Traders researching a “Bookmap alternative” are usually asking the wrong question — not because Bookmap is good or bad, but because Bookmap is not a trading journal and was never meant to be. The real question is: what do you use to record and analyze the trades you take while watching Bookmap’s heatmap? JournalPlus is built for exactly that gap. This page explains what Bookmap does, what it deliberately does not do, and how JournalPlus fills the missing half of the toolkit for ES and NQ futures traders.
Bookmap Overview
Bookmap, founded in 2014, is purpose-built for real-time Level 2 market depth visualization. It renders a scrolling heatmap of limit order liquidity stacked on the price axis over time, letting traders see where large passive orders are sitting before price reaches them. That is the entire product — and it does that one thing extremely well.
Bookmap offers a Free tier with basic heatmap features plus paid tiers (Global, Global Plus, Global Pro) ranging from roughly $19 to $99 per month. Paid tiers unlock historical replay, advanced volume indicators, and additional data feeds.
What Bookmap does well:
- Real-time order flow heatmap with sub-second refresh on ES and NQ futures
- Historical replay so traders can review how liquidity evolved around a specific price level
- Depth-of-market (DOM) visualization that most platforms cannot replicate
- Integration with major futures brokers including Interactive Brokers, Tradovate, and Rithmic
What Bookmap does not do — by design:
- No trade journaling, trade tagging, or post-trade notes
- No P&L tracking, win rate calculation, or expectancy analysis
- No MAE/MFE, R-multiple, or setup performance statistics
- No historical record of trades you have taken — all data is live and session-based
Why Traders Add JournalPlus Alongside Bookmap
Bookmap Shows the Setup — Your Journal Shows the Edge
Spotting a large passive bid on the Bookmap heatmap is a skill. Knowing whether acting on that signal has ever made you money is a different skill, and it requires data. Consider this scenario: a trader spots a large passive bid at 5,210 on ES, enters long at 5,211.25 with a target at 5,220 and a stop at 5,207. The trade hits target for +8.75 points — $437.50 on one contract. That is a single data point in memory.
After logging 60 similar “large-bid-defense” setups in JournalPlus over three months, the picture sharpens: 58% win rate, average winner +6.2 points, average loser -3.8 points, giving an expectancy of roughly +$168 per trade. More importantly, the time-of-day breakdown reveals the setup only works before 11am ET — afternoon attempts show a 34% win rate and negative expectancy. Bookmap showed where to trade. JournalPlus showed when and why it works.
Brad Barber et al. research consistently shows 70–80% of active day traders lose money over a 12-month period. Systematic journaling is the most cited behavioral differentiator among the traders who do not fall into that group.
No Setup Tags, No Performance Feedback Loop
Profitable futures day traders log, at minimum: entry price, stop, target, setup tag, and post-trade notes. None of this infrastructure exists in Bookmap. Without setup tags, every trade is anonymous data — you cannot separate your best setups from your worst, and you cannot see which Bookmap reads are translating into actual edge.
JournalPlus lets you create custom tags (e.g., “iceberg-defense”, “absorption-long”, “failed-auction”) and then aggregates performance across each tag. After 30–50 trades per tag, the statistics become actionable.
MAE/MFE Reveals Whether Your Stops Fit Your Setups
Maximum Adverse Excursion (MAE) analysis shows how far a trade moved against you before it recovered or hit your stop. If your MAE data shows winning trades rarely move more than 2 ticks against you, but your stop is 6 ticks wide, you are giving up a full extra R of risk on every trade. Bookmap cannot perform this analysis — it has no trade history. JournalPlus calculates MAE and MFE automatically for every imported trade.
