Iron Condor Calculator

Calculate net credit, maximum profit, maximum loss, both break-evens and the profit range for a four-leg iron condor.

An iron condor is a short put spread and a short call spread on the same underlying and the same expiry, sold together for a single credit, and this iron condor calculator resolves all four legs at expiry from those strikes and that credit. Four strikes ascend: a put bought below a put sold, then a call sold below a call bought. The two sold strikes mark out a range, and the whole credit is kept if the underlying finishes anywhere inside it.

Formula: max loss = wider wing width x multiplier - net credit

Your figures

Currency

Long put strike

The lowest strike — the put bought to cap the downside.

Short put strike

The put sold. The lower edge of the range where the whole credit is kept.

Short call strike

The call sold. The upper edge of that same range.

Long call strike

The highest strike — the call bought to cap the upside.

Net credit per share

All four legs together, per share rather than per contract. A credit typed per contract is the usual cause of a rejected condor.

Number of contracts

One contract means one whole condor: four option contracts, two puts and two calls.

Shares per contract

From your own contract specification. 100 on standard US equity options.

Commission per contract

Per option contract, charged on entry and exit. A condor has four legs, so eight charges in all.

Underlying price at expiry

Optional. Values the condor at this price, at expiry. Leave it blank to skip that.

Results

Maximum profit

US$200.00

the whole credit, kept between US$95.00 and US$105.00 at expiry

Maximum lossThe wing width less the credit, owed if either spread finishes fully breached.: US$300.00
Upper break-evenOne credit above the short call strike, where the payout owed has grown to match the credit received.: US$107.00
Lower break-evenOne credit below the short put strike, where the payout owed has grown to match the credit received.: US$93.00
Range between the break-evensThe percentage is that distance measured against the midpoint of the two short strikes.: US$14.00 · 14.00%
Return on riskMaximum profit divided by maximum loss. A ratio between the two extremes, not a likelihood that either is reached.: 66.67%
Full-credit rangeBetween US$95.00 and US$105.00, where every leg expires worthless.: US$10.00 wide
Wing widthsEqual wings, so a breach on either side costs the same.: US$5.00 put · US$5.00 call
Net credit receivedAcross every condor, after commission. This is the maximum profit as well: between the short strikes there is nothing left to pay out.: US$200.00
Option contracts tradedFour per condor — two puts and two calls.: 4
Shares controlledContracts multiplied by the shares each contract controls. Every cash figure scales with this, not with the number of legs.: 100
Result at the price enteredAt expiry, with every leg finishing worthless between the short strikes.: +US$200.00

What this means

An iron condor pairs a short put spread with a short call spread on one expiry, and here that is 1 condor with a put wing US$5.00 wide and a call wing US$5.00 wide, opened for US$200.00 after commission across 100 shares. Between US$95.00 and US$105.00 all four legs expire worthless and that credit is the whole result; outside that range one spread — only ever one, because price cannot finish below the short put and above the short call at once — moves against the position. That is why the maximum loss of US$300.00 comes from one wing of US$5.00, less the credit — never from the two wings added together. The position is level at US$93.00 and US$107.00, one credit outside each short strike. Maximum profit and maximum loss sum to the wider wing in cash, which is the check that catches a condor sized off the narrow one.

Every figure here is an at-expiry figure, where each leg is worth its intrinsic value and nothing else. Before expiry the legs still carry time value, so the position can quite legitimately trade outside the maximum profit and maximum loss shown, and closing early gives a different result.
Commission is charged as eight fills: four legs, each opened and closed. A leg left to expire worthless costs nothing to close, so this overstates the cost rather than understating it.
American options can be assigned before expiry. A short leg assigned while the long leg is still open leaves a different position from the one priced here until it is resolved, and the risk in the meantime is not what these figures describe.
Excludes margin and buying power. Brokers set the requirement on a defined-risk structure individually, they can raise it while the position is open, and it is not the same figure as the maximum loss.
Assumes all four legs share the same underlying and the same expiry, and that the whole structure is opened and closed as one.

The link reopens this calculator with the same numbers. Nothing you enter is sent to a server.

Continue with these figures

About the Iron Condor calculation

What makes the structure worth calculating rather than eyeballing is a fact that is easy to state and easy to get wrong at the same time: at expiry only one of the two spreads can ever be breached. Price cannot finish below the short put and above the short call at once. The risk is therefore not the two wings added together — it is whichever single wing has more room to move against the position, less the credit taken in from both sides.

This iron condor profit calculator works both wing widths, the maximum profit, the maximum loss from the wider wing alone, both break-evens and the distance between them, the range where the full credit is kept, and the return on risk. Give it a price to evaluate at and it will also say what the condor comes to if the underlying finishes exactly there, and whether that finish leaves every leg worthless.

