The best trading journal for prop traders is TradesViz, because it loads your firm's drawdown type, daily loss limit and profit target from a preset and checks your synced trades against them. We ranked ten journals on three things a prop trader pays for: whether it tracks firm rules, whether it syncs the platforms prop firms run on, and what it costs to run several accounts at once.
Prices and features read from each vendor's own site on 7 October 2026 and linked below. If a figure here disagrees with the vendor's page, the vendor's page wins.
Journals are one part of a prop trader's kit. For trade copiers, risk tools and the rest, see our trading tools directory.
Top 10 prop trading journals compared
| # | Journal | Firm rule tracking | Free option | Paid from | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TradesViz | Yes, 37+ firm presets | Stocks only | $19.99/mo | Most prop traders |
| 2 | TraderWaves | No, drawdown alerts on Pro | Yes, 3 auto-synced accounts | $19.99/mo | Free automated journal |
| 3 | TradeZella | Yes, presets for supported firms | None, no trial | $35/mo (1 account) | Challenge spend vs payouts |
| 4 | Consistry | Yes, 37 firms and 161 programs | Yes, unlimited trades by import | $29.99/mo | Checking a trade before entry |
| 5 | TradeKinetics | Yes, rules you enter | Yes, 30 trades/mo | $19.99/mo | Habits that end evaluations |
| 6 | Tanto | No | None, no trial | $13.99/mo | Futures sync on Rithmic and TopstepX |
| 7 | TraderInsight.pro | Rule tags, no presets | 7-day trial | $14.99/mo | Sharing reports with a coach |
| 8 | Tradervue | No | Yes, stocks and ETFs | $29.95/mo | Unlimited accounts on the entry plan |
| 9 | TraderSync | No | 7-day trial | $29.95/mo | Unusual brokers |
| 10 | Lune | No | Free with two paid Lune products | $39/mo | Traders already using Lune's copier or auto trader |
The 10 journals, ranked
1. TradesViz: best for most prop traders
TradesViz has the deepest prop firm rule tracking on this list. Its compliance dashboard ships preset profiles for more than 37 firms and 60 account configurations, including Topstep, Tradeify, Earn2Trade, Apex and FTMO. Pick your firm and account size and it fills in the drawdown type, daily loss limit, profit target, minimum days, consistency percentage and commissions. It handles static, end-of-day trailing, intraday trailing and trailing-to-static lock drawdown, and you can build a custom profile if your firm is missing.
A multi-account view shows every evaluation and funded account with its drawdown buffer in one table. A retroactive simulator runs your past trades through any firm's rules and tells you how often you would have passed, which is a cheap way to pick a firm before paying for a challenge.
The free plan covers stocks only, one account and 3,000 executions a month, so forex and futures traders start on Pro at $19.99 a month, or $14.99 billed annually, with 10 accounts. Platinum is $29.99 ($22.49 billed annually) with 20 accounts. The pricing page does not say which tier includes the compliance dashboard, but TradesViz's own prop firm page prices itself against rivals at $29.99, and the prop firm Challenge Mode simulator is listed under Platinum. Budget for Platinum if you want the full prop toolkit, and confirm during the 7-day trial.
Take it if you trade futures or forex challenges and want your firm's rules checked automatically.
2. TraderWaves: best free journal for prop traders
TraderWaves Essential is free forever with no card, and it auto-syncs up to three accounts from MT4, MT5, cTrader, Match-Trader, TradeLocker, DXtrade and Tradovate. That covers most of the platforms forex and CFD firms run challenges on, at no cost, which is why it ranks above paid tools with deeper rule tracking. A journal you keep using beats a better one you stop paying for.
Pro at $19.99 a month adds unlimited accounts, equity and drawdown analytics, backtesting, and account alerts by email or Telegram when you hit drawdown or profit target levels. One account's alerts are included, with more at $5 a month each. TraderWaves also says eligible users can get Pro free by trading with a partner broker.
The gaps are firm rules and futures. There are no per-firm rule profiles, so you set your own drawdown basis and watch it yourself. NinjaTrader and ProjectX are listed as coming soon, so most futures prop traders are not covered yet.
Take it if you trade forex or CFD challenges and want automated journaling at no cost while you track the rules yourself.
3. TradeZella: best for tracking what challenges cost you
TradeZella's PropFirm Sync goes furthest on the money side of prop trading. It logs evaluation fees, activation fees, resets and payouts, by hand or by scanning a connected bank account through Plaid, and shows your net return per firm. It also sorts failed accounts by reason, so you can see which rule keeps ending them.
Rule tracking covers daily loss, max drawdown, profit target and best-day consistency. For supported firms the challenge rules fill in automatically, and for others you enter them yourself, choosing static, EOD or trailing drawdown. PropFirm Sync is included on every plan.
