OptionStrat Review 2026 • OptionsScanners.com

Quick Verdict: OptionStrat is a visualization-focused options platform that turns complex multi-leg strategies into interactive graphs you can actually understand. At $0-89.99/month across three pricing tiers, it excels at strategy building, optimizer automation, and educational clarity, making it perfect for traders who learn visually and want to test ideas before risking capital. The platform’s 50+ pre-built strategies and instant P&L projections are top-tier, but the lack of scanner integration, limited charting tools, and expensive flow plan hold it back from being a complete solution.

Rating: ★★★★½ (4.4/5)

What You Need to Know Right Now

OptionStrat succeeds at three things:

Visual learning (interactive P&L graphs that update in real-time, color-coded tables, drag-and-drop interface)
Strategy automation (optimizer scans thousands of trades to find optimal setups based on your target price)
Educational clarity (50+ pre-built templates with setup charts, descriptions, and instant visualization)

If these three things align with your approach, OptionStrat at $29.99/month (Live Tools) is exceptional value for options traders who think visually. You’re getting professional-grade strategy modeling without the $200+/month institutional pricing or the overwhelming data dumps of other platforms.

The platform fails at three things:

No scanner integration (can’t connect to your broker for one-click execution)
Basic charting (minimal technical analysis tools compared to TradingView or thinkorswim)
Flow plan pricing (Live Flow at $89.99/month is steep when BlackBoxStocks offers flow + community + education for $99)

Bottom line: If you’re an intermediate options trader who needs to visualize complex spreads, test strategies risk-free, and understand probability distributions before entering trades, OptionStrat delivers. Just don’t expect it to replace your broker’s platform or provide deep technical analysis, it’s a specialized tool that does one job exceptionally well: helping you understand what might happen to your options position before you commit real money.

What You Need to Know Right Now

The Core Promise

OptionStrat calls itself “The Option Trader’s Toolkit” and aims to make options trading more accessible through visualization. Founded in 2020 by Heath Milligan, the platform focuses on three core tools:

Strategy Builder – Visual profit calculator for 50+ pre-built strategies plus custom builds
Strategy Optimizer – Automated scanner that finds optimal trades based on your price target
Unusual Options Flow – Institutional trade tracker that detects multi-leg strategies

The platform’s philosophy is simple: most traders struggle with options because the math is opaque. OptionStrat fixes this by turning every calculation into an interactive graph you can manipulate in real-time.

What Makes It Different

Unlike flow-focused platforms like BlackBoxStocks or data-heavy scanners like Market Chameleon, OptionStrat prioritizes education through visualization. Every strategy shows:

Color-coded P&L tables (green profits, red losses, time decay on the x-axis)
Interactive sliders to adjust strikes, expirations, and implied volatility
Real-time updates as you drag positions around
Volume overlays showing liquidity at each strike
Greeks charted over time for multi-leg strategies

Think of it this way: If BlackBoxStocks is about finding opportunities and Market Chameleon is about researching probabilities, OptionStrat is about understanding what happens when you enter the trade. It’s the difference between reading about iron condors and seeing how theta decay affects your position day by day.

Who’s Actually Using This?

Based on our research and user feedback, OptionStrat’s core audience breaks into three groups:

Visual learners (45-50%) – Traders who struggled with options until they saw P&L graphs
Strategy testers (30-35%) – People who paper trade complex spreads before committing capital
Optimizer users (15-20%) – Traders who want automation to find optimal setups for their price targets

The platform has 4.6/5 stars with 3,300+ reviews across web and mobile, with consistent praise for the developer’s responsiveness to feature requests and bug fixes.

What Is OptionStrat?

Company Background

OptionStrat launched in 2020 as a web-based options calculator, initially offering just the Strategy Builder. Founder Heath Milligan built it after struggling with clunky, outdated options tools that required spreadsheet gymnastics to understand basic strategies.

