Compare options strategies

The hard part of choosing between strategies is that they are almost never quoted on the same terms. This page fixes the stock price, the volatility, the expiration and the rate, then prices every strategy from those same numbers.

Shared assumptions

Every strategy below is priced from these same inputs. That is what makes the comparison fair.

Symbol

Used for labelling only. No quote is fetched here.

Stock price

Target price

Optional. Adds a profit-at-target row to the table.

Days to expiration45 days

Implied volatility30%

Applied to every leg of every strategy.

Risk-free rate

Every premium on this page is a model estimate

Nothing here is a quote. The premiums come from Black-Scholes-Merton at the volatility above, which is the only way to compare strategies on equal terms. Real bid-ask spreads will move all of these numbers, and they will not move them equally.

Strategies

Pick 2 to 4.

Strategy 1

Strategy 2

Profit and loss at expiration

All four curves on one set of axes, so the shape of each trade is directly comparable.

Long Call
Bull Call Spread

Side by side

Every figure recalculated from the shared assumptions above.

Key figures for each selected strategy, calculated from the same stock price, volatility, expiration and rate.
Measure	Long Call	Bull Call Spread
Cost to openNegative means you are paid to open the trade.	$444.65 debit	$326.30 debit
Maximum profit	Unlimited	$673.70
Maximum loss	-$444.65	-$326.30
Breakeven	104.45	103.26
Chance of profitLognormal model at the shared volatility, with no expected drift.	33.8%	37.8%
Return on riskMaximum profit divided by maximum loss.	Unlimited	+206.5%
DeltaShare-equivalent exposure. 100 behaves like owning 100 shares.	54.0	32.9
Theta per dayDollars gained or lost to the passage of one day.	−$5.19	−$1.60
VegaDollars per one point of implied volatility.	+$13.94	+$3.81

Open Long Call Open Bull Call Spread

How to read this

Look at the shape of each curve before you look at any single number. A long call and a bull call spread can show a similar cost and a similar chance of profit while behaving completely differently in the tail — one keeps climbing, the other stops. The table gives you the figures; the chart tells you what kind of trade you are taking on.

Maximum profit and maximum loss are the two rows worth checking first, because a strategy showing Unlimited in either place is not comparable to one with a fixed number, however attractive its other figures look.