Introduction
I have seen a TON of vote-bot activity on steemit recently, and almost every bot execution results in negative ROI (Return on Investment) for the "bot investors". With this being such as common occurrence, I decided it is due to one of the two following factors.
- People are paying bots to boost their post ranking on the "trending" page.
- Many of the voters have no idea how to profitably use the system.
Now, paying bots to advertise is one thing, but these bids should be heavy, ranging in the $10-$50+ SBD range. That is extremely uncommon from what I have seen. There are several users that place bids like these, but my belief is that is is for exposure. Looking at their steemworld (https://www.steemworld.org/) accounts and total payment vs. the transfer amount of their bot votes proves this.
The vast majority of bids I see is the 5 SBD and under range. This lead me to believe that many of these users are trying to squeeze more profits from their posts.
Now before we get further into this, one thing is to note here. While half of your rewards do to Steem Power (SP) and the other half goes to SBD (Steem Dollars), this guide is to earn profitability on your SBD investment. The SP rewards on this platform are so so insanely low compared to SBD earning that is isn't even relevant. Earning SP in this manner is highly ineffective. The best way to earn SP is by purchasing it with SBD. The payout is so low that I do not even factor SP in, even though it does have a measurable value.
How to Profit on Vote Bots
I searched the internet to see if anyone has done anything similar to this before I dove into formulas and discovered a very comprehensive guide in which this guide is heavily based upon.
@maverickfoo published an excellent case study during his work with underprivledged children in which you can see here.
His case study goes over his actual development of the formula and executing of it with a real bot and his results. I have developed my guide from that and modified/simplified it to a checklist in which steemit users can reference when placing bids.
The biggest take away from this is that the vote you receive from any bot MUST BE A MINIMUM OF 2.66 TIMES YOUR BID TO BREAK-EVEN.
Formula = 2.66 x (your bid) = Return of Initial Invested SBD (bid)
Why $2.66 SBD? Well, this is the quick breakdown of the formula.
$2.66 SBD vote = $ 1 SBD investment after 25% curiation, 37.5% transfer to STEEM and 37.5% transfer to SBD.
This a approx. break-even, as a $2.67 SBD return of $1 SBD is a profitable vote.
Guide/Checklist to Guarantee Profitability
- Download my reference guide (checklist) here and keep it next to you when you go to the bot voting site to ensure all criteria is met.
- Copy the link url onto your clipboard so you can quickly place the vote and not miss on massive payout (this has happened to me and missed a chance to triple a large investment).
- Go to http://www.steembottracker.com/ to see current vote bots.
- Look at bots that are voting in around 5 minutes or less, if there are no bots showing a "max suggest bid" anywhere near what you are wanting to bid, then look at the next soonest bots that are and set a timer (phone, watch, etc.) to notify you when they are 5 minutes out from voting, then return and begin your process if they fit this criteria.
- Click the "details" tab to see current bids. Check to see if their bids satisfy the formula of greater than 2.66 x (bid). Now remember that this is before you are placing your vote, so if it barely satisfies that requirement, it may not be profitable. But that is why we confirm our findings with the calculator. I like to confirm before calculation because sometimes there are glitches and I don't like to lose money.
- On the top portion, confirm your profitability prediction by choosing the bot you are wanting to use and enter your bid amount. It will calculate an estimated return. Ensure the received SBD satisies the 2.66 x (bid) formula.
- Check the bot to ensure they do not vote on posts older than 3.5 days (and that the post you are wanting to vote on is not older than 3.5 days. If so, you may have the pleasure in meeting @grumpycat which may flag and massively take away your earnings for "reward pool abuse". This topic will be touched on in the near future.
- If all of these criteria are met, the bot should be in its final moments before bidding. Place your bid and check your steemworld account for the upvote.
I hope this helps some of you in generating more income and becoming more successful on the platform.
Respectfully yours,
Jacob A. Billett, M.B.A
CEO Billett Enterprises, Inc.
lets try it, ty for the good work.
Go for it, it's is a mathematical certainty.
@originalworkds
Let me try that sir...thanks for the tips
CHEERS ! , great explanation as we are trying to build our page up. I hope this helps us grown ever quicker than what we have been currently doing.
Good Morning!
I pulled your account up on SteemWorld and took a look, and this is what I would recommend.
SteeemPower needs to be increased, especially if you are a community type of account, so maybe asking those within the community or authors you may have for articles to delegate to you. (I am a bit of a wine nut, so I wouldn't mind doing articles for you and delegating to you to increase your presence and get your tag "beverages" trending more.
If you are not on steemfollower and steemengine, you need to do so immediately. It will tremendously boost your received upvotes and and followers. nearly 25% of my 600 followers this month (which is my first month on the platform) have been from this. Please follow my links below to sign up.
Contests are another great way to get people involved with the community.
There are some very big whales out here that like alcohol, so getting more quality content with your tag on it will help getting their vote.
Respectfully yours,
Jacob A. Billett, M.B.A
CEO Billett Enterprises, Inc.
We will look into all of this. Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to analyze this for us!!! There's so many options and can get a bit overwhelming. We will get working to get this going asap, CHEERS !
Wow. I got a lot learned today. Its a full package. Thanks a lot @jacob. There's always a wonder in reading. Amazing.
thank you so much this information
This is an old thread but I still don't understand the formula. For most bots, i don't see the ROI go over 20% most of the time. Won't it have to be 266% in order to meet the formula requirements?
For example:
It's capped at 10%, for the first upvote, the bid 5 sbd, then 2.66 x 5 = 13.3. It says the vote value is 7.41 SBD, does this mean it's not profitable? Still confused on how to tell if this would be a good investment or not. If you could explain to me, that would be fantastic.
Thanks.
Hello, I am replying to you on my curation service profile (this is @entrepreneur916). Doing delegator payouts currently, so this is just easier.
So with ROI capped then it isn't profitable.
This is just a very rough explanation.
You bid 5 SBD and get a 7.4 SBD upvote right?
After curation period of 7 days, that 7.4 SBD gets divided. First, 25% of the 7.41 SBD upvote goes to curators.
So now your 7.4 SBD upvote is now 5.55 SBD...until the 50/50 split
After the split, 2.775 SBD of your 7.4 SBD upvote is given back to you. The other 2.775 then gets divided by the USD conversion rate of STEEM, so you'd get like 0.5 - 0.6 or so steem (not entirely sure of conversion currently). Even if you were to get 1 STEEM you could have made more doing other things, such as using my service or just buying STEEM outright.
how about 100% sp payout? will that change anything or was that what you are referring here:
It also seems to me that upvote bots aren't even worth it then because most of the posts turn out to be 10-30% ROI which would end up in a big loss.
Bot have a purpose if you are looking for promotion, but typically they just cost you money.
At 100% SP payout it really is determined by the market. Currently 1 STEEM is about 1.4 - 1.6 SBD, or 150-160% the value of SBD. I would only "Powering when STEEM is much more valuable than SBD is really only the good time to do so.
A 10% RO!, meaning a 5.5 SBD upvote for a 5 SBD bid is a horrible investment, so is 30% or 6.5 SBD upvote for 5 SBD bid. It doesn't even cover curation.
Ah ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the information, i'll look forward into your bot/service.
No problem. It is a manual curation service in which I check every post and provide a 300% upvote.
Ok cool, are there any general requirements? Like for example I linked you to a post to a livestream i streamed over dlive, would that be valid?