Google Sheets is free, flexible, and something you already know how to use. Those are real advantages — right up until the moment you roll a put, get partially assigned, or try to track a campaign that spans three months and nine separate trades. At that point, the tool that handled your personal budget stops working for your options portfolio.
Here's an honest comparison of what's available in 2026 for wheel strategy traders who are ready to move beyond spreadsheets.
Where Does Google Sheets Actually Fall Short?
- It has no concept of option trade types: Sheets doesn't know what a CSP, covered call, or roll is. Every structure you need for options tracking — campaign grouping, ACB formulas, roll pair accounting — you have to build from scratch using generic cells and formulas.
- Everything is manual entry: Every trade you place gets typed in by hand. One typo in a strike price or contract count cascades through every formula that references it, and you might not catch it for weeks.
- Mobile is genuinely painful: Logging a trade from your phone while the market is open, through the Sheets mobile app, in a structured multi-column spreadsheet, is not something you want to do regularly.
- Formulas compound in complexity: By month six of serious wheel trading, most spreadsheets have grown into multi-tab monsters that only the person who built them can interpret — and even they need 20 minutes to remember how everything connects.
- Zero position management support: Sheets shows you past data. It can't tell you which positions are expiring this week, which campaigns are approaching a management trigger, or what your current delta exposure looks like across your portfolio.
Which Tools Are Actually Worth Considering in 2026?
| Feature | Google Sheets | OptionWheelTracker | OptionStrat | TradeLog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic ACB Calculation | ❌ Manual formulas | ✅ Instant after every trade | ⚠️ Limited | ⚠️ Tax-focused only |
| Campaign Lifecycle Tracking | ❌ DIY only | ✅ Built-in natively | ❌ Per-trade view only | ❌ Per-trade view only |
| Roll Handling | ❌ Breaks frequently | ✅ First-class trade type | ✅ Good visual tools | ❌ Manual workaround |
| Multi-Currency Support | ❌ Manual FX rate entry | ✅ Auto-fetched rates | ❌ USD only | ❌ USD only |
| Mobile Experience | ⚠️ Clunky at best | ✅ Fully responsive | ✅ Dedicated app | ❌ Desktop only |
| Tax Reporting | ❌ Manual | ⚠️ Coming | ❌ Not available | ✅ Core feature |
| Price | Free | Free / $49 | $30/month | $109/year |
Which Tool Is Right for You?
If your primary workflow is the wheel strategy and you need accurate ACB tracking, campaign lifecycle visibility, and reliable roll handling, OptionWheelTracker is built specifically for that use case. If you want advanced multi-leg P&L visualization and strategy analysis alongside your wheel trades, OptionStrat complements it well as a second tool. If your primary concern is tax-lot reporting and Schedule D prep, TradeLog is the specialist worth paying for.
But if you're still on Google Sheets after 30+ trades? You're spending more time maintaining your tracker than you are analyzing and improving your trades. That's the real cost of staying with the free option.