There is no free plan and no trial. TradeZella's July 2026 pricing puts Essential at $35 a month or $315 a year, Pro at $59 and Ultra at $99. Essential connects one account, which does not suit a trader running three evaluations. Pro raises that to 50 and Ultra to unlimited, so most multi-account prop traders are really looking at $59 a month.
Take it if payouts are already coming in and you want to know whether you are up across all your challenges.
4. Consistry: best for catching a breach before you enter
Consistry's pre-trade check scores a setup green, yellow or red against your remaining daily loss, drawdown headroom and your own written risk rules, before you place it. The other journals here report after the fact.
Consistry says it covers 37 firms and 161 programs, re-checked against the firms' own pages every week, and the drawdown basis is a per-account setting with balance, equity and trailing as separate options. The free plan is unusually generous: unlimited trades and prop accounts, MetaTrader statement and CSV import, prop firm account templates and an expense and payout tracker. Premium, at $29.99 a month with a 7-day trial and a yearly discount, adds broker auto-sync for MetaTrader, cTrader, TopstepX, Match-Trader, DXtrade, TradeLocker and Tradovate, plus the pre-trade check, AI coaching and backtesting under firm rules.
Take it if your accounts die from rule breaches rather than missed targets and you want the check while the decision can still change.
5. TradeKinetics: best for the habits that end evaluations
TradeKinetics takes a different angle from every other journal here. Instead of only tracking how close you are to a limit, its TiltScore flags the trades that tend to get you there: revenge entries after a loss, oversized positions and overtrading, checked against thresholds you set, such as a cooldown after a loss or a daily trade cap. Its Prop Firm Mode puts those flags next to your firm's daily loss limit, max drawdown, profit target and consistency rule, with a warning at 80% of a limit used. You enter the rule values yourself, and failed evaluations stay in your history so you can compare what ended each one.
Prop Firm Mode is included on every plan, including the free Starter plan, which allows 30 logged trades a month with manual entry or CSV import. Tradovate and TopstepX reports import in one step. Pro is $19.99 a month ($15.99 billed yearly) for unlimited trades, nightly sync from two brokers and MetaTrader sync every two hours. Elite at $29.99 adds AI insights and more connections. Futures accounts come in by file rather than live sync, and the site does not say which drawdown types it models, so check that against your firm.
Take it if you keep failing evaluations the same way and want the journal to name the habit, not just the limit.
6. Tanto: best for futures sync on Rithmic and TopstepX
Tanto covers the three platforms most futures prop firms run on. It lists automatic sync for Rithmic, Tradovate and ProjectX (TopstepX), plus NinjaTrader, cTrader, MetaTrader 5 and Interactive Brokers. Per-account round-turn commissions keep funded P&L accurate, and you can hide combine trades from your stats while keeping them visible for review.
It has no firm rule tracking, so your firm's dashboard stays the record for drawdown. Plans differ only by account count: Starter is $13.99 a month for one account, Professional $24.99 for five and Advanced $39.99 for 50, with 20% off yearly. There is no free trial.
Take it if you trade several futures prop accounts and CSV exports are what stops you journaling.
7. TraderInsight.pro: best for sharing reports with a coach
TraderInsight.pro tracks prop firm rules through rule adherence tags rather than presets. You tag each trade as followed the plan, broke the rules or revenge trade, then compare evaluation trades against funded trades and share read-only access with a coach or evaluator. Imports cover TopstepX, Tradovate, NinjaTrader, FTMO, Apex and MyFundedFutures files.
Essentials is $14.99 a month, Advanced $29.99 and Pro $69.99, each with a 7-day trial and two months free on annual billing. Sharing your journal with a mentor needs Advanced.
Take it if you work with a mentor and want them to see your process, not just your P&L.
8. Tradervue: best for unlimited accounts on the entry plan
Tradervue includes unlimited trading accounts and broker sync on both paid plans, which suits traders spreading challenges across many accounts. Silver is $29.95 a month and Gold $49.95, with trials on both. The free plan covers stocks and ETFs, so futures and forex need a paid plan. There is no prop firm rule tracking.
Take it if you want a long-established journal and run more accounts than other entry plans allow.
9. TraderSync: best for unusual brokers
TraderSync has no per-firm rule profiles. It earns a place for broad broker coverage and its Cypher AI, which is rationed by tier. Pro is $29.95 a month, Premium $49.95 and Elite $79.95, with a 7-day trial and no free plan. If none of the journals above sync your platform, check TraderSync before falling back to CSV exports.
Take it if your broker or platform is not supported anywhere else.