Iron Condor formula

strikes ascend:
  long put < short put < short call < long call

put wing   = short put − long put
call wing  = long call − short call
wider wing = max(put wing, call wing)

payout owed per share at expiry:
    min(max(short put − price, 0), put wing)
  + min(max(price − short call, 0), call wing)

profit per share = credit − payout owed

shares controlled = contracts × shares per contract
commission        = rate per contract × 4 legs × contracts × 2

max profit = credit × shares − commission
max loss   = (wider wing − credit) × shares + commission

break-evens, where the credit is not wider than that wing:
  lower = short put − credit
  upper = short call + credit

full-credit range = short call − short put
return on risk    = max profit ÷ max loss × 100

put wing: The distance between the two put strikes — how far the downside is allowed to run before the long put stops it.
call wing: The distance between the two call strikes, doing the same job on the upside.
wider wing: The larger of the two. Because only one side can be breached at expiry, this alone sets the maximum loss.
net credit: All four legs together, per share, entered positive. It is also the maximum profit before commission.
payout owed: What the breached spread costs to settle at expiry, capped at the width of that wing.
full-credit range: The gap between the two sold strikes, inside which every leg expires worthless.

The payout line is the whole structure written as one expression. Each term is a short vertical seen from the seller's side: nothing while price stays on the safe side of the sold strike, then one point owed for every point beyond it, until the bought strike takes over and the term stops growing. Adding the two terms rather than choosing between them is legitimate precisely because one of them is always zero — the ranges they cover do not overlap, so the sum is never the sum of two live obligations.

That is what makes the maximum loss follow the wider wing on its own, and it is the figure most often got wrong. Take a condor with a 10-wide put wing, a 5-wide call wing and a 3.10 credit. The downside can cost 10.00 a share before the long put caps it, so the worst case there is 10.00 − 3.10 = 6.90. The upside can only ever cost 5.00, so the worst case there is 5.00 − 3.10 = 1.90. The risk on the position is 6.90, not 1.90 and not the 11.90 that adding the wings would suggest. Sizing that condor off the narrow wing understates what is at stake by more than three times.

Maximum profit needs no formula at all, which is worth noticing rather than skipping past. Between the two sold strikes every leg finishes out of the money, nothing is owed on any of them, and the credit taken in at the start is the entire result. That is why the primary figure the calculator reports is simply the credit less commission, and why a condor's profit cannot be improved by the underlying doing anything in particular — only by it doing nothing much.

Used as a condor break-even calculator, the page puts each level exactly one credit outside its sold strike, because that is where the payout owed has grown to match the credit received. The qualification matters more than it looks: it only holds while the credit is smaller than the wing on that side. Once the credit exceeds a wing, the most that side could ever cost is less than what was taken in, the position is profitable at every price beyond it, and there is no break-even there at all. The calculator reports that side as none rather than printing a price the payoff never crosses.

The distance between the break-evens is reported as a percentage of the midpoint of the two sold strikes, which is the price the condor is centred on. Expressed that way it answers a question the raw width cannot: 36.20 points of room means one thing on a 40 underlying and something entirely different on a 400 one. Against the midpoint it becomes a move the underlying would have to make, which is the form in which it can be compared with an implied move or with what the underlying has actually done before.

The same identity that governs a vertical governs the condor, with the wider wing in place of the width: maximum profit and maximum loss sum to the wider wing multiplied by the shares controlled, commission included. It is the fastest check there is on a condor's figures, and it is the one that catches a position sized off the narrow wing, because that error produces two numbers that sum to the wrong thing.

Iron Condor: a worked example

An unbalanced condor: long put 380, short put 390, short call 420, long call 425, sold for 3.10 a share, two contracts of 100 shares, commission 0.65 a contract.

Put wing390 − 380 = 10.00
Call wing425 − 420 = 5.00
Option contracts2 condors × 4 legs = 8
Shares controlled2 × 100 = 200
Commission, round trip0.65 × 8 × 2 = 10.40
Net credit, and maximum profit3.10 × 200 − 10.40 = 609.60
Maximum loss, from the wider wing(10.00 − 3.10) × 200 + 10.40 = 1,390.40
Wider wing in cash10.00 × 200 = 2,000.00 = 609.60 + 1,390.40
Break-evens390 − 3.10 = 386.90 and 420 + 3.10 = 423.10
Range between them423.10 − 386.90 = 36.20, or 36.20 ÷ 405 = 8.94%
Return on risk609.60 ÷ 1,390.40 = 43.84%
Payout owed at 422.000 + min(422 − 420, 5) = 2.00
Result at 422.00(3.10 − 2.00) × 200 − 10.40 = 209.60

609.60 is kept in full anywhere between 390 and 420, and the position is level at 386.90 and 423.10 — 36.20 points of room, or 8.94% of the 405 midpoint. The risk is 1,390.40 and it all comes from the 10-wide put side; reading it off the 5-wide call wing would have given 390.40 and understated the position by a thousand. A finish at 422.00 breaches the call spread by two points and still returns 209.60.