The platform evolved rapidly:

2020: Launch with Strategy Builder and 30+ pre-built strategies
2021: Added Strategy Optimizer for automated trade discovery
2022: Launched mobile apps (iOS/Android) and multi-expiration support
2023: Released OptionStrat Flow for unusual options activity tracking
2024: Added futures support, congress flow tracking, insider flow, and probability distributions
2025: Expanded to include SPX/VIX/XSP index data and historical price charts

Unlike venture-backed competitors burning cash on marketing, OptionStrat grew organically through word-of-mouth and genuine product improvements. The developer is active on Reddit, Discord, and social media, responding to user requests and shipping features monthly.

The Core Tools Explained

Strategy Builder: This is the heart of OptionStrat. Pick any ticker, choose from 50+ strategies (or build your own), and instantly see a color-coded table showing profit/loss at various prices and dates. Drag strikes around, adjust IV, add commission fees, and watch the P&L update in real-time.

Strategy Optimizer: Enter a ticker, select bullish/bearish/neutral, add a target price and date, and the optimizer scans thousands of potential trades to find the best setups. Results are ranked by maximum return, highest chance of profit, or a balanced combination. Each result shows expected profit at your target, max risk, ROI, and probability.

Unusual Options Flow: OptionStrat Flow tracks large and unusual trades in real-time, detecting not just simple calls/puts but complex multi-leg strategies like iron condors, spreads, and straddles. The algorithm categorizes trades as bullish/bearish/neutral and shows buyer/seller aggression. You can save custom filters, set alerts, and track performance of flow trades.

Data Source & Accuracy

OptionStrat pulls data directly from OPRA (Options Price Reporting Authority), the same source your broker uses. This ensures pricing accuracy and consistency across platforms.

Data delays:

Free plan: 15-minute delayed data
Live Tools plan: Real-time pricing (auto-refreshing)
Live Flow plan: Real-time options flow + all Live Tools features

Users consistently report that OptionStrat’s prices and Greeks match their brokerage platforms (TD Ameritrade, Interactive Brokers, Schwab, etc.). The only minor limitation: implied volatility modeling doesn’t allow separate IV adjustments per leg in multi-leg structures, but this is a niche complaint affecting maybe 5% of advanced users.

Key Features Breakdown

Strategy Builder: Visualization at Its Best

The Strategy Builder is where OptionStrat shines brightest. Here’s what makes it exceptional:

50+ Pre-Built Templates:

Directional: Long calls, long puts, bull call spreads, bear put spreads, backspreads
Neutral/Income: Iron condors, iron butterflies, straddles, strangles, calendar spreads, diagonal spreads
Advanced: Ratio spreads, butterfly spreads, covered straddles, ladders, synthetic futures
Stock-Based: Covered calls, protective puts, collars

Each template includes a setup chart showing exactly which options to buy/sell and a brief description of when to use the strategy. This makes it dead simple to learn complex trades, you’re not reading theory, you’re seeing how the trade works.

Interactive P&L Tables: After selecting a strategy, you get a color-coded table with price on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Green cells = profit, red cells = loss. Instantly identify:

Maximum profit and maximum loss
Breakeven price(s)
Probability of profit (premium feature)
All Greeks (delta, gamma, theta, vega) for the overall position

Drag-and-Drop Adjustments: This is where OptionStrat separates from competitors. Want to see how moving your short call from $105 to $110 affects the iron condor? Just drag the strike. Want to test different expirations? Click and select. The P&L updates instantly, no re-running calculations or refreshing pages.

Volume Overlay: The platform shows call and put volume at each strike price, making it easy to identify liquid options. This is crucial when building multi-leg strategies where you don’t want to get stuck with wide bid-ask spreads.

Commission Modeling: Add your broker’s commission structure (per contract fees) and OptionStrat factors it into P&L calculations. This is a small detail that matters, especially when comparing strategies where fees might eat into profits.

Saved Strategies: Save any trade to your account and OptionStrat tracks its performance over time. You get:

Current P&L (profit/loss)
Max profit and max loss seen so far
Historical price chart
Export capability (CSV)

This effectively creates a virtual trading account where you can paper trade complex strategies and learn from wins/losses without risking capital.

