Jigsaw Trading has a strong reputation among futures day traders for its Depth of Market tool, footprint charts, and tape reading capabilities. Traders searching for a Jigsaw Trading alternative are often not looking to replace its order flow features — they are looking for the dedicated trading journal that Jigsaw’s built-in logging cannot provide. JournalPlus is built specifically for that gap: post-session performance analytics, setup tracking, and futures-aware P&L that turns raw trade data into actionable feedback.
Jigsaw Trading Overview
Jigsaw Trading is an order flow platform, not a trading journal. Its core product — the Daytradr DOM — gives traders a real-time view of limit order book depth, order absorption, and iceberg orders. Footprint charts show volume traded at each price level per bar, a level of market microstructure detail that standard OHLC charts cannot provide.
Pricing: The Daytradr plan costs approximately $167/month.
Key strengths:
- Industry-leading DOM visualization with order flow context
- Footprint charts and volume profile tools built for futures scalping
- Active community and educational resources for tape reading
- Supports futures, equities, and forex execution environments
Common limitations traders report:
- Built-in journaling is a basic trade log with no analytics layer
- No equity curve, no setup tagging, no performance breakdown by session or time of day
- Futures P&L is not automatically calculated from tick values — traders must do this manually
- At $167/month, it is expensive if your primary need is journaling rather than order flow analysis
Why Traders Switch to JournalPlus
Jigsaw’s Journal Cannot Answer “Is This Setup Actually Profitable?”
After 60 or 90 days of trading, most Jigsaw users have filled log entries but no structured answers. Jigsaw records what happened — entry price, exit price, time — but does not let you tag trades by setup type and compare performance across those tags. JournalPlus does. Tag every ES trade as “fade” or “breakout,” and within minutes you can see that your fade win rate is 61% before 10am and drops to 39% after noon — a difference that represents real money at $12.50/tick.
The example scenario is concrete: a futures day trader scalps ES around the 9:30am open using Jigsaw’s DOM to read order absorption and iceberg orders. After 3 months, they import 90 days of ES trades into JournalPlus via CSV, tag each trade by setup, and discover their fade trades average +$50/trade in the morning session (4-tick winner at $12.50/tick × 61% win rate) while afternoon fades average -$30/trade. That pattern was invisible in Jigsaw’s trade log. JournalPlus surfaced it in a single session analysis view.
Futures P&L Requires Contract-Aware Math
Jigsaw shows fills. A dedicated journal needs to translate fills into dollar P&L using the correct tick value for each contract. ES moves in 0.25-point increments worth $12.50 each. NQ ticks are $5.00. CL (crude oil) ticks are $10.00. JournalPlus applies these specs automatically when you import futures trades, so your P&L, average winner, and average loser figures are in dollars — not in ticks or points that require manual conversion.
This matters most for traders running multiple contracts. Scaling from 1 to 3 ES contracts changes your risk exposure by $25/tick, not by “3 units.” A journal that handles this correctly is essential for tracking performance as position size changes.
Equity Curve and Drawdown Visibility
Jigsaw has no equity curve. JournalPlus plots your running account balance across every trade, overlaid with drawdown from peak. For futures day traders using Jigsaw who are in a prop firm evaluation — Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, or similar — the equity curve view shows exactly where you are relative to the drawdown limit in real time. For prop traders tracking a funded account, this visibility is not optional.
Session and Time-of-Day Analysis
Jigsaw’s DOM excels at showing what the market is doing right now. JournalPlus shows what you have been doing across time. Session analysis breaks your P&L and win rate into time buckets — pre-market, 9:30–10am, 10am–noon, afternoon — so you can identify your edge’s time dependency. Many futures scalpers find their setups work in the first hour and deteriorate sharply after noon. Without a journal that tracks this, you keep taking afternoon trades that erode morning gains.
