An options wheel calculator that prices the whole loop end to end: sell a cash secured put, get assigned, sell covered calls against the shares, and get called away back to cash. Read the total premium, your effective basis, and the yield across the whole loop. Then practice the whole thing in a turn-based simulator. Free, in the browser, no account.
These numbers assume the loop completes. To see what happens when it doesn't, run it turn by turn below.
Assigned on the put, then called away on a call above your basis. You keep every premium and a capped stock gain. This is the wheel turning cleanly.
The stock never comes to your strike, so you never own it. You keep the put premium, the cash is yours again, and you sell another put. Income without ever holding shares.
Assigned, and then the stock keeps falling below your basis. This is where wheel sellers meet the drawdown dilemma: sell calls below basis for richer premium and risk locking a loss, or sell higher for less. Still far better than buying outright up top.
For education only. This page runs on your inputs, not live market data, and nothing on it is investment advice.
In real time the wheel turns only as fast as the expirations you sell, and you wait out every one of them. Here each turn is a full expiration cycle: sell a put, settle it, take assignment, sell calls against the shares, and get called away back to cash. The ledger and running premium build continuously across both legs, so you watch one whole wheel cycle come together the way the tracker records it. Free, no account.
Start from cash. Same inputs as the calculator above, or press "Follow this loop" up there to carry them over.
Cash ready · stock at $52.00
Ballpark: 30 to 45 day puts near the money typically run 1 to 3% of the strike. Approximate, not a quote.
Holding 100 shares · stock at $47.60 · adjusted basis $47.10
Ballpark: 30 to 45 day calls near the money typically run 1 to 3% of the stock price. Approximate, not a quote.
Short $48.00 put · 30 days · +$60 banked
Where does the stock close at expiration?
You built this whole wheel by hand. The tracker builds it from your broker, automatically, for every open cycle.
See the wheel tracker| Day | Action | Detail | Amount | Running premiumRunning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The ledger writes itself as you trade. Start the wheel to begin. | ||||
Simulated prices are the ones you choose. For education only.
Seven formulas produce everything on this page, and they are the same ones behind our cash secured put and covered call calculators, chained. This is a calculator, not a screener: there are no live quotes here. Each formula below carries its result for the page's default loop: a $52.00 stock, the $48.00 put at $0.60 and the $52.50 call at $0.90, 30 days each, 100 shares.
Total premium is every dollar you collect on both legs, puts and calls.
total premium = (put premium + call premium) × shares= +$150 $0.60 of put premium and $0.90 of call premium on 100 shares is $150. In a real wheel you often sell several of each before the loop closes, and every one adds to this running total.
Capital at risk is the strike cash that secures the put, then buys the shares if assigned.
capital at risk = put strike × shares= $4,800 A $48.00 strike on 100 shares means $4,800 held in cash while the put is open, and the same $4,800 buys the stock on assignment. It is one pool of capital across the whole loop, and every yield on this page is measured against it.
Your effective basis is the strike you were assigned at, minus every premium you have collected.
effective basis = assignment strike − premiums collected= $47.40 Assigned at $48.00 with $0.60 of put premium already banked, your effective basis is $47.40 the moment the shares arrive. Every covered call you sell after that pulls it lower still, and that number is where your next call strike is written against.
Cycle yield is the whole loop's result, premium and equity together, against the capital it tied up.
cycle yield = (total premium + equity when called away) ÷ capital= 12.50% In the default loop, $150 of premium plus $450 of equity is $600 on $4,800 of capital, a 12.50% cycle yield. It counts both the income you banked and the capped stock gain you realized when the shares were called away.
Premium-only yield is the income the wheel produced, ignoring where the stock finished.
premium-only yield = total premium ÷ capital= 3.13% $150 of premium on $4,800 is 3.13% for the loop. This is the sober number to anchor on, because it does not depend on a rally ending. A cycle yield that leans on the stock finishing high will not repeat on demand; the premium is the part you controlled.
Annualized yield restates one cycle's return at a full-year pace.
annualized = yield × 365 ÷ cycle days= 76.0% 12.50% over 60 days annualizes to 76.0%. This is simple annualization: it scales linearly, does not compound, and assumes you could repeat the loop at the same terms, which markets do not promise. It is the honest way to compare wheels of different lengths.
If-called return is your total return per dollar of capital when the loop completes cleanly.
if-called return = (call strike − put strike + premiums) ÷ put strike= 12.50% Assigned at $48.00, called at $52.50, with $1.50 of premium in hand: $4.50 of stock gain plus $1.50 of premium on $48.00 of capital is 12.50%, the same figure as the cycle yield expressed per share. If the call strike sits below your assignment price, this number can turn negative, and the calculator shows the equity and premium split rather than hiding it.
