Options Profit Calculator

• Pick a strategy. Start with a single call or put, or choose a spread, straddle, iron condor or covered call preset. Every field stays editable.
• Enter the legs. For each option, set buy or sell, call or put, the strike, the premium per share and the number of contracts. Take the premium from your broker's option chain, or from the free option chain on a stock's GNG page.
• Read the result. The calculator shows the cost or credit to open, your break-even price, the maximum profit and loss, a table of profit and loss by stock price and date, and a payoff chart.

Find a stock and its free option chain on GNG stock pages.

To calculate options profit at expiration, take what the option is worth at that stock price, subtract the premium you paid and multiply by 100 shares for each contract. A call is worth the stock price minus the strike, a put is worth the strike minus the stock price, and either is worth zero if that number is negative.

When you sell an option instead of buying it, the math flips. You keep the premium you received and pay out whatever the option is worth at expiration, so your profit is the premium minus that value, again for 100 shares a contract.

Before expiration an option usually also has time value, so this option calculator estimates its price with the Black-Scholes model. The table and the payoff chart show both: the exact result at expiration and the estimate for earlier dates.

Example: a stock trades at $100 and you buy 1 call with a $105 strike that expires in 45 days, paying $2.42 a share. One contract covers 100 shares, so you pay $242.

At expiration the call breaks even at $107.42. If the stock ends at $110, the call is worth $5 a share and you make $258, a 107% return on the $242. If it ends at $105 or lower, the call expires worthless and you lose the $242.

20 days before expiration, at a stock price of $110 the call would be worth about $6.32 a share by the Black-Scholes model at 30% volatility, about $390 more than you paid, because it still has time value.

Before expiration, an option is usually worth more than its payoff because there is still time for the stock to move. That extra is time value. It usually shrinks as expiration nears and grows when implied volatility rises. This is why the rows for today and for 20 days left sit above the expiration line in the default table.

A European-style model value can sit below the expiration payoff for a deep in-the-money option when dividends are large.

Most US stock options can be sold to close on any trading day before expiration. Selling usually returns more than exercising, because exercising gives up the time value a buyer would still pay you for. Most brokers exercise an option that expires even slightly in the money unless you tell them not to, so check your broker's expiration and exercise rules.

How much will your option be worth before expiration? Set the days left and the stock price you expect, and the calculator works as an option price calculator: it estimates the option's value on that date from the volatility, interest rate and dividend yield you enter. For LEAPS, the longer-dated options, enter up to 3 years to expiration. The estimate is a model value, not a quote, so compare it with your broker's option chain.

Every result starts with three numbers.

Break-even is the stock price at expiration where the trade neither makes nor loses money, after the premium. A long call breaks even at the strike plus the premium and a long put at the strike minus the premium. Spreads, straddles and iron condors can have two break-even prices, and the calculator shows both.

Maximum profit is the most the position can make at expiration. For a long call it is unlimited, because a stock has no ceiling. For a debit spread it is the distance between the strikes minus the debit you paid, multiplied by 100 shares a contract.

Maximum loss is the most the position can lose. When you buy options, it is the premium you paid. When you sell a put, it is the strike minus the premium, per share. Selling a call without owning the shares has no maximum loss, and the calculator labels it unlimited.

Use the spread presets to model trades with two to four legs. The math is the same as for one option: add up each leg's value at the stock price, then subtract what you paid or add what you received.

The payoff diagram plots profit or loss against the stock price. The solid line is the result at expiration, which is exact. The dashed line is today's estimate from the Black-Scholes model. Wherever a line crosses zero is a break-even price.

A long call payoff diagram stays flat at a loss equal to the premium until the strike, then rises one for one with the stock. A long put is the mirror image and rises as the stock falls. Spreads flatten both ends, a straddle forms a V, and an iron condor forms a plateau between its short strikes. Read the option payoff chart from left to right to see where the trade loses, where it breaks even and where it makes money.

An options profit calculator is exact at expiration and an estimate before it. Before expiration the result depends on the implied volatility you enter. If volatility falls, as it often does right after earnings, the option can lose value even when the stock moves your way. Use the volatility from your broker's option chain and test a lower one too.

Two more limits matter. The model assumes an option can be exercised only at expiration, while most US stock options can be exercised early, which matters most just before an ex-dividend date. And the estimate uses one volatility for every strike, while real markets often price lower strikes at higher volatility. For a position held to expiration, neither limit changes the result at expiration.

Read about volatility in the GNG glossary.

Read about dividend yield in the GNG glossary.

At expiration the calculator uses exact payoffs: a call is worth the stock price minus the strike, a put the strike minus the stock price, and neither is worth less than zero. Each contract covers 100 shares. Your profit is that value minus the premium you paid, or the premium you received minus it when you sell.

Before expiration it estimates each option with the Black-Scholes-Merton model from the stock price, strike, days left, the implied volatility you enter, a risk-free rate and a dividend yield, the same inputs GNG's Options Screener uses for its Black-Scholes values.

The model prices European options and holds volatility constant, so market prices drift away from it, most of all around earnings, when implied volatility often drops. Chance of profit is the model's probability of finishing past your break-even, not a forecast. Taxes, fees and early assignment are not included.

To see how GNG uses puts to hedge a whole portfolio, read the free Hedging the Whole Book, Part 2 of the GNG Options Series.

The series is written by Connor Graham.

See how GNG researches on our methodology page.

Selling calls on shares you own? The covered call calculator adds the dividend, the ex-dividend date and an early assignment check, and it has a cash-secured put mode.

Want an option's price and all five Greeks? The Black-Scholes calculator shows them and finds the implied volatility behind a market price. To find contracts by Greeks, IV rank and liquidity across US stocks and ETFs, use the Options Screener with GNG Pro.

Model shares and income with the covered call calculator.

Price an option with the Black-Scholes calculator.

Find contracts in the Options Screener with Greeks and IV rank, available with GNG Pro.

Chart the stock first in Advanced Charting, free with a GNG account.