Quick answer: A cheap trading journal usually means one of three things — a free spreadsheet you fill in by hand, a free-tier SaaS journal with monthly caps, or a paid plan under €10/month like ReziFX Starter (€8.99/mo, 100 captures/month), which pulls entry, stop, target and a chart screenshot straight from TradingView. No broker login, no manual typing of numbers.
Why "cheap" gets complicated fast
Search "trade journal" and you'll find plans anywhere from free to well over €50 a month, plus a healthy amount of Reddit complaining about paying a recurring fee for something that, on paper, is just a table with columns for entry, stop, target and outcome. The complaint is fair. A lot of journals really are a form wrapped in a subscription.
But "cheap" only means something once you know what you're comparing. A €0 spreadsheet and a €8.99/month tool aren't doing the same job, and pretending they are is how people end up either overpaying for features they never use, or underpaying with a spreadsheet they abandon after three weeks.
Option 1: the free spreadsheet route
This costs €0 and you own the file completely. That's the honest upside. The catch is everything else. For a real trade — say a long on EUR/USD at 1.0850, stop at 1.0820, target at 1.0925, a 1:2.5 risk/reward — you have to open TradingView, take a screenshot, copy the entry/stop/target off the chart, switch to the spreadsheet, type all three prices, calculate the R:R by hand or with a formula, paste the screenshot link, and repeat the whole thing again when the trade closes.
Do that for 20–30 trades a month and it's not the money that gets you, it's the friction. The setups you almost skip journaling are usually the ones that were sloppy or emotional — exactly the ones you most need in the data for a honest weekly review. A spreadsheet doesn't stop you trading badly. It just quietly stops recording the trades you'd rather not look at.
Option 2: free-tier SaaS journals
Most journal SaaS products, ReziFX included, offer a free plan to try the capture flow before you pay anything. ReziFX's free plan allows 2 captures a day and 20 a month — enough to test whether the workflow fits how you trade, not enough to run a full month of active trading. Sign-up itself only needs an email and a password; you're not asked for payment details until you choose to upgrade.
Free tiers across the market tend to cap either your trade count, your history length, or your access to stats and reports. That's a reasonable trade-off for a free tier — just don't expect a free plan to replace a real monthly workflow if you trade more than a handful of times a week.
Option 3: ReziFX Starter, under €10/month
Starter is €8.99/month and covers 10 captures a day, 100 a month. You draw the Long or Short position tool on the TradingView chart, click Won, Lost, Open or Skip in the ReziFX bar, and entry, stop-loss, take-profit, R:R and position size land in your journal on app.rezifx.com along with a chart screenshot — automatically, without typing a single number. Flow mode will even grab the newest drawn trade without you clicking anything.
Take that same EUR/USD long — entry 1.0850, stop 1.0820, target 1.0925, size sized to your risk. Instead of retyping those four numbers into a spreadsheet, you draw the tool once and click one button. The capture happens the moment the trade is planned, which is the point: you're journaling the decision, not reconstructing it from memory later.
What Starter does not include is the deeper analytics layer — win-rate and R:R stats, AI trade analysis (powered by Google Gemini), reports, the five trading calculators, and CSV/Excel or Google Sheets export. Those are bundled from the Pro plan (€19.99/month, recommended) upward. If you want capture without the analytics, Starter is the honest cheap option. If you want the full review workflow, budget for Pro.
Cost breakdown, side by side
| Option | Monthly cost | What you get | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | €0 | Full control, no vendor lock-in | Every field typed by hand; no automatic capture, no built-in stats |
| ReziFX Free | €0 | 2 captures/day, 20/month, same capture flow as paid plans | Volume cap; stats, AI analysis, reports and export start at Pro |
| ReziFX Starter | €8.99 | 10/day, 100/month captures with screenshot, no broker login | Analytics layer (stats, AI, reports, calculators, export) unlocks at Pro |
| ReziFX Pro (recommended) | €19.99 | 200/day, 6,000/month + full journal: stats, AI analysis, reports, 5 calculators, exports | Above the "under €10" bracket this article is about |
| ReziFX Elite | €49.99 | Unlimited captures (20,000/month fair-use cap), everything in Pro | Built for high-volume traders, not a "cheap" tier |
Figures reflect ReziFX pricing as published on rezifx.com/pricing.html at time of writing. Third-party tools mentioned by name change plans and pricing regularly — verify details with the provider, subject to change.
How do you log a TradingView trade without typing anything?
The capture itself works the same way at every paid tier:
- Draw the Long or Short position tool on your TradingView chart, same as you already do to plan the trade.
- Click Won, Lost, Open or Skip in the ReziFX bar that appears next to the tool.
- Entry, stop-loss, take-profit, R:R and position size are read off the drawing, and a chart screenshot is attached automatically.
- The trade appears in your journal on app.rezifx.com — no alt-tabbing, no retyping.
There's no broker login step anywhere in that flow. Capture happens when the trade is planned on the chart, which also means a trade you set up but never fill can still be logged as Open or Skip — data most spreadsheet workflows lose entirely, since there's nothing to screenshot until you actually take the position.
If you're specifically avoiding tools that ask for broker credentials, our piece on running a trade journal without a broker login goes deeper into why that matters for prop-firm accounts and multi-broker setups. And if you're coming from a paid competitor and comparing what you'd actually keep or lose, this comparison for TradingView users covers that ground directly.
Which option actually fits you
If you trade a handful of times a month and enjoy spreadsheet work, the free route is genuinely fine — just be honest with yourself about whether you'll keep filling it in during a losing week, which is exactly when the data matters most.
If you trade regularly and want the plan captured the moment you draw it on the chart, without a broker connection and without manual entry, Starter at €8.99/month is the cheap option built for that. If you also want the win-rate, R:R and drawdown stats to actually mean something on a Sunday review, Pro is where that layer turns on.
Frequently asked questions
Is a free spreadsheet good enough for journaling trades?
It costs nothing and gives you full control of your data, but you type every entry, stop, target and screenshot link by hand. It works if you trade rarely and are disciplined about filling it in after every single trade — most traders skip that step within a few weeks.
What does the ReziFX Starter plan actually include for €8.99/month?
Starter covers capture and storage of up to 10 trades a day and 100 a month, including entry, stop, take-profit, R:R, size and a chart screenshot, with no broker login required. The deeper analytics layer — stats, AI trade analysis, reports, the five calculators and CSV/Google Sheets export — is included from the Pro plan upward.
Does a cheap trading journal need a broker login to work?
No. ReziFX captures a trade when you draw the position tool on the TradingView chart and click Won, Lost, Open or Skip — nothing to link, no keys to manage. It records the plan, not a broker fill.
Can I upgrade later if I outgrow the Starter plan?
Yes. Plans on the pricing page are set up so you can move from Starter to Pro, or back down, as your trade volume or need for stats and reports changes.
Is there a free trading journal option before paying anything?
ReziFX has a free plan with 2 captures a day and 20 a month, using the same capture flow as the paid plans. Sign-up itself only needs email and password; payment details are entered only if you later choose to upgrade.
Trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. Nothing on this page is financial advice.