Here is a full turn of the wheel in a stock we will call XYZ, stitched from two stories you can follow on their own pages. It opens with the cash secured put example, sixty days of selling the $48.00 put that ends in assignment, and continues into the covered call example, ninety days of selling calls against those shares that ends called away. One continuous ledger, one running premium, $4,800 of capital at risk the whole way. The wheel cycle proper begins with the put that gets assigned, so the summary reports that cycle and the full session alongside it.
| Day | Action | Detail | Amount | Running premiumRunning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Start | Stock $52.00, cash ready to secure 100 shares | · | · |
| 0 | Sell put | 30D $48.00 strike @ $0.60 | +$60 | $60 |
| 30 | Expired | Stock $49.50 · first put closes, +$60 kept | · | $60 |
| 30 | Sell put | 30D $48.00 strike @ $0.90 · wheel cycle starts here | +$90 | $150 |
| 60 | Assigned | Stock $47.60, shares assigned @ $48.00 | · | $150 |
| 60 | Sell call | 30D $52.50 strike @ $0.90 | +$90 | $240 |
| 90 | Expired | Stock $46.20 (drawdown) | · | $240 |
| 90 | Sell call | 30D $50.00 strike @ $0.55 | +$55 | $295 |
| 120 | Expired | Stock $49.40 | · | $295 |
| 120 | Sell call | 30D $52.50 strike @ $0.70 | +$70 | $365 |
| 150 | Called away | Stock $53.10, shares sold @ $52.50 | +$450 equity | $365 |
The wheel cycle, from the assigned put to called away
Watch the seam at day 60. The shares are assigned at $48.00, and that raw $48.00 is what the equity result is measured against: called away at $52.50, the equity is +$450. The $0.90 of premium from the put that assigned you is not folded into that price; it stays on the premium ledger. That is why the adjusted basis reads $47.10 the instant the shares arrive: $48.00 paid, less the $0.90 collected on that put. The $0.60 kept on the earlier put that expired at day 30 is income from its own completed trade, banked on the session ledger, not part of these shares' basis. Premium and equity sit on separate ledgers all the way through, and the adjusted basis is only ever the strike and the cycle premium shown netted. It is the same split the put and call pages carry, joined here into one number that ends at $44.95 and reconciles the cycle's whole $755.
One honest note: this is a single illustrative sequence, not typical results. The rally ending flatters the 47.8% annualized figure. The premium-only line, 6.35% over the 120-day cycle and 19.3% annualized, is the sober income number, which is why it gets equal billing above. And the drawdown in the middle, the stock at $46.20 against a $48.00 purchase, is the assignment reality every wheel seller lives with: you keep selling calls through it, and the premium keeps working, but the shares can sit under water for a while.
The wheel is a loop with two legs. You start from cash and sell a cash secured put; if it expires you keep the premium and sell another, and if the stock closes below the strike you are assigned the shares at that strike. Now holding the stock, you sell covered calls against it, keeping premium each cycle, until the stock closes above a call strike and the shares are called away. That returns you to cash, and the loop starts over. One full trip from cash back to cash is one wheel cycle.
Add the premium you banked during the cycle, the put that assigned you plus every covered call after it, to the equity when the shares are called away, then divide by the capital the position tied up: the strike cash that secured the put and later bought the shares. In the example on this page the wheel cycle runs 120 days from the assigned put to called away, and $305 of premium plus $450 of equity is $755 on $4,800 of capital, a cycle yield of 15.73%, or 47.8% simple annualized. The premium-only figure, 6.35% here, is the income the wheel produced regardless of where the stock finished. An earlier put that expired before assignment is its own completed trade, banked on top.
Your effective basis is the strike you were assigned at minus the premium that belongs to the cycle: the put that assigned you and every covered call you sold while holding the shares. Assigned at $48.00 after banking $3.05 per share across that cycle leaves an effective basis of $44.95. The equity result is still measured against the raw $48.00 you paid for the shares; the premium sits on a separate ledger. Premium from a put that expired before assignment is income from that completed trade, not part of this position's basis. The adjusted basis is simply the strike and the cycle premium shown netted, which is the number your next call strike is written against.
It can be, and the honest picture has two sides. The wheel pays you premium on both legs and a capped stock gain when you are called away, which is why the annualized figures look strong after a rally. The risk is a drawdown: if the stock falls well below your effective basis while you hold the shares, the equity loss can outrun the premium collected. This calculator shows premium and equity separately, and includes a drawdown scenario, so you can weigh both before you sell.
There is no universal number, and an unusually high figure usually means the market is paying you for real risk in the underlying. The premium-only yield is the sober income number to anchor on, because a cycle yield that leans on a rally ending will not repeat on demand. Compare cycles of different lengths with simple annualization, yield times 365 divided by days, and treat any single result as illustrative rather than typical.
Yes. The simulator on this page runs the whole loop, free, with no account: sell a put, settle it, get assigned, sell calls against the shares, and get called away back to cash. Each expiration compresses into one turn, and the ledger and running premium build continuously across both legs, so you learn how a full cycle comes together in minutes. It does not place practice orders against a live option chain; for order-entry practice, most major brokers offer full paper trading accounts.
The tracker follows every wheel automatically, from your broker: premium banked as it arrives, assignments reconciled into cost basis, covered calls written against the real breakeven, and the yield on every dollar of capital at risk.