The spreadsheet is free. The upkeep is not.

It depends on your volume and patience. A spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets) is free, flexible and fine for a handful of trades, but it is manual — every trade typed by hand, no automatic stats, and the analysis work is on you. A journal app structures the data, computes win rate/profit factor/drawdown automatically, and can auto-sync your platform. The honest rule: if you trade more than a few times a week, a structured journal saves enough time to pay for itself. Dusk Analyst's free tier gives you the structure without the spreadsheet upkeep. 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 required for the free tier.

For options specifically, a good spreadsheet tracks the underlying, expiry, strategy type, premium, delta at entry and realized P&L — most 'options tracking spreadsheet' templates cover a subset of that. The problem is the same as every spreadsheet: manual entry and no automatic review. If you want spreadsheet-like simplicity without the manual work, Dusk Analyst's free tier (manual entry or CSV import, tags, analytics) gives you the structure with zero formulas to maintain. We also cover the Excel and Google Sheets template angle on dedicated pages.

Build a spreadsheet only if you enjoy maintaining it; otherwise it becomes a chore you abandon. A free journal tier removes the upkeep: Dusk Analyst's free tier has two accounts, manual entry, CSV import, tags, analytics and weekly reports at $0. You get the spreadsheet's flexibility (custom tags, CSV import) without writing formulas, and if you later want MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync or AI insights, Pro is $25/month with no history re-entry.

Yes — that is the standard migration path. Most journals accept CSV import, so you export your spreadsheet and import the history once. Dusk Analyst supports CSV import on the free tier, so your existing Excel/Google Sheets history can move over without re-typing. After that, the journal keeps computing your stats automatically.

Three things: (1) automatic logging — MT4/MT5/cTrader auto-sync means trades enter themselves; (2) automatic analytics — win rate, profit factor, equity curve, calendars and weekly reports computed for you; (3) AI insights — asking questions of your trade history. A spreadsheet can do the first two only with real effort, and the third not at all.

Yes - the Excel 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 Excel 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 Excel 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.