Sep 21, 2022
New to options investing or looking to level up your approach to options trades? Maybe you have been trading single leg calls and puts and want to understand how multi-leg option strategies work. We’ve rounded up the top options calculator tools available online and compared them.
All of these share some of the same useful features: grabbing the latest stock prices, showing the cost of the trade, and giving the option legs needed. But none of them can link to your brokerage to execute the trade. Once you have found a strategy you like, you then have to execute the trade at your brokerage which is an added hurdle. Some brokerages offer their own trading tools (like TD Ameritrade's Think or Swim), but they cover much more than options and can be intimidating for new users.
Options Profit Calculator
Pros
Free
Basic, no frills user interface
Good for investors with some technical knowledge of options
Cons
Must manually customize your inputs (strikes, expiry, price per option)
Cannot easily compare different strikes
Option Finder only presents “top 5” strategies with limited ability to filter or adjust criteria
Options Industry Council (OIC)
Pros
Free
Basic strategy builder, minimal manual inputs
Options calculator shows prices and Greeks calculated with Black-Scholes model
Cons
Limited to 4 types of strategies: cash secured puts, collar, covered calls, and covered combinations
Calculations based on data at previous day’s close
OptionStrat
Pros
Optimizer is straightforward, minimal manual inputs
Trades can be saved and monitored over time simulating a paper trade
Cons
Free features use delayed data
Probability of profit only available to paid members
Unusual Whales
Pros
Summary descriptions for each strategy
Advanced PnL charts and tables
Trades can be saved and shared
Cons
Free features use delayed data
Advanced user interface may be confusing for beginners or those with limited options experience
CBOE
Pros
Free
Basic trade optimizer, minimal manual inputs
Cons
Visualizer is limited, difficult to compare different strikes
Does not show maximum risk or probability of winning
The bottom line
As you can see, manually calculating profit and loss for options trading takes time and often a considerable level of experience to modify the strategies to suit your needs. Olive approaches optimizing options strategies in a completely new and more intuitive way that is suitable for all investors. Plus, once you find the strategy you want, you can seamlessly execute the trade with one click.
Leave the calculators and Greeks behind, join Olive and reimagine the way you approach options.