10. Lune: best if you already use Lune's other tools
Lune's journal streams fills from your broker in real time, supports more than 100 firms and tags each trade by source, so you can see what came from its auto trader, its trade copier or manual trading. The journal starts at $39 a month on its own, or is free if you subscribe to two or more paid Lune products. It has no firm rule tracking.
Take it if you already copy trades across prop accounts with Lune and want the journal to separate copied trades from manual ones.
Why your journal's drawdown differs from your firm's
A journal rebuilds your drawdown from synced trades, while your firm calculates it on its own server, often from intraday equity. Those two numbers split apart whenever you hold a losing position.
Take a $500 daily loss limit. A position goes $400 against you, you hold it, it recovers, and you close for a $50 loss. A journal working from closed trades records $50 lost and shows $450 of room. A firm measuring intraday equity recorded a $400 drawdown at the low and leaves you $100.
| Same session | Room left |
|---|---|
| Journal, closed trades | $450 |
| Firm, intraday equity | $100 |
Even a journal that tracks open equity is limited by how often it syncs. TradesViz says so plainly: live drawdown tracking on any journal depends on the sync interval, usually a few minutes, not every tick. TradeKinetics makes the same point the other way round, telling traders their firm's live dashboard is the record. A fast spike and recovery can happen between syncs.
Firms also differ on the calculation itself. Static drawdown fixes the floor at the starting balance minus the maximum. End-of-day trailing moves the floor up once per session. Intraday trailing moves it with every new equity high. Trailing-to-static lock trails until the floor reaches the starting balance, then stops. One generic drawdown number cannot be right across accounts that use different models.
Do this before you buy any journal. For each account, find out whether drawdown is measured on closed balance or intraday equity, and whether the floor moves intraday or at the close. Check it in the firm's own rules or our review of that firm. Our drawdown calculator handles both bases, and the consistency rule calculator covers the best-day rule that often gates payouts.
What to check before you pay
Four checks, in order. Each one rules tools out before features matter.
- Does it auto-sync your platform on the plan you are buying? Futures traders on Rithmic or ProjectX have the fewest options. Tanto lists both, TradesViz lists Rithmic and Tradovate, and TraderWaves lists ProjectX as coming soon.
- Can you set the drawdown type per account? If every account shares one model, the tool is wrong for some of your firms.
- How many accounts does the plan cover? TradeZella Essential allows 1, TraderWaves Essential 3, Tanto Professional 5 and TradesViz Pro 10, while Consistry (every plan) and Tradervue's paid plans list unlimited accounts.
- Does the yearly cost beat what it protects? If you are still paying for challenges out of pocket, start free and upgrade out of payouts.
No journal receives your firm's official equity figure. Treat the firm's dashboard as the number of record and the journal as the tool that shows you the pattern behind your breaches. If you trade futures, compare firms on our futures prop firm rankings once you know which drawdown model suits you.
Questions traders ask
What is the best trading journal for prop traders?
TradesViz is the best trading journal for most prop traders. It ships preset rule profiles for more than 37 prop firms, supports four drawdown types and checks your synced trades against them. Pro costs $19.99 a month or $14.99 a month billed annually, and Platinum, which includes the prop firm simulator, costs $29.99.
What is the best free trading journal for prop traders?
TraderWaves Essential is the best free option for forex and CFD prop traders. It is free forever with no card and auto-syncs up to three accounts from MT4, MT5, cTrader, Match-Trader, TradeLocker, DXtrade and Tradovate, but it does not track firm rules. If you want rule tracking at no cost, Consistry's free plan includes unlimited trades and accounts, prop firm account templates and drawdown tracking, with trades brought in by MetaTrader statement or CSV. TradeKinetics also includes its Prop Firm Mode free, capped at 30 logged trades a month.
Which trading journals track prop firm rules?
TradesViz, TradeZella and Consistry load firm rules from presets and check your trades against them. TradeKinetics tracks daily loss, max drawdown, profit target and consistency against numbers you enter yourself. The other six journals on this list do not have per-firm rule tracking.
Which journal is best for futures prop traders on Rithmic or TopstepX?
Tanto and TradesViz both list automatic sync for Rithmic and Tradovate, and Tanto also syncs ProjectX for TopstepX. Tanto has no firm rule tracking, so pair it with your firm's dashboard. TradesViz adds rule presets for Rithmic-based firms such as Apex, Bulenox and Earn2Trade.
Does my trading journal show the same drawdown my prop firm sees?
Often not. A journal rebuilds your drawdown from synced trades, and syncs run every few minutes rather than every tick. If your firm measures drawdown on intraday equity, a losing position you held and closed small can count against you even when the journal shows plenty of room.