The premium seller's toolkit

Calculators, screeners, wheel trackers, and how to combine them into a consistent execution workflow.

You don't need expensive software to run a successful options-income program. You do need the right small set of tools combined in the right workflow. This guide walks through the toolkit that an income seller actually uses — from discovery, to modeling, to tracking — and shows how the free tools on this site combine to replace tools that cost $200/month elsewhere.

Income strategies, side by side, visualized

COVERED CALL 10-20% low risk CSP 12-25% moderate WHEEL 15-30% moderate CREDIT SPREADS 25-50% high risk Options income strategies — yield vs risk lower yield · lower risk higher yield · higher risk
Different options-income strategies sit at different points on the yield-vs-risk curve. Bars rise to the right as both yield potential AND drawdown risk increase. Pick the strategy that matches your account size and temperament.

The premium seller's workflow

A consistent execution workflow has four steps:

  1. Discover — find candidate trades. Driven by a current screened setups dashboard or a strike screener.
  2. Model — run the math on the specific contract. Annualized yield, downside cushion, assignment probability, ex-div risk.
  3. Execute — place the trade through your broker. Track entry price, premium, and expiration.
  4. Track — log every leg. Update for assignments, rolls, and closes. Calculate true return on capital across cycles.

Each step has a primary tool. The trick is combining them so you spend most of your time on the high-value steps (discovery and tracking) and very little on the rote ones (modeling).

How to use a calculator

The covered-call and CSP calculators on this site auto-fill from delayed chains. The workflow:

  1. Type the ticker.
  2. Pick the expiration from the dropdown (populated from the delayed chain).
  3. Pick the strike from the dropdown (ranked with premium and delta).
  4. Read the KPIs: annualized yield, downside cushion, breakeven, assignment risk.
  5. Toggle between alternative strikes to compare yields.

This replaces 5 minutes of manual spreadsheet work per trade. Across 50 trades a year, that's 4+ hours of recovered time — and zero data-entry errors.

Comparing the top options screeners

Most premium sellers waste hours scanning chains manually for the highest-yield strikes. A good screener does it in seconds.

The screeners worth using:

  • OptionIncomeTools strike screener — type a ticker, see every CC and CSP strike across every expiry ranked by annualized yield. Free.
  • OptionIncomeTools Current Screened Setups — ranked yields across 70+ tickers. Updated every 5 minutes. Free.
  • Barchart options screener — broader market data; deeper but more complex.
  • Broker in-platform screeners — integrated with your account; quality varies wildly.

The best workflow combines a multi-ticker dashboard (for breadth) with a per-ticker screener (for depth). Both are on this site, both free.

Building your wheel tracker

If you trade the wheel, you need a tracker. Spreadsheet or web app, doesn't matter — what matters is logging every leg and computing true return on capital across the full cycle.

What a good tracker captures per leg:

  • Date, ticker, leg type (CSP, CC, assignment, exit)
  • Strike, premium, contracts, expiration
  • Status (open, expired worthless, assigned, closed)

What it should compute:

  • Cumulative premium per position
  • Realized P&L per closed cycle
  • Wheel yield: annualized return on time-weighted capital across the full cycle
  • Open positions with current days-to-expiration

The wheel tracker on this site does all of the above and persists locally in your browser — no account, no data leaving your device. Spreadsheet alternatives work too, but require more manual setup.

Frequently asked questions

What's the best free options calculator?

For income sellers, OptionIncomeTools — free, delayed market data, all four major strategies covered, no signup. For multi-leg strategy builders, OptionStrat. See our round-up of best free options calculators for a fuller comparison.

Do I need to pay for options tools?

No. The free tools on this site replace most $200/month subscription services for income-focused traders. Paid tools become worth it only for advanced multi-leg strategies or institutional-scale execution.

Can I use a spreadsheet instead of a wheel tracker?

Yes, many traders do. The trade-off is manual setup and update friction. A web-based wheel tracker auto-computes annualized return across cycles; a spreadsheet requires you to write the formulas yourself.

Are broker-platform calculators good enough?

Broker calculators are integrated with your account but vary in quality. Most don't support ranked opportunity discovery and require manual contract entry. They're fine for execution; for discovery and modeling, dedicated tools are better.

How often should I check my options-income tools?

Daily during market hours if you're actively running CSPs and rolls. Weekly if you're running a buy-write program on long-term holdings. Less often than that and you'll miss good entry windows.

Read more in this series

Deep dives into specific aspects of options-trading tools.

How to use a covered call calculator Step-by-step with worked examples. How to use a CSP calculator Modeling cost basis, ROC, and assignment. Comparing the top options screeners Free vs paid, ours vs competitors. Building your wheel tracker Spreadsheet vs web app, what to log.

Browse the full toolkit

Eight free tools built for premium sellers — no signup.

See the calculators →

By Akash Dedhia, Founder & Lead Analyst · Last reviewed 2026-06-11 · See editorial policy