What We Like:

Real-time visual updates make learning intuitive
50+ templates cover 95% of common strategies
Volume overlay prevents liquidity traps
Commission modeling for accurate P&L
Saved strategies for paper trading

What Drives Us Crazy:

No separate IV adjustment per leg (affects maybe 5% of advanced users)
Can’t link to broker for auto-population of current positions
No backtesting (you can save strategies and track going forward, but can’t test past trades)

Strategy Optimizer: Automation for the Indecisive

The Strategy Optimizer is OptionStrat’s attempt to solve the “I don’t know which strategy to use” problem. Here’s how it works:

Input Your View:

Enter ticker (e.g., AAPL)
Select sentiment: Very Bearish, Bearish, Neutral, Bullish, Very Bullish
Add target price (optional but recommended)
Choose expiration date
Set preference: maximize return, maximize chance of profit, or balanced

Algorithm Scans Thousands of Trades: The optimizer checks every viable option combination, calls, puts, spreads, condors, butterflies, and ranks them based on your criteria. Even strategies with millions of permutations (like iron condors) are tested by excluding trades that couldn’t mathematically fit your requirements.

Results Display: Each result shows:

Strategy name (e.g., “Bull Call Spread 100/105”)
Expected profit/loss at your target price
Maximum risk (or margin required for undefined risk trades)
ROI percentage
Chance of profit percentage
Color-coded performance bar (green = best in list)

Filtering for Liquidity: The optimizer automatically excludes:

Options with low open interest
Options with low volume
Extremely cheap options (5 cents or less)

This prevents recommending trades you can’t actually execute at reasonable prices.

What We Like:

Saves hours manually comparing strategies
Ranks by ROI and probability (not just one metric)
Filters out illiquid junk automatically
Target price customization for precision
Results include full P&L graphs

What Drives Us Crazy:

No historical success rate (e.g., “this strategy worked 65% of the time in similar setups”)
Can’t save favorite optimizer filters
Results sometimes overwhelming (20+ strategies when you just want top 3)

Unusual Options Flow: Smart Money Tracker

OptionStrat Flow is the platform’s newest major feature (launched 2023) and competes with BlackBoxStocks, FlowAlgo, and Cheddar Flow. Here’s what it offers:

Real-Time Trade Detection: The algorithm scans hundreds of trades per second, consolidates large orders (even if broken into multiple transactions), and highlights unusual activity. Unlike simpler flow scanners that only catch big call/put purchases, OptionStrat detects:

Spreads (bull call spreads, bear put spreads, etc.)
Iron condors
Straddles and strangles
Calendar spreads
Other complex multi-leg strategies

Trade Classification: Each flow trade shows:

Bullish/Bearish/Neutral/Directional sentiment
Premium paid
Volume vs. open interest
Urgency indicator (was buyer aggressive or patient?)
Trade type (call/put, spread, condor, etc.)

Custom Filters: Save filters to highlight trades matching your criteria:

Specific tickers or sectors
Minimum premium paid (e.g., $100K+ only)
Expiration date ranges
OTM/ITM preferences
Volume > open interest

Alerts: Enable mobile and web alerts when trades match your saved filters. Get notified the second a matching trade hits the market.

Performance Tracking: Click any flow trade to see:

Current P&L
High and low P&L seen since trade entry
Historical graph
Open the trade in Strategy Builder for deeper analysis

Additional Flow Types: Beyond options flow, OptionStrat includes:

News Flow: Breaking headlines filtered by ticker
Congress Flow: Politician stock trades (legally required disclosures)
Insider Flow: CEO/executive trades at public companies

What We Like:

Detects complex multi-leg strategies (most scanners only show calls/puts)
Performance tracking for each flow trade
Congress and insider flow included
Custom filters and alerts
Clean, sortable interface

What Drives Us Crazy:

Live Flow plan at $89.99/month is expensive
Free and Live Tools users get 15-minute delayed data (makes flow less useful)
No historical flow search on lower plans
Can’t backtest flow trades to see historical success rates

Pricing & Plans Analysis

OptionStrat offers three pricing tiers. Let’s break down what you actually get and whether it’s worth the cost.

