Zerodha Kite order window Kite mobile app order placement market protection order slicing margin display

The new order window on the Kite mobile app

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The redesigned order window on the Kite mobile app is Zerodha’s reworked single screen for placing a trade, adding amount-based ordering, an in-window read-out of available funds, required margin and approximate charges, plus market protection, automatic order slicing and remembered settings, so a trader confirms the cost and the funding of an order without leaving the screen. It replaces an older window that required a separate trip to a funds page to check margin and forced a manual quantity calculation.

The change matters because the order window is the one screen a trader touches on every trade, and the old flow scattered the three facts that decide whether to place an order, the quantity, the margin and the charges, across different screens. The new window pulls them together. For Zerodha clients on Kite , the practical effect is fewer taps and a cost preview before commitment rather than after.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure. This guide is published by the WebNotes Editorial Team for informational purposes and is written independently. WebNotes operates a Zerodha account-opening referral programme, disclosed on the pages that carry the referral link; this guide does not carry it and earns no referral commission from the procedure described here.

This article walks the new layout field by field, covers the product and order-type selectors, the margin and charges display, the advanced protections, and sets out how the app window differs from the old one and from the wider form on Kite web . For the persistent variant on the desktop, see the sticky order window on Kite .

The core layout

The new window opens as a compact card with the buy or sell action, the instrument, and a small set of selectors that drive the whole order. Two of those selectors are the headline change.

The quantity and amount toggle lets you switch between entering a quantity of shares or a rupee amount on equities. Enter an amount and the window shows the corresponding share quantity, so the manual division of amount by price is gone. For futures and options the same toggle switches between quantity and lots. One constraint applies: switching between quantity and amount is blocked while the Intraday option is selected, so amount-based sizing is a delivery-side convenience.

The limit and market price switch sits next to it. Tapping the switch icon alternates between limit and market pricing, and the window remembers your last choice. When entering a limit price you have three ways to set it: type it manually, step it with plus and minus buttons that move by the tick size of Rs 0.01, or pick a price straight from the market depth using the dropper icon. The dropper, lifting a price from the live bid or ask ladder, is the touch-native replacement for typing a number you read off a separate quote.

Product and order type selectors

Product selection is reduced to an Intraday toggle. Switch Intraday on for a MIS intraday position; leave it off and the order is placed as a normal delivery order, which is CNC on equity or NRML on derivatives. The window remembers your Intraday preference between orders, so a habitual intraday trader is not re-selecting it each time.

The order types themselves sit one level deeper. A plain market order or limit order is set with the price switch described above. For a stop-loss order, open the Advanced or More section and choose SL-L or SL-M with a switch icon; once enabled the preference is remembered until you turn it off to return to regular market or limit orders. See SL-M order on Kite for the difference between the stop-loss limit and stop-loss market variants. Order validity settings, day or immediate-or-cancel, also live in that Advanced section, alongside disclosed quantity where the segment allows it.

A GTT is set from the same Advanced area: you specify a stoploss, a target, or both, entering each as a percentage or stepping it with plus and minus buttons, which the window converts into the trigger and limit prices. Folding GTT into the order window means a single-leg or one-cancels-other GTT is created from the place-order flow rather than a separate menu.

The margin and charges display

This is the part of the redesign that removes a step traders complained about. The old flow sent you to a separate funds page to check whether you had enough margin, an extra hop before placing the order. The new window shows available funds directly inside the order screen, so you see instantly whether you have enough margin before placing the trade, without switching between tabs.

Alongside available funds, the window shows the margin required for the order. Tap the charges icon and it shows the approximate charges and taxes for the order, the brokerage, the statutory levies and the exchange and regulator fees that make up the all-in cost. The figure recalculates automatically when you change the quantity or the price, so a trader sizing a position sees the cost move with the size. For the detail of what each line in that charges read-out means, see charges shown on the order window in Kite , and for the margin side, margin required on the Kite order window .

The margin figures differ by product. Equity intraday under MIS needs a minimum margin of about 20 per cent of trade value, equivalent to roughly 5 times leverage, while equity delivery under CNC needs the full value. F&O intraday requires the full NRML margin, with no intraday leverage discount on the standard product. These can be cross-checked against Zerodha’s margin calculator and the daily market bulletin.

