Best options apps for the wheel strategy
The wheel is easy to describe and annoying to track. Sell a put, get assigned, write a call, get assigned out, repeat, with every premium adjusting your cost basis along the way. Most tools screen one leg well and lose the thread across the cycle. Four that do not.
Here is the test. You sold a $45 put on a name, collected $1.10, got assigned. Your basis is $43.90, not $45. You then wrote a $46 call for $0.80 and it expired worthless, so your basis is $43.10. Write the next call at $43 and you have just locked in a loss while feeling like you collected income.
A wheel tool that does not carry that arithmetic for you is a screener wearing a costume.
1. OptionsKing
Free.
The wheel is one of three strategies it covers, and the ledger carries basis across the cycle including every premium collected. Both legs get scored on the same deterministic scale with the same 60 floor and 75 default, so the call side gets the same liquidity and event checks the put side did. The public wheel pages price a full cycle per ticker off a dated snapshot.
Where it falls down: no automation, no tax-lot reporting, 60 tickers on the public pages, and no store listing yet.
2. Option Alpha
Pro runs $149 a month, or $99 a month if you pay for the year up front. Two broker promotions drop that to $0 a month if you keep a qualifying balance: $5,000 at Tradier, $10,000 at TradeStation.
The only tool here that will run the cycle for you. Bots handle assignment and the next leg through TradeStation, Charles Schwab, Tradier and tastytrade, and the backtester lets you check the idea before you hand it the keys.
Where it falls down: price, and the broker connection. Some people will not link an account to a third party, and that is a reasonable position rather than a paranoid one.
3. Market Chameleon
Paid subscription, several named plans.
The best tool on this list for picking wheel candidates in the first place, which is where most wheels are won or lost. You want names you would hold through a drawdown, and their historical move and volatility data is the honest way to find out how bad that drawdown gets.
Where it falls down: no cost-basis tracking across the cycle. That stays yours.
4. A spreadsheet
Free.
Not a joke entry. Basis tracking across a wheel is exactly the kind of arithmetic a sheet is good at, and you will trust it because you wrote it. See spreadsheet vs app for where the line sits.
Where it falls down: no live chain, and no screening.
Pricing and features for Option Alpha 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.
What to check before you start wheeling anything
- Would you hold this through a 30 percent drawdown? If not, do not sell the put. The wheel assumes assignment is acceptable.
- Does your capital support the full cycle? One contract on a $310 stock ties up $31,000. The wheel calculator runs the whole cycle for free.
- Do you know your basis right now, to the cent? If not, that is the thing to fix before the next leg.
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
What does a wheel app need to do that a screener does not?
Carry the cost basis across the cycle. Sell a put, get assigned, write a call, get assigned again: your basis moved four times and every premium you collected adjusts it. Track that wrong and every return number afterwards is wrong.
Can any app run the wheel automatically?
Option Alpha can automate the mechanics through TradeStation, Charles Schwab, Tradier and tastytrade. OptionsKing cannot and will not, because it does not connect to brokerage accounts at all.
What is the rule that saves the wheel?
Never write a call below your cost basis just to collect premium. That converts a paper loss into a realized one and is the single most common way people turn a working wheel into a losing one.
Related calculators
Competitor facts came from first-party sources on August 4, 2026: Option Alpha, Market Chameleon. OptionsKing publishes this page. Nothing here is investment advice. See the disclaimer.