Options Profit Calculator: Call & Put Payoff & Breakeven

How options profit is calculated at expiry

An options profit calculator works out one formula. Profit at expiry = (intrinsic value − premium) × 100 × contracts for an option you bought, and the negative of that for one you sold. A call's intrinsic value is max(stock price − strike, 0). A put's is max(strike − stock price, 0). Buy a 100 call for $3.00 and have the stock close at 110: (10 − 3) × 100 = $700 profit on one contract. Close at 100 or anywhere below and the loss is the $300 premium.

The 100 is the contract multiplier for US equity options. Index options, mini contracts and most non-US markets use other multipliers, which is why that field is editable.

Breakeven, max profit and max loss for the four positions

K is the strike, P the premium per share, M the multiplier and C the number of contracts.

Short positions are the mirror image of the long ones. Every dollar the buyer makes at expiry, the seller loses, so the same table serves both sides with the signs flipped.

Worked example: long call, 100 strike, $3 premium

One contract, multiplier 100, so the premium outlay is $300 and the breakeven is 103. These are the calculator's default inputs, and the payoff table it draws is the one below.

Compare that with 100 shares bought at $100 for $10,000. At 110 the shares make $1,000, a 10% return. The call makes $700, which is 233% of the $300 at risk. At 103 the shares are up $300 and the call is flat. At 95 the shares are down $500 while the call has lost its full $300 and cannot lose more. That trade-off is the whole instrument. Two contracts double every line: +$1,400 at 110 and a $600 maximum loss.

Worked example: short put, 50 strike, $2 premium

Sell one 50 put for $2.00 and you collect $200. That $200 is the most you can make, and you keep all of it if the stock closes at 50 or above. Breakeven is 48. At 45 the put carries $5 of intrinsic value, so the position shows (2 − 5) × 100 = −$300. The maximum loss, with the stock at 0, is (50 − 2) × 100 = $4,800. Sell five contracts and everything scales: $1,000 to make, $24,000 at risk, and −$1,500 at 45.

The calculator reports that max loss because many option sellers never work it out. Your broker's margin requirement is a smaller figure, and it grows as the trade goes against you.

Options breakeven calculator: how far the stock has to move

For a call the breakeven is strike plus premium. For a put it is strike minus premium. With the stock at 100, a 100 call bought for $3 breaks even at 103, a 3.0% rise. Buy the same call with the stock at 98 and it has to climb 5.1%. The "Stock price now" field turns the breakeven into that percentage, and the "vs now" column in the payoff table does the same for every row.

A less tidy case: a 185 call at $6.40 with the stock at 188. Breakeven is 191.40, which is 1.81% above the current price. Three contracts cost $1,920. At 200 they return $2,580 (134.4% on the premium), at 195 they return $1,080, and at 190 they lose $420 even though the stock finished above the strike.

Reading the payoff diagram

The chart plots total P&L at expiry against the stock price from 50% to 150% of the strike. For a long option the line is flat at minus the premium on the losing side, bends at the strike, then rises at 100 × contracts dollars for every $1 the stock moves. The yellow dashed line is the breakeven, where the payoff crosses zero. The faint dotted line is the strike and the blue dashed line is the price at expiry you typed. Short positions are the same picture upside down: flat at plus the premium, then falling at the same slope.

The kink is the point of the instrument. A share position is a straight line through the current price. An option gives up a fixed premium to replace one side of that line with a flat one.

How to use this options profit calculator

1. Choose Buy or Sell, then Call or Put.
2. Enter the strike and the premium per share as quoted, so 3.00 rather than the $300 contract cost. Set contracts and the multiplier, which is 100 for standard US equity options.
3. Optionally enter the stock price now, which drives the percentage move to breakeven and the "vs now" column, and a price at expiry, which gets its own P&L card, a highlighted row in the table and a blue line on the chart.
4. Read the four cards: max profit, max loss, breakeven and P&L at your target, with the return on premium for long positions.
5. The payoff table runs from 70% to 130% of the strike in 5% steps, with the breakeven and your target inserted in price order.

What this calculator leaves out

• Time value. Everything here is at expiry. Before then an option is worth more than its intrinsic value, and that extra decays with time and moves with implied volatility. The Black-Scholes calculator prices the option on any day before expiry and gives the Greeks.
• Commissions, exchange fees and the bid-ask spread. On a $0.50 option a $0.65 commission per contract is 1.3% of the premium each way.
• Assignment and early exercise. American-style options can be exercised before expiry, which matters for short positions around dividends.
• Margin. For short options the max loss is the economic exposure. The broker's margin call arrives long before the stock reaches zero.
• Multiplier differences. Change the multiplier field for index, mini or non-US contracts rather than adjusting the premium.
• Spreads and multi-leg strategies. This models one leg. Run each leg separately and add the P&L by hand.

The calculator does arithmetic on the strike, premium and size you enter. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any option. If you log the entries in a trading journal you can compare the planned payoff with what the position did, and the risk-reward calculator frames the max profit and max loss as a ratio before you place the trade.