steem rates on the blockchain). Now if market rate of SBDare still maintained at 12USD and Steem at 2.25 USD, your total payout worth is (0.75x12) + (0.37x2.25) = 9.83 USD whereas you had invested 12USD worth of SBD. So you GOT A NET LOSS OF 18% and that too by taking a risk on market price fluctuation for a day or two.
So in case you need to use bot, aim for very high profitability which can give you higher SBD payment even after 50-50 payout split and also the return should be profitable enough to compensate for your market risk.
Hope you understood my point.
This is an incredible response. I actually forgot about the loss of the curation rewards... I'm sure most people forget about that. So if I have a post worth about $4 SBD when I would only get $3 SBD for that... and then split 50-50.
I've found it's really frustrating when you use a bot with 2 minutes to and it looks like it'll be a good ROI (say 80%) and then in that last minute someone comes in with massive bids and drives the ROI down to say 7%... happens so often. You can't really control if you get a high profitability upvote or not.
Alright, today was my last day using bots until the SBD comes back down...
Thanks for your response, it's brilliant!
Although I did notice you bid on the @upme bot for this post... ironic?
Aah, very intelligent question! In fact, I was waiting for this point to be raised by someone. I'm glad you did.
Let me clarify again that not everyone uses bots to directly reap rewards from them. Earning direct profit from upvote bots is one of the many reasons to use them ...and admittedly the most popular one. Some use them to give higher visibility to their posts and some to increase their reputation score too. Everyone has got their own reasons.
With this post, I wanted to caution noobs by warning about the increased risk associated with upvote bots to book a profitable deal with them. You are free to use them at your own discretion knowing the risks very well.
You must have also noticed that I used the upme bot on the sixth day to minimize the market risk. I also took utmost care to bid at the last moment to book about 350% return on my payment.
Another thing you can note is I put a bid on a bot which had the highest vote value in the market. When the vote worth is big enough, it would need a bigger amount bid at the last moment to disrupt my calculation. So bigger bots are safer to bid a small amount. Finally, I'd like to mention that I was mentally prepared to loss my bid amount. It's like how much you can afford to loss. Not all minnows can afford to loss their money and forget about it. The risks at stake are higher than perceived and that is the reason many people repent later. Hope you got my point now!
Oh. I understood your point straight away... I was just being super cheeky!
Because of you, your excellently explained post and your suprer generous comments I've started a spreadsheet and worked out all the maths behind the bidbots.
I can now see that there is potential for profit... but the ROI needs to be closer to 80% or above to make it worthwhile (assuming SBD doesn't decrease in that time).
I'll admit that before your post I saw bidbots as virtually money for nothing, so I owe you a great debt for encouraging intelligent decision-making. Thanks heaps for everything!
Thank you!
P.S.:
When you talk about 80% ROI, do consider to go through the example given in the post once more. It's for 200% return that still gives a loss.
Ah, sorry, I meant 80% ROI as stated in the Bottracker tool... Their ROI suggestions already remove the loss of the curation rewards.