How to use the Iron Condor calculator

Enter the four strikes in ascending order: long put lowest, then short put, then short call, then long call highest. Each field says which leg it is, and the calculator names the offending pair if two of them are out of order.
Enter the net credit per share for all four legs together, as the combination was filled, and as a positive figure. Like every premium on the site it is per share rather than per contract.
Set the number of contracts to the number of whole condors. One contract means four option contracts — two puts and two calls — and the result panel reports that figure back so it can be checked against a confirmation.
Take the shares per contract from your own contract specification rather than assuming 100, which is the US equity convention and not a universal one.
Enter your own commission per contract. A condor is charged as eight fills: four legs, each opened and closed. If the plan is to let a worthless side expire, that overstates the cost slightly rather than understating it.
Look at the wing widths row before anything else. If it is flagged, the wings are unequal and the maximum loss is following the wider one alone — which is the number that decides how many contracts the position can carry.
Add an underlying price at expiry to value the condor at a particular finish. It also tells you whether that price leaves every leg worthless or breaches one of the spreads.

Limitations of the Iron Condor calculator

Every calculation makes assumptions. These are the ones that matter here.

Every figure describes expiry. A condor marked halfway to expiry sits between the credit received and these numbers, and an unrealised loss larger than the maximum loss shown here is entirely possible while the legs still carry time value.
Only one side can be breached at expiry, but before expiry both sides can move against the mark in sequence. A round trip through both short strikes over the life of the trade costs real money that no at-expiry figure captures.
American-style legs can be assigned early. A short put assigned before expiry delivers shares and leaves a long put and an untouched call spread against them, which is not the structure priced here.
Margin and buying power are excluded. A broker sets the requirement on a condor individually, will usually hold the wider wing, and can raise it while the position is open — it is not the maximum loss shown here.
Nothing on this page estimates how likely any finish is. The full-credit range and the distance between the break-evens describe the shape of the payoff, not the chance of landing inside it, which depends on volatility and time remaining.
Assumes all four legs share one underlying and one expiry, and that the structure is opened and closed as a single order at the credit entered. Legging in changes the credit and therefore every figure below it.
Return on risk compares two extremes and nothing in between. A condor with a high figure is usually one whose sold strikes sit close to the money, and the ratio says nothing about that trade-off.
Dividends, borrowing costs and tax are excluded, as is any interest earned on the capital the broker holds against the position while it is open.

Frequently asked questions about Iron Condor

Why is the iron condor max loss based on only one wing?

Because at expiry the underlying can finish below the short put or above the short call, but not both. Only one spread can be in the money, so only one can owe anything. The risk is the wing with more room to run against the position, less the credit collected from both sides — never the two wings added together.

What happens if the two wings are different widths?

The wider wing sets the maximum loss on its own and the calculator flags the imbalance. A condor with a 10-wide put wing and a 5-wide call wing risks the same as if the call side were 10 wide too, so sizing it off the narrow side understates what is at stake by the difference between the wings, every time.

Can an iron condor have only one break-even?

Yes, when the credit received is wider than one of the wings. That side can never cost more to settle than was taken in, so the payoff stays above zero at every price beyond it and never crosses. The calculator reports none for that side rather than printing a price that is not actually a break-even.

Is the maximum profit really just the credit?

Yes, less commission. Anywhere between the two sold strikes all four legs expire worthless and there is nothing left to pay out, so the credit banked at the start is the entire result. That is also why a condor cannot be improved by a large move in either direction — its best outcome is the underlying going nowhere in particular.

Why is the profit range shown as a percentage as well as in points?

Because points alone are not comparable between underlyings. Thirty-six points of room is generous on a 400 index and impossible on a 40 share. Measured against the midpoint of the two sold strikes it becomes a percentage move, which can be set against an implied move or against the underlying's own history.

How is commission applied to a four leg options strategy?

As eight charges: four legs, each opened and closed, at whatever per-contract rate you enter. It is deducted from the maximum profit and added to the maximum loss, which is why the two still sum to the wider wing in cash. Letting a worthless side expire rather than buying it back costs less than this assumes.

Does the calculator assume a particular index or contract size?

No. Shares per contract, commission and the credit are all your own inputs, with generic defaults that exist only so the fields are not empty. Nothing is fetched, no exchange's contract specification is built in, and no broker's fee schedule is assumed anywhere in the arithmetic.

Last reviewed 29 August 2026. See our methodology and editorial policy.

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