The trading journal Google Sheets users never have to build.

Yes, and many traders do exactly that. A Sheets journal is free, in the browser, and easy to reach from any device. The tradeoff is upkeep: you write the formulas, keep column references aligned when you duplicate rows, and rebuild it whenever you change what you track. If you want the convenience of Sheets without the maintenance, a structured journal gives you the same browser access with the work removed. Dusk Analyst logs trades manually or via CSV import and computes win rate, profit factor and calendars for you. The Free tier covers two accounts with manual entry, CSV import, tags, calendars, core analytics and weekly report export at $0. Pro at $25 per month adds unlimited accounts, auto-sync, AI insights and full export.

You can, but options add the messy columns — expiry, strike, premium, strategy and legs — and each one means more formulas to maintain. Most templates handle a few strategies before you hit a wall. A journal built for the job tracks those fields without a sheet. Dusk Analyst stores strategy tags, notes and P&L per trade, and rolls them into analytics, calendars and weekly reports. Import an options CSV from your broker or log manually. Data is stored on Cloudflare, identity is handled by Auth0, billing by Stripe, and the AI that answers your insight questions runs on DeepSeek. The Free tier covers two accounts at $0 with no card required; Pro at $25 per month adds unlimited accounts, auto-sync, AI insights and full export.

There are free Sheets templates, and they are a reasonable start — a sheet with columns for entry, exit, size and P&L plus a few summary formulas. The limitations show up fast: templates rarely match your broker's export, and they break or bloat as you grow. A free journal with real structure is a better trade. Dusk Analyst's Free plan covers two accounts with manual entry, CSV import, tags, calendars, core analytics and weekly report export at $0, no credit card required and no time limit. Data is stored on Cloudflare, identity is handled by Auth0, billing by Stripe, and the AI that answers your insight questions runs on DeepSeek. Pro at $25 per month adds unlimited accounts, auto-sync MT4, MT5 and cTrader, AI insights and full export.

The best format is the one you actually keep reviewing: consistent fields per trade, a review rhythm, and analytics that answer questions about your own results. Spreadsheets give you the fields but make you build and maintain the rest. A structured journal gives you the fields, the analytics and the weekly report out of the box. Dusk Analyst tracks entry, exit, size, P&L, tags and notes per trade, then computes win rate, profit factor and calendars automatically. Free covers two accounts with manual entry, CSV import, tags, calendars, core analytics and weekly report export at $0; Pro at $25 per month adds unlimited accounts, auto-sync, AI insights and full export.

Create it by deciding what to record — entry, exit, size, P&L and why you took the trade — then build a place to store it and a rhythm to review it. You can do that in Google Sheets, or you can skip the building step entirely. Dusk Analyst gives you the structure ready-made: create a free account, log your first trade manually or import a CSV, and the journal starts computing analytics immediately. The Free tier covers two accounts with manual entry, CSV import, tags, calendars, core analytics and weekly report export at $0. Pro at $25 per month adds unlimited accounts, auto-sync, AI insights and full export.

Yes - the Google Sheets template is free and needs no account to download. Open it in your spreadsheet app and start logging trades immediately. It's built to be a genuine starting point: structured columns for the data that matters, with the key metrics calculated for you. If you outgrow it, Dusk Analyst imports the same CSV structure and continues your history on any plan.

The Google Sheets template calculates the metrics that matter for review: win rate, profit factor, expectancy per trade, average win vs average loss, max drawdown and an equity curve from your logged trades. Enter each trade's entry, exit, size and result; the formulas do the rest. It's a solid foundation - and if you later want auto-sync or AI insights, Dusk Analyst imports your CSV and carries the history forward.

One row per trade. Fill in date, symbol, direction, entry, exit, lot size and P&L; the template computes the rest (win/loss, R-multiple, running equity). Add notes in the journal column while it's fresh - the notes are where the learning happens. If you'd rather not type rows at all, Dusk Analyst on Pro auto-syncs MT4/MT5/cTrader and still gives you the same metrics.

Yes, and it's painless. Export your Google Sheets template as CSV and import it into Dusk Analyst - the free tier includes CSV import, so you keep your full history and pick up where the template left off. From there you can keep logging manually, or upgrade to Pro for MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync and AI insights. Nothing you've recorded is wasted.

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.