How to use price alerts

Price alerts trigger when the price surpasses or reaches a specific price mark. They are especially useful for price action strategies, where the focus is strictly on pure price movement — the core of technical analysis — without relying on indicators or secondary tools.

Price-based strategies use price as the starting—and almost always the ending—point for deciding whether entering or exiting a trade is worth it. To identify which price levels play the most crucial role for a particular asset, you can use various technical analysis tools, including trendlines, candlestick and chart patterns, price-based chart types, and drawing tools.

Knowing how to configure TradingView alerts is crucial to making informed and timely decisions. Both price and technical alerts use different operators, and your plan defines the limit for how many active alerts you can have at once.

For an alert to function as a price alert, remember to set the primary condition to "Price." Then select one of the following operators:

Crossing: Triggers when the price reaches or passes a specific threshold from either direction.
Crossing up: Triggers when the price reaches or passes a specific threshold moving from bottom to top.
Crossing down: Triggers when the price reaches or passes a specific threshold moving from top to bottom.
Greater than: Triggers when the price rises above a specified threshold by at least one minimum tick.
Less than: Triggers when the price falls below a specified threshold by at least one minimum tick.

Tip: You can often save your technical alert quota by using price alerts instead. For example, rather than setting an alert directly on a trendline drawing, place a simple Crossing price alert at that level—freeing up your technical alerts for more complex setups.

For instance, suppose you are a trend trader. You open the META chart and see that the price has struggled to break the $600 resistance level several times, leading you to expect a further pullback or potential breakout. You can place an alert using the Crossing up operator, which will inform you the moment the price surpasses that previous level, signaling that the trend may have changed. Even if the price is higher than before, it may still go much higher.

The bottom line

Mastering alerts is a crucial part of trading, as being promptly informed about market changes often defines a successful trade. Both price and technical alerts help you react in a timely manner and stay updated on market conditions. However, alerts are just a fragment of what our platform offers. We encourage you to explore our drawing tools and various chart types to discover your ideal trading configurations for every asset type you trade on TradingView.