Actal vs Edgewonk: two journals that care about psychology
Edgewonk is the closest thing to Actal in spirit: it has always cared about tilt and discipline. This is a comparison between two products that agree on the problem and disagree on the answer.
The short version
Edgewonk if you want a mature, analytics-heavy psychology journal at a flat price and you are happy to do the reading. Actal if you want the psychology to arrive as a verdict: a grade on each trade, a dollar cost per mistake, your plan measured, rules judged per trade, and one weekly focus. Both take behaviour seriously. Actal is the one that tells you what to do next.
- You want a large set of reports and are happy to explore them yourself
- You want a flat yearly price and a money-back guarantee
- You want broker auto-import from a long list of brokers
- You want the most expensive mistake on top, in dollars, without building a report
- You want your premarket scenarios closed out and plan adherence as a weekly number
- You want your own risk rules judged on every trade and an execution score per week
- You want friends and groups that see the full journal and a board ranked on execution
- You want to pay nothing now and a founder's price later
Where the two agree
Both products start from the idea that P&L is the outcome and behaviour is the cause. Edgewonk's Tiltmeter, discipline scoring and mistake tracking have been pointing traders at their own habits for years, and it deserves credit for that. Actal's grade per trade, mistake costs and execution score come from the same belief, arrived at by coaching rather than by software.
Where they differ
Edgewonk gives you the instruments and expects you to read them. It has more than fifty reports, an edge finder that scans your journal weekly, a performance simulator, and it is deep. Actal gives you fewer instruments and a verdict. The insights page opens with the single most expensive habit and what it cost, ranks rule breaks above process gaps above P&L patterns, and sets one focus for the week with live progress.
- Plan versus reality. Actal files A, B and C scenarios per market in the morning and closes them out at night; plan adherence is a tracked number that feeds the execution score.
- Rules as rules. Max loss per day, max trades, cooldowns, R size, judged on every trade as it lands, with stopping at the limit counted as kept.
- Templates you design. The premarket plan and daily review are built from ten field types, so the psychology prompts are yours.
- Friends and groups. Full journal visibility, comments on trades, group chat, and a weekly board ranked on execution.
Side by side
| Edgewonk | Actal | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting trades in | Auto-import from many brokers | Exports from 16 platforms, any CSV via mapper. No live sync yet |
| Reports | 50+ customisable reports, edge finder | Core stats, graded calendar, clean vs mistake, insights ranked by cost |
| Discipline | Tiltmeter and discipline scoring | A to F grade per trade, execution score per week |
| Cost per mistake | Mistake tracking | Running dollar cost, biggest first |
| Premarket plan before the open | Journal notes, optional | Asked for every day, A, B and C scenarios per market |
| Plan vs reality | Not measured | Closed out every evening, adherence tracked weekly |
| Monthly review | Weekly edge report | Reflection, best and worst trades by grade, goals with progress |
| Risk rules per trade | Rule adherence tracking | Your own rules judged on every trade |
| Weekly focus | Weekly edge report | One focus with live progress |
| Community | No | Friends, groups, public trade cards |
| Price (checked September 2026) | $197 a year, 14-day money-back | Free during beta, founder's price for life after |
Edgewonk's price was checked on its pricing page in September 2026, where it was $197 for 12 months (plus VAT in the EU and UK) with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Check their site for the current offer. Actal is free during beta.
Improvement, not statistics
Edgewonk cares about behaviour, which is why this comparison is the closest one. Where the two part ways is enforcement. Edgewonk gives you instruments to read after the fact. Actal asks for the plan before the open, makes you close it out after, and runs a monthly review with your best and worst trades ranked by grade and goals for the next month. As far as its site shows, Edgewonk has notes and reports for those moments, not a loop that requires them.
The full loop is on the compare page; features shows the plan, the closeout and the monthly review.
What a year costs
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Edgewonk | $197 a year | 14-day money-back guarantee, no free plan |
| Actal | $0 during beta | Founder's price for life for beta users when the paid plan launches |
Edgewonk's figure is from edgewonk.com in September 2026. Flat pricing is one of Edgewonk's genuine advantages over monthly journals, and it is fair to weigh it.
How to try Actal alongside Edgewonk
- Export a month of trades from your platform and drop the file into Actal. Duplicates are skipped.
- Add your risk rules and grade the last twenty trades. Tag the mistakes you already track in Edgewonk; Actal will price them.
- File tomorrow's plan with A, B and C scenarios and close it out in the evening.
- After a week, ask each tool the same question: what is my most expensive habit and what do I do about it this week.
How this comparison was made
I coach futures traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy and trade index futures full time. Actal is my product. Edgewonk's features and price were checked on its own site in September 2026; the table reflects what their site states and I have not tested every report.
Questions people ask
Drop in one export. In a minute Actal grades the trades it can, prices the mistakes you tagged, and tells you the first thing to fix. Free during beta, no card.
Full-time index futures trader. Coaches traders one-on-one at Jusell Trading Academy, five students at a time, since 2020. No platform was built for developing traders, so he had his own coaching software built; old students loved it and kept coming back, and Actal is that software turned into a proper journal for what matters.