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.
The premium seller's workflow
A consistent execution workflow has four steps:
- Discover — find candidate trades. Driven by a live opportunities dashboard or a strike screener.
- Model — run the math on the specific contract. Annualized yield, downside cushion, assignment probability, ex-div risk.
- Execute — place the trade through your broker. Track entry price, premium, and expiration.
- 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 live chains. The workflow:
- Type the ticker.
- Pick the expiration from the dropdown (populated from the live chain).
- Pick the strike from the dropdown (ranked with premium and delta).
- Read the KPIs: annualized yield, downside cushion, breakeven, assignment risk.
- 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 Live Opportunities — ranked yields across 30+ 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, live 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.
Browse the full toolkit
Eight free tools built for premium sellers — no signup.
See the calculators →