OptionStrat Review – Is This Options Tool Worth Using?

About OptionStrat

OptionStrat is an options analysis platform with more than 50 built-in trading strategies as well as support for custom strategies. It offers tools to help you visualize potential profit and loss, track unusual options order flow, and find options with high liquidity. You can also use OptionStrat to generate optimal trading strategies for any ticker and expected price movement.

In our OptionStrat review, we’ll cover everything you need to know to decide if this service is right for you.

OptionStrat Video Review

OptionStrat Pricing Options

OptionStrat offers a free tier that lets you build and optimize options strategies. It provides access to many of the platform’s features, but all data is delayed by 15 minutes.

The Live Flow plan costs $49.99 per month or $499.99 per year. It unlocks all unusual options flow alerts and adds features like custom filters and alerts.

You can try out either the Live Tools or Live Flow plan free for 7 days.

OptionStrat Features

Options Trading Strategies

OptionStrat includes more than 50 built-in options trading strategies. The list includes advanced strategies like backspreads, covered straddles and strangles, ladders, call and put ratio spreads, and long and short synthetic futures. You can also analyze iron condors, butterfly spreads, calendar spreads, and covered calls.

You can also create own custom strategy by adding trades to any of the strategies that OptionStrat provides. The platform allows you to save any trade and automatically calculates the historical performance of those trades over the recent past.

Another option for generating trading strategies in OptionStrat is to use the built-in trade optimizer. Enter any ticker and select whether you want to take a bullish, bearish, or neutral position. For more detailed profit and loss calculations, you can also enter a target price and trade size. OptionStrat will automatically suggest several options strategies with different risk/reward profiles. It will even suggest complex strategy types.

Options Analysis

OptionStrat’s analysis and visualization tools are at the heart of this platform. Once you select an options strategy, the options profit calculator tool displays a color-coded table that shows your potential profit or loss by time (x-axis) and price (y-axis). You can quickly see your max profit and loss, your probability of success, your breakeven price, and the options greeks for your trade. OptionStrat automatically calculates the implied volatility of each stock for you, but you can easily customize the implied volatility to see how it impacts your trade. 

OptionStrat also allows you to visualize your trade using more traditional profit and loss charts that display price on the x-axis and gain/loss on the y-axis. Sliders make it easy to evaluate how your profitability changes as expiration approaches and how changing your contract strike price influences your trade.

One of the unique features of OptionStrat is that it indicates the volume of calls and puts being traded at each strike price. So, you can account for liquidity while deciding on your strategy. This is a major plus for assessing complex strategies.

Options Flow

OptionStrat tracks options order flow and alerts you to large and unusual trades. Data is available in real-time only with a Live Option Flow plan – Free and Live Option Tools users receive order flow data delayed by 15 minutes and detailed trading information is only available for trades made in the past 15 minutes.

You can filter options flow activity based on specific tickers, premiums paid, expiration date, and whether the activity is bullish, bearish, or neutral. You can also screen for out-of-the-money trades and trades where the options volume is greater than open interest. Filters can be saved for future use.

Simulated Trading

OptionStrat allows you to save trades to your account without executing them. In effect, the platform includes a built-in demo account. This is a seemingly small feature, but it’s hugely helpful for mastering options trading and testing out complex strategies.

Market News

OptionStrat also includes a basic market news feed. It’s not a replacement for a dedicated news service like TradeTheNews or Benzinga Pro. However, it can keep you abreast of market events that might be driving unusual options flow or help you find new trade ideas.

OptionStrat Platform Differentiators

OptionStrat stands out for offering more than 50 built-in options trading strategies for you to build on. The platform makes it easy to design custom trades and provides flexible visualizations to analyze your potential risk and reward. The trade optimizer offers an excellent starting point if you have a stock in mind to trade but aren’t sure what strategy is most appropriate. In addition, the volume overlay makes it easy to account for liquidity when evaluating trades.

OptionStrat’s order flow screener is also impressive. It’s very easy to use and covers all the essentials parameters options traders need to spot meaningful institutional and smart money activity. 

Check out some of our other options scanner reviews to see how OptionStrat compares:

Notably, all of these platforms are largely limited to helping you find unusual options order flow and scanning for trades. OptionSamurai lets you simulate trading strategies and visualize your profit and loss for a trade similar to OptionStrat. However, OptionSamurai only has 24 built-in strategies and the tools for creating custom strategies simply aren’t as flexible. If you have an options trade idea and want to dig into analyzing it, OptionStrat is one of the best tools on the market right now.

What Type of Trader is OptionStrat Best For?

OptionStrat is a powerful options trading platform designed for experienced traders who can take advantage of the more advanced strategies the platform covers. You can use the strategy builder to create custom trades and quickly visualize your profit potential under complex trading scenarios. It’s especially well-suited for professional traders who can use the order flow tools to identify potential trades based on what contracts institutional investors are buying. 

While OptionStrat can be used by beginner traders, it doesn’t offer as much hand-holding as other options analysis tools. The flexibility to add custom trades and easily modify implied volatility can also be a liability for traders who aren’t sure how to use these features effectively. That said, the trade optimizer offers a handy starting point for traders who want to dive into options, and the visualization tools can be very useful for learning more about how options trades work in practice.

Pros

50+ built-in options strategies

Create custom strategies by adding your own trades

Flexible and easy-to-use visualization tools

Volume indicator for call and put contracts

Customizable options order flow screener

Cons

Real-time options order flow data is expensive

Historical price charts only available as line charts

OptionStrat FAQs

What kinds of options strategies can OptionStrat analyze?

OptionStrat supports more than 50 basic and advanced options trading strategies including iron condors, butterfly spreads, backspreads, covered straddles, covered strangles, ladders, call and put ratio spreads, and long and short synthetic futures, and covered calls. You can also build custom strategies in OptionStrat.

Does OptionStrat offer real-time price data?

OptionStrat offers real-time options price data from the Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA) for Live Feed plan subscribers. Users on the free or Live Tools plans receive data that’s delayed by 15 minutes.