Free Plan – $0/month

What’s Included:

Strategy Builder (50+ templates)
Strategy Optimizer (limited access)
Unusual Options Flow (delayed 15 minutes)
Save strategies to your account
Basic charting and P&L tables

What’s Delayed/Limited:

15-minute delayed data (stock and option prices)
No chance of profit calculations
No probability distributions
No volume overlay
No Greeks charted over time
No commission modeling
Limited flow details (trades older than 15 minutes hidden)

Who It’s For: The free plan is genuinely useful for learning options strategies and understanding how different setups work. If you’re a beginner building foundational knowledge, this is one of the best free options tools available. But for active traders, the 15-minute delay makes it impractical for real-time decision-making.

Verdict: Excellent for education, inadequate for live trading.

Live Tools Plan – $29.99/month or $24.99/month (annual)

What’s Included: Everything in Free, plus:

Real-time data (live stock and option prices, auto-refreshing)
Unlocked Strategy Builder and Optimizer (all features)
Volume overlay (call/put volume at each strike)
Chance of profit (probability calculations)
Probability distributions (visual overlay of likely outcomes)
Combined Greeks (delta, gamma, theta, vega for multi-leg strategies)
Greeks charted over time
Saved strategy history (high, low, historical graph, export to CSV)
Commission modeling (add broker fees to calculations)
Market events (earnings, ex-dividend dates, news)
Private Discord access

Annual Pricing: $24.99/month billed annually ($299.88/year) = 17% savings

Who It’s For: This is the sweet spot for most traders. At $29.99/month, you get everything needed to build, optimize, and analyze strategies in real-time. The volume overlay alone is worth the price, it prevents you from building spreads with illiquid options that won’t fill at reasonable prices.

Verdict: Best value plan for active options traders who don’t need real-time flow.

Live Flow Plan – $89.99/month or $74.99/month (annual)

What’s Included: Everything in Live Tools, plus:

Real-time unusual options flow (no delay)
Custom filters (save searches for specific criteria)
Mobile and web alerts (instant notifications when flow matches filters)
Performance tracking (see P&L of each flow trade)
Historical flow search (browse past days’ activity)
News flow (breaking headlines filtered by ticker)
Congress flow (politician stock trades)
Insider flow (CEO/executive trades)

Annual Pricing: $74.99/month billed annually ($899.88/year) = 17% savings

Who It’s For: This plan targets traders who use options flow as a primary signal. If you’re making trading decisions based on institutional activity, the real-time flow and custom alerts justify the cost. But at $89.99/month, you’re competing with:

BlackBoxStocks at $99/month (flow + stock scanner + community + education)
FlowAlgo at $149/month (flow + voice alerts)
Cheddar Flow at $99/month (flow + dark pool data + AI alerts)

Verdict: Expensive for what you get. Unless you specifically need OptionStrat’s multi-leg strategy detection or prefer its interface, BlackBoxStocks offers more features for $10 more per month.

Free Trial

Both premium plans (Live Tools and Live Flow) include a 7-day free trial. No credit card required upfront, sign up, test the features, and cancel before 7 days if it’s not right for you.

Pro tip: Start with Live Tools for 7 days. If you find yourself constantly checking flow, upgrade to Live Flow. If not, downgrade to Live Tools and save $60/month.

Competitor Pricing Comparison

Scanner	Monthly Price	Annual Price	Key Features
OptionStrat	$29.99 (Tools)<br>$89.99 (Flow)	$24.99/mo (Tools)<br>$74.99/mo (Flow)	50+ strategies, optimizer, visual builder, flow
BlackBoxStocks	$99.97	$67/mo	Flow, stock scanner, dark pool, community, education
Market Chameleon	$70-150	$59-129/mo	Earnings analysis, probability calculator, flow
Cheddar Flow	$85-99	$75/mo	Flow, dark pool, AI alerts, TradingView integration
FlowAlgo	$149	$99/mo	Flow, voice alerts, intermarket sweeps
Unusual Whales	$49-69	$37-57/mo	Flow, congress trades, dark pool, data tools

Value Analysis:

Best budget option: OptionStrat Live Tools at $29.99/month
Best mid-tier: Unusual Whales at $49/month (flow + congress + dark pool)
Best premium: BlackBoxStocks at $99/month (flow + scanner + community)

OptionStrat wins on price for the Live Tools plan, but Live Flow at $89.99/month feels overpriced when Unusual Whales offers more features for $49/month or BlackBoxStocks bundles everything for $99/month.

