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. DuskAnalyst'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, DuskAnalyst'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: DuskAnalyst'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. DuskAnalyst 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.