The margin display carries one important caveat for derivatives traders. Margins on equity trades, CNC and MIS, are straightforward because they attach to the single order. On F&O, margins are blocked on the overall portfolio, not on the individual order being placed, so when you hold several open F&O positions or pending orders the window reports the margin required to place this order given all of them together, not an isolated number for the one order. A spread that reduces portfolio risk can therefore show a smaller required margin than the leg alone would suggest.

The advanced protections

Three behaviours were brought to the app window that change how an order executes, not just how it is entered.

Market protection guards a market order in a volatile market. When enabled, a market order will only execute within a predefined price range, so it cannot fill at an extreme price during a fast move; you turn it on by tapping Advanced and toggling it. It is the order-window-level guard against the gap-fill problem that catches market orders in thin or news-driven sessions. The companion concept on the at-the-open side is covered in market price protection on the order window .

Order slicing handles large orders that exceed exchange freeze limits. If you place an order above the per-order limit, the app automatically splits it into smaller chunks, and it does so whether you are using the regular order window, baskets or the positions screen, so the trader is not manually breaking up a large F&O order to clear the freeze quantity.

Remember quantity is a convenience for F&O traders: once enabled, the app remembers the quantity you use for each contract, so a trader who deals a fixed lot size on a given contract is not re-entering it. Together with the remembered price-type and Intraday preferences, these settings make repeat orders on the same instrument a near one-tap action.

How it differs from the old window and from Kite web

Against the old app window, the redesign removes two friction points and adds the protections above. The old window made you compute a quantity from an amount yourself and sent you to a separate page to confirm margin; the new one does the amount-to-quantity conversion in place and shows funds, required margin and charges on the order screen. Zerodha describes the result as a simplified order window that places an order in a few taps, with amount-based ordering and dropper-icon price selection from market depth as the notable improvements.

Against Kite web , the differences are about input mode rather than capability. The web order form is a wider, mouse-driven panel that can persist as a sticky order window beside the chart, suited to a keyboard-and-mouse workflow. The app window is built for touch: the quantity and amount toggle, the plus and minus steppers, the dropper to lift a price from market depth, and the remembered settings all suit a thumb on a phone. The underlying products and order types, MIS, CNC, NRML, market, limit, SL-L, SL-M, GTT, validity, are the same across both surfaces, so a trader’s order capability does not change between the app and the web; only the ergonomics do. The marketwatch was reworked on the same design pass; see the redesigned marketwatch on Kite web for the watchlist side of that update.

See also

External references

References

  1. Zerodha support, How to use the new order window on the Kite app (amount-based ordering, price switch, advanced options; as of June 2026).
  2. Zerodha support, What does Charges on the Kite order window mean? (approximate charges and taxes display).
  3. Z-Connect by Zerodha, Order placement simplified, and the all-new order window on the Kite mobile app (funds in window, market protection, order slicing, remember quantity).
  4. Z-Connect by Zerodha, Margins on the Kite order window (product-wise margin: equity intraday about 20 per cent, F&O intraday full NRML, portfolio-level F&O margin).
  5. Kite app user manual, Order placement reference, kite.trade documentation.

Frequently asked questions

What is the biggest change in the new Kite app order window?
Amount-based ordering. You can enter a rupee amount instead of a share quantity, and Kite converts it to the number of shares, so you no longer divide the amount by the price by hand. For F&O you toggle between quantity and lots.
Does the new order window show margin and charges?
Yes. The redesigned window shows available funds and the margin required for the order inside the window itself, so you see if you have enough before placing the trade. A charges icon shows approximate charges and taxes, updating as quantity or price changes.
How do I place a stop-loss or GTT in the new window?
Open the Advanced or More section. There you switch between SL-L and SL-M for a stop-loss order, or set a GTT with a stoploss, a target, or both, entered as a percentage or with plus and minus buttons. Validity settings also sit there.
What is market protection in the order window?
Market protection caps how far a market order can execute from a reference price during volatile conditions, so a market order only fills within a predefined range. Enable it under Advanced. It guards against a fill at an extreme price in a fast market.
How does the new window differ from Kite web?
The app window is built for touch: amount and quantity toggles, plus and minus steppers, a dropper to pick a price from market depth, and remembered settings. Kite web keeps a wider sticky order form. The underlying products and order types are the same.
Does the margin shown account for my existing F&O positions?
Yes, and this is the caveat for F&O traders. Margins on F&O are blocked on the overall portfolio, not on the single order, so the window shows the margin needed for this order given all your open positions and orders, not an isolated figure.

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