| Feature | Pipavo | Excel / Sheets |
|---|---|---|
| Import trades from MT4/MT5 | Automatic, real-time sync | Manual copy-paste from broker reports |
| Setup time | ~2 minutes | Hours to build formulas and formatting |
| Calendar view of daily P&L | Built in | Only if you build a pivot table yourself |
| Win rate, R:R, expected value | Calculated automatically | You write and maintain the formulas |
| Playbook / setup tagging with performance | Built in, filterable | A text column at best, no analysis |
| Risk of broken formulas or typos | None — data comes from the broker | Common as the sheet grows |
| Usable from your phone | Yes, responsive web app | Painful on a small screen |
| Cost | Free | Free, but costs your time to build |
When a spreadsheet still makes sense
If you place a handful of trades a month and already have a spreadsheet template you like, there is no urgent reason to switch. Excel and Google Sheets are flexible, and if you enjoy building your own formulas, that flexibility is a feature, not a bug.
Where spreadsheets break down is scale and consistency. Every trade you copy in by hand is a chance for a typo, and every new stat you want — win rate by session, performance by setup, a calendar heatmap — is another formula you have to build and debug yourself. Pipavo pulls the data automatically and gives you those views out of the box, so you spend your time reviewing trades instead of maintaining a spreadsheet.
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