Who This Scanner Is Actually Built For

Perfect For:

Visual Learners: If you’ve struggled to understand options because the math felt abstract, OptionStrat is transformative. Seeing P&L change in real-time as you adjust strikes makes complex concepts click. One user review said: “Nothing else to say other than…if you want an app to help advise your options decisions, you need an app like this.”

Strategy Testers: Paper trading multi-leg strategies before risking capital is smart risk management. OptionStrat’s saved strategies feature effectively creates a virtual brokerage where you can test iron condors, calendar spreads, and ratio spreads without losing money on tuition.

Intermediate Traders Moving Beyond Directional Calls/Puts: If you’re ready to graduate from simple long calls and protective puts into spreads, condors, and butterflies, OptionStrat makes the learning curve manageable. The 50+ templates with setup charts remove guesswork.

Probability-Focused Traders: If your edge is probability-based (targeting 60-70% win rate setups), the chance of profit and probability distribution features are essential. You can filter optimizer results by highest probability instead of highest return.

Mobile-First Traders: OptionStrat’s iOS and Android apps are excellent, full feature parity with the web version, intuitive touch controls, and smooth performance. If you prefer analyzing trades on your phone or tablet, this is one of the best mobile options tools available.

Not Ideal For:

Pure Flow Traders: If unusual options activity is your primary strategy, BlackBoxStocks ($99/month) or Unusual Whales ($49/month) deliver better value. OptionStrat Flow at $89.99/month doesn’t include community chat, educational content, or dark pool data, features that competitors bundle at similar prices.

Technical Analysis-Heavy Traders: OptionStrat’s charting is minimal, basic price charts and volume overlays. If you rely on Fibonacci retracements, VWAP, moving averages, or other indicators, you’ll need TradingView, thinkorswink, or another charting platform. OptionStrat doesn’t try to be a technical analysis tool.

Traders Who Want Broker Integration: You can’t link OptionStrat to your brokerage for one-click trade execution. Every trade requires manually entering it in your broker’s platform. This adds friction, especially when adjusting multi-leg positions or rolling spreads.

Beginners With No Options Knowledge: The free plan is great for learning, but true beginners might feel overwhelmed without structured education. BlackBoxStocks includes daily livestreams, recorded courses, and a community to ask questions. OptionStrat assumes you understand basic options concepts (calls vs. puts, strikes, expirations, Greeks).

Backtesting Enthusiasts: OptionStrat can’t backtest strategies against historical data. You can save trades going forward and track performance, but if you want to test “Would selling weekly put spreads on SPY at 5 delta have been profitable over the past 3 years?” you need dedicated backtesting software.

What We Like (Honest Pros)

1. Best-in-Class Visualization

This is OptionStrat’s superpower. The color-coded P&L tables, interactive sliders, and real-time updates make complex strategies intuitive. One user said: “I love this app. It’s made planning different strategies the fastest, and with the options available to better visualize everything; it’s amazing.”

If you’re a visual learner or struggle with abstract math, OptionStrat will click in ways that reading about options strategies never did.

2. Optimizer Saves Time

Instead of manually checking dozens of potential setups, the optimizer scans thousands of trades in seconds. For traders who know their target price but not which strategy to use, this is invaluable. Results ranked by ROI and probability give you confidence that you’re not missing better alternatives.

3. Genuine Educational Value

The 50+ pre-built templates with setup charts and descriptions make learning advanced strategies approachable. You’re not reading theory, you’re doing the trade (virtually) and seeing results. The saved strategies feature creates a risk-free sandbox to experiment.

4. Developer Responsiveness

Heath Milligan (founder) is active on Reddit, Discord, and social media. Users consistently report fast bug fixes, feature implementations based on feedback, and transparency about the product roadmap. This matters, options tools often feel abandoned by developers, but OptionStrat ships updates monthly.

