Best free options screeners
For selling covered calls and cash-secured puts, free tiers get you most of the way. You are picking a strike a week or a month out, which delayed data handles fine. Five free options worth using, and an honest note on what each one withholds.
Paid options tools mostly sell two things: real-time data and unusual-flow feeds. Both matter enormously for day trading and barely at all for writing a 30-day call against shares you already own. Know which trade you are doing before you pay for either.
1. OptionsKing
Free, all of it. No tier above it.
Scores premium-selling candidates 0 to 100 and shows nothing below 60, with 75 recommended. Twelve calculators run in the browser with no account and store nothing you type. The per-ticker pages and six screens are public and dated.
What is limited: 60 tickers on the public pages, market data is delayed and labelled as such, one strategy family, and no store listing yet.
2. Barchart, free tier
Free, with Premier at $29.95 a month above it.
The free tier covers a lot of ground: delayed quotes, basic screeners, watchlists across more markets than anything else here.
What is limited: the better options screeners and the unusual-activity tooling sit behind Premier.
3. OptionStrat, free tier
Free on delayed data.
The strategy builder on the free tier is still the best payoff visualizer in this comparison. Draw the position, read the shape, no account gymnastics.
What is limited: live pricing and the flow feed are the paid tiers. There is a free tier on delayed data. Live Tools is $39.99 a month and Live Flow is $99.99 a month, both with a 7-day trial.
4. Your broker
Free with the account you already have.
Overlooked constantly. Your broker's chain is real-time, it is authoritative on what you can actually get filled at, and it costs nothing extra. Several have decent built-in screeners.
What is limited: screening quality varies wildly, and none of them will tell you a trade is a bad idea.
5. Market Chameleon, free account
Free account with limited access.
Enough to sample the earnings and volatility analytics before deciding whether the paid plans are worth it to you.
What is limited: most of the depth that makes the product worth using is behind the subscription.
Pricing and features for Barchart, OptionStrat and Market Chameleon were read off their own site on August 4, 2026. Prices move, and plans get renamed. Check the current number with them before you spend anything on the strength of this page.
When paying starts to make sense
Three situations, and not many others. You trade intraday and need real-time data. You screen the entire market rather than a watchlist, which is where Barchart Premier earns its $29.95. Or you want execution automated, which is Option Alpha and nothing else on this list.
Writing four covered calls a month on names you already own is not one of those situations.
Where OptionsKing is weak
It is new. Neither app is in the App Store or on Google Play yet, so today it runs in a browser and that is the whole distribution story. It covers 60 tickers on the public data pages, not five thousand. It does one strategy family, premium selling, and it has nothing to say about spreads, calendars, or anything you would put on in a directional bet.
And the gate cuts both ways. On the first public snapshot, taken in a dead-flat low-volatility tape, not one strike across all 60 names cleared the 75 bar. Zero. A screener with a looser bar would have handed you a full page of ideas that week, and some of them would have worked out fine.
Questions people actually ask
Are free options screeners any good?
For premium selling, yes. The data you need is delayed-quote data on liquid names, and the filters that matter are not expensive to run. Free breaks down on real-time data and on unusual-flow feeds, which is what the paid tiers mostly sell.
What is the catch with free tiers?
Usually delayed data, capped screens or a signup wall. Delayed data is fine for choosing a strike a week out and useless for anything intraday. Know which one you are doing.
Is delayed data a problem for covered calls?
Not much. You are choosing a strike and an expiry, then placing a limit order your broker prices live. It matters if you are trading 0DTE, where you should not be relying on a free screener anyway.
Related calculators
Free-tier limits and prices were read from first-party sources on August 4, 2026: Barchart, OptionStrat, Market Chameleon. OptionsKing publishes this page. Nothing here is investment advice. See the disclaimer.