Cost for Journal-Only Needs
At $167/month, Jigsaw is correctly priced for the order flow tools it provides. But if the journaling module is why you bought it and it does not meet your needs, continuing to pay $167/month for a journal you are not getting is a poor trade. JournalPlus’s free tier covers unlimited trade imports at no cost. The Pro plan is a one-time payment of $159 — less than a single month of Jigsaw — and covers lifetime access to all analytics features.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Jigsaw Trading | JournalPlus |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Order flow / DOM / footprint charts | Trading journal and performance analytics |
| Setup-level win rate tracking | Not available | Tag by setup; view win rate and avg R per tag |
| Equity curve visualization | Not available | Full equity curve with drawdown overlay |
| Session / time-of-day breakdown | Not available | P&L and win rate by session and hour |
| Futures-aware P&L (ES, NQ, CL) | Manual calculation required | $12.50/tick ES, $5/tick NQ, $10/tick CL applied automatically |
| Screenshot annotation | Not available | Attach and annotate chart screenshots per trade |
| Streak detection | Not available | Win/loss streak tracking |
| CSV import from broker | Not applicable | Import from any broker or platform |
| Price | ~$167/month | Free tier; Pro plan one-time $159 |
Pricing Comparison
| Period | Jigsaw Trading | JournalPlus Pro |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month | $167 | $159 (one-time) |
| 6 months | $1,002 | $159 |
| 1 year | $2,004 | $159 |
| 2 years | $4,008 | $159 |
| 3 years | $6,036 | $159 |
Over 2 years, a trader using Jigsaw solely for journaling pays $4,008 vs. $159 for JournalPlus — a difference of $3,849. Even if you continue using Jigsaw for order flow (which makes sense), adding JournalPlus at $159 lifetime is a straightforward decision for the analytics layer.
Jigsaw does not publicly list a free trial or refund policy for the Daytradr subscription. JournalPlus offers a free tier with unlimited trade imports and no time limit, so you can evaluate it fully before deciding to upgrade.
How to Switch to JournalPlus
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Export your trade history from Jigsaw. In the Jigsaw journal module, locate the export or CSV download option for your trade log. Export the full history you want to analyze.
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Sign up for JournalPlus. Create a free account at JournalPlus. The free tier supports unlimited trade imports — no credit card required.
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Import your CSV. Use the CSV import tool in JournalPlus. Map the columns from your Jigsaw export (entry time, exit time, instrument, quantity, entry price, exit price) to the JournalPlus fields. For futures instruments, confirm that the contract spec (ES, NQ, CL) is applied correctly so tick values are calculated in dollars.
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Tag trades by setup. Once imported, go through your trade history and apply setup tags (“fade,” “breakout,” “continuation,” etc.). This is a one-time effort that unlocks the setup-level analytics — the most actionable view JournalPlus provides.
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Run your first session analysis. Open the time-of-day breakdown and look for performance differences by hour. For ES scalpers, the pre-10am vs. post-noon split is often the most revealing. Use this to decide which setups to trade (and when to stop) in your next session.
You do not need to stop using Jigsaw. The workflow is: trade with Jigsaw’s DOM during the session, export trades at end of day, review in JournalPlus before the next open.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is JournalPlus a replacement for Jigsaw Trading?
No. Jigsaw Trading is an order flow execution platform — DOM tools, footprint charts, tape reading. JournalPlus is a trading journal. They solve different problems. Most serious order flow traders use both: Jigsaw for real-time execution decisions and JournalPlus for post-session review and pattern detection.
Can I import my Jigsaw trades into JournalPlus?
Yes. Export your trade history from Jigsaw as a CSV and import it into JournalPlus. Once imported, you can tag trades by setup, run session analysis, and view your equity curve — analytics Jigsaw does not provide.
Does JournalPlus handle futures contracts correctly?
Yes. JournalPlus applies standard CME tick values automatically: ES at $12.50/tick, NQ at $5/tick, and CL at $10/tick. P&L is calculated in dollars from raw fill data, not treated as equity-style shares.
How much does JournalPlus cost compared to Jigsaw?
Jigsaw Daytradr costs approximately $167/month. JournalPlus has a free tier with unlimited trade imports and a Pro plan at a one-time payment of $159 — less than a single month of Jigsaw.
What analytics does JournalPlus add that Jigsaw lacks?
Setup-level win rates, session and time-of-day breakdowns, equity curve visualization, drawdown tracking, streak detection, and screenshot annotation. See the futures traders guide for a full walkthrough of these features applied to ES and NQ trading.
Do I need to stop using Jigsaw to use JournalPlus?
No. The two tools work well together. Use Jigsaw for real-time order flow during the session, then import your trades into JournalPlus at end of day for structured review. Day traders running a DOM-based strategy frequently use this exact pairing.
Is there a free trial for JournalPlus?
JournalPlus offers a free tier with unlimited trade imports so you can evaluate it fully before upgrading. There is no time limit on the free tier.
If your primary trading instrument is futures and you use a platform like NinjaTrader alongside Jigsaw, JournalPlus also supports direct NinjaTrader CSV import — so you can consolidate all your futures trade data in one journal regardless of which execution platform generated it. For traders managing a futures trading journal across multiple setups and sessions, that consolidation is where the analytical edge lives.