5. Mobile App Excellence

Full feature parity with the web version, intuitive touch controls, and smooth performance. You can build iron condors on your phone during lunch break with zero compromise in functionality. The mobile app has 4.6/5 stars across iOS and Android.

6. Probability Features (Premium)

Chance of profit and probability distributions help traders make decisions based on statistical edges instead of gut feelings. Seeing that a bull put spread has a 68% chance of profit at your target price builds confidence to enter the trade.

7. Volume Overlay Prevents Liquidity Traps

Showing call and put volume at each strike makes it obvious which options have tight bid-ask spreads. This single feature prevents costly mistakes where you build a theoretically profitable spread but can’t execute it without slippage.

8. Commission Modeling for Accuracy

Adding broker fees to P&L calculations reveals when strategies that look profitable on paper actually lose money after $0.65/contract commissions. This is especially important for multi-leg strategies where fees add up.

What Drives Us Crazy (Honest Cons)

1. Live Flow Plan Is Overpriced

At $89.99/month, OptionStrat Flow competes with:

Unusual Whales at $49/month (flow + congress + dark pool + options data tools)
BlackBoxStocks at $99/month (flow + stock scanner + community + education + dark pool)
Cheddar Flow at $99/month (flow + dark pool + AI alerts)

OptionStrat Flow’s strength is multi-leg strategy detection, but that niche feature doesn’t justify $40 more per month than Unusual Whales or $10 less than BlackBoxStocks (which includes far more).

Our take: Unless you specifically need OptionStrat’s interface or multi-leg flow detection, better value exists elsewhere.

2. No Broker Integration

You can’t link OptionStrat to your brokerage for:

Auto-population of current positions
One-click trade execution
Automatic P&L syncing

This means manually entering every trade twice, once in OptionStrat to visualize, then again in your broker to execute. For active traders building/adjusting multiple positions daily, this friction adds up.

Competitor advantage: Platforms like OptionStrat don’t integrate brokers either, but dedicated broker tools (thinkorswim, Interactive Brokers, Tastyworks) have built-in options analyzers that sync automatically.

3. Limited Charting and Technical Analysis

OptionStrat shows basic price charts and volume, but that’s it. No:

Moving averages
Fibonacci retracements
VWAP
RSI, MACD, Stochastics
Drawing tools (trendlines, support/resistance)

If your edge combines options strategies with technical analysis, you’ll need TradingView or your broker’s charting platform open simultaneously.

Our take: This isn’t necessarily a flaw, OptionStrat focuses on strategy modeling, not chart analysis. But it means the tool isn’t standalone for most traders.

4. No Backtesting

OptionStrat can track saved strategies going forward, but you can’t test historical performance. Questions like “Would selling 0.30 delta put spreads on SPY during earnings season have been profitable in 2022-2024?” can’t be answered.

Competitor advantage: Dedicated backtesting platforms (OptionStrat doesn’t try to be this) or broker tools with historical data offer this.

5. Free Plan’s 15-Minute Delay Limits Usefulness

The free tier is excellent for learning, but 15-minute delayed data makes it impractical for live trading decisions. By the time you see a setup in OptionStrat, the market has moved. This is standard across free options tools, but it’s still frustrating.

6. IV Modeling Limitation for Advanced Users

Implied volatility can’t be adjusted separately for each leg in multi-leg strategies. You set one IV for the entire position. For 95% of users this doesn’t matter, but advanced traders building complex spreads across multiple expirations might need more granular control.

Workaround: Build each leg as a separate trade, adjust IV individually, then combine them. Tedious but functional.

7. No Earnings-Specific Tools

Unlike Market Chameleon (which specializes in earnings analysis), OptionStrat doesn’t offer historical earnings move data, IV rank/percentile, or earnings-specific probability calculations. You can see upcoming earnings dates on the market events feature, but that’s it.

Our take: If earnings plays are your primary strategy, Market Chameleon is purpose-built for that. OptionStrat is more general-purpose.

8. Optimizer Results Can Be Overwhelming

The optimizer sometimes returns 20+ strategy results when you just want the top 3 optimal setups. Scrolling through pages of results to compare ROI vs. probability vs. risk takes time. A “show top 5 only” filter would help.