The journal everyone talks about, versus the one that syncs your actual platform.

The honest answer: TradeZella is a polished journal with strong AI marketing, but at $29+ per month it is one of the priciest in the category — and that price question comes up constantly in trading communities ('can't justify the $29/month', 'worth it?'). You are paying for a cloud journal plus AI features. Dusk Analyst does the same core job — structured logs, analytics, AI insights, weekly reports — at a flat $25/month, with MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync and a free tier underneath. Data is stored on Cloudflare, identity is handled by Auth0, billing by Stripe, and the AI that answers your insight questions runs on DeepSeek. No card is needed for the free tier, so you can compare without paying.

TradeZella has more marketing polish and a larger brand. Dusk Analyst matches the core features (analytics, AI insights, reports) and adds what TradeZella does not advertise: native MT4, MT5 and cTrader auto-sync via read-only Expert Advisors and a cBot, plus a free tier with real import capacity. If you are on MT4/MT5/cTrader and want trades logged automatically, that difference decides it. We verified 356 brokers and prop firms one by one against their own sites in our 2026 audit; the brokers table on the home page shows the evidence.

TradeZella does not offer a genuinely usable free tier in the same way — most traders land on a paid plan quickly. Dusk Analyst's free tier covers two accounts with manual entry, CSV import, tags, analytics and weekly report export at $0, no card. Pro at $25/month adds unlimited accounts, MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync and AI insights.

In the 2026 market, paid journals run roughly $25-99/month. Dusk Analyst sits at $25/month with a free tier below it; TradeZella is around $29+; TraderSync runs $19-49 depending on tier. Price alone is a weak lens — compare what auto-syncs your actual platform. Dusk Analyst is the one with native MT4, MT5 and cTrader connectors plus AI insights at $25.

TradeZella is good at presentation: it is polished, popular on social media, and its AI features are easy to demo. For traders who want a well-known brand with strong marketing, it works. Dusk Analyst competes on the fundamentals: automatic MT4/MT5/cTrader sync, AI insights, weekly reports, a flat $25 price and a real free tier.

Dusk Analyst is a flat $25/month for Pro with unlimited accounts, auto-sync, AI insights and weekly reports - plus a genuinely usable free tier (two accounts, no card), and Pro has a free trial of up to 30 days (card required). TradeZella's pricing varies by plan and feature set; the comparison section on this page lists the current tiers so you can check the numbers yourself. The short version: one flat price vs tiered plans, and a free tier that isn't a trial.

The core difference is how trades get in. Dusk Analyst auto-syncs MT4, MT5 and cTrader with read-only connectors - no CSV exports, no manual re-entry on Pro - while TradeZella relies on the import path you choose. Dusk Analyst also adds AI insights on your own trading patterns and keeps pricing flat. Both are cloud journals with good review tooling; the side-by-side section above covers pricing, features and sync paths.

Yes - Dusk Analyst's free tier doesn't lock you in. Start journaling with two accounts at $0; if TradeZella suits you better, export your history and move on. If you want to compare side by side first, CSV import on the free tier lets you mirror recent trades into both and see which workflow you actually stick with.

Yes. The free tier costs $0 forever and includes two accounts, manual trade entry and CSV import - enough to journal a live account properly, with win rate, expectancy, drawdown and equity curve all calculated for you. There is no credit card required to start. Pro ($25/month flat) adds unlimited accounts, MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync, AI insights on your trading (1,000 trade-analyses a month), monthly reports and full export, and has a free trial of up to 30 days (card required). The pricing is deliberately simple: one plan, one price, no per-feature upsells.

Yes. Dusk Analyst Pro has a free trial of up to 30 days: 30 days if you start it within an hour of signing up, 15 days within 24 hours. A card is required to start it, nothing is charged on the day it starts, and when the trial ends Pro is $25/month unless you cancel. We email you a reminder before the trial ends. You can cancel anytime from Billing in the app; cancelling during the trial ends it straight away, nothing is charged, and your account goes back to the Free plan with every trade kept. There is one trial per account. The trial includes everything in Pro: MT4, MT5 and cTrader auto-sync, monthly reports, unlimited account books, 1,000 AI credits a month for AI Insights and CSV export. Start it in the app at app.duskanalyst.com, where it is offered whenever you open a Pro feature such as Connectors, and from the plan card in the sidebar. The Free plan is separate: it needs no card and stays free forever.

Yes - CSV import is available on every plan, including free. If you've been tracking trades in a spreadsheet, broker export or another journal, export the CSV from wherever it lives and import it into Dusk Analyst; the journal matches it against your accounts and keeps your history continuous. Import is also the fallback for platforms that don't run MT4, MT5 or cTrader. For MT4/MT5/cTrader terminals, Pro auto-syncs going forward and the EA backfills any trades your terminal missed while it was off. Any platform that exports a CSV of your trade history works. Dusk Analyst recognises TradingView, Tradovate, cTrader, MT4 and MT5 exports on sight; for anything else you map your columns once and that parser is saved for next time. Comma, semicolon and tab files are all handled, day-first and month-first dates are detected from the file itself, and any row that cannot be read is listed for you rather than dropped quietly.

Pro includes 1,000 AI trade-analyses every month. One credit covers one trade, so asking a question about a 40-trade week costs 40 credits and you can keep asking. The allowance resets on the 1st of each month and the counter sits in the top bar of the app, so you always know where you stand. Narrowing a question to one account or a shorter date range makes the same allowance go much further. Free accounts get a small number of AI credits to try AI Insights, alongside the full journal, analytics and weekly reports, and Pro's free trial (up to 30 days) includes the full monthly allowance.