Time-of-Day P&L — The Metric Most Futures Traders Ignore
Futures order flow is not uniform across the session. The 9:30–10:30 ET window trades differently from the 12:00–14:00 window, which trades differently from the final hour. JournalPlus breaks your P&L and win rate down by hour and by session, surfacing the time windows where your specific setups have positive expectancy and the ones where they do not.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Bookmap | JournalPlus |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time order flow heatmap | Best-in-class | Not available |
| Level 2 / DOM visualization | Advanced with replay | Not available |
| Trade journaling | Not available | Full trade log |
| Win rate by setup tag | Not available | Yes |
| MAE/MFE per trade | Not available | Yes |
| Time-of-day P&L breakdown | Not available | Yes |
| R-multiple tracking | Not available | Automatic |
| IBKR / Tradovate CSV import | Live execution only | Full import support |
| Historical trade analytics | Not available | Core feature |
| Pricing model | $19–$99/mo recurring | $159 one-time |
Pricing Comparison
Bookmap is a visualization subscription; JournalPlus is a one-time purchase. Since they serve different functions, the relevant comparison is the cost of adding JournalPlus as your journaling layer versus using a subscription-based journal.
| Period | Bookmap Global (est. $19/mo) | JournalPlus (one-time) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month | $19 | $159 |
| 6 months | $114 | $159 |
| 12 months | $228 | $159 |
| 2 years | $456 | $159 |
| 3 years | $684 | $159 |
JournalPlus breaks even against a $19/month subscription journal after roughly 8–9 months. Over 3 years, the difference is $525 in favor of JournalPlus. Most subscription-based trading journals — Edgewonk, Journalytix, and similar tools — run $25–$50/month, making the JournalPlus one-time price an even larger advantage.
Bookmap’s free tier is a legitimate starting point for order flow learning; it does not include the journaling functionality traders need regardless of tier. JournalPlus has no free tier but offers a full feature set at the one-time price.
How to Set Up JournalPlus Alongside Bookmap
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Export your trade history from your broker. Bookmap connects to your execution broker but does not store trade records. For IBKR: Client Portal → Reports → Flex Queries → create a Trade Confirmation query and export XML or CSV. For Tradovate: Account → Trade History → Export CSV. For Rithmic: R Trader Pro → Activity Log → CSV export.
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Create your JournalPlus account at app.journalplus.co and select your broker format during the import setup wizard.
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Import the CSV or Flex Query file. JournalPlus maps fields automatically — symbol, quantity, entry price, exit price, P&L, and timestamps. Review the import preview and confirm.
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Create your setup tags. Before reviewing past trades, define the tag names that match your Bookmap setups: absorption signals, iceberg orders, large-bid or large-ask defense, failed auctions. Tag each imported trade in a bulk review session.
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Run your first performance breakdown. Check win rate and expectancy per tag, then open the time-of-day heatmap. Identify the sessions and setups where your order flow reads have produced real edge — and the ones where the data says to stop trading.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is JournalPlus a replacement for Bookmap?
No. Bookmap and JournalPlus serve completely different purposes. Use Bookmap to read live market structure; use JournalPlus to measure whether your reads are translating into profitability. See the futures trading journal guide for a full breakdown of the tools a serious futures trader needs.
Can I import my Bookmap trades into JournalPlus?
Bookmap does not store a trade history file. Export from your execution broker — IBKR via Flex Queries, Tradovate via Trade History CSV, Rithmic via R Trader Pro — and import that file into JournalPlus. The result is a complete journal of every trade taken during your Bookmap sessions.
Does JournalPlus support ES and NQ futures?
Yes, with correct tick values and contract multipliers. ES and NQ are among the most-used instruments on JournalPlus, along with their micro equivalents /MES and /MNQ. The futures traders guide covers the specific fields JournalPlus tracks for CME futures.
What analytics does JournalPlus add that Bookmap cannot provide?
Win rate by setup tag, average R-multiple, MAE/MFE per trade, time-of-day P&L breakdown, day-of-week performance, streak analysis, and drawdown curves. For a side-by-side with another popular futures platform, see the JournalPlus vs thinkorswim journal comparison.
Is there a free trial?
JournalPlus does not have a free tier. It offers a one-time purchase at $159 with lifetime access and no recurring fees. Given that the break-even against any subscription journal is under 12 months, most active futures traders recover the cost quickly.
If you trade through NinjaTrader alongside Bookmap, the NinjaTrader integration guide covers the specific export steps for NinjaTrader’s trade history and how to map those records into JournalPlus. For day traders running high trade frequency, the time-of-day breakdown and streak analysis in JournalPlus are particularly valuable for identifying session-level patterns that session-agnostic tools miss.