Options Trading Tools Built for Every Strategy
Options Trading Tools
Built for Your Strategy
Why Options Traders
Choose Interactive Brokers
Low Commissions
USD 0.15 to 0.65 per contract, with no platform fees or account minimums.
Options Beyond US Markets
Trade options on stocks and indices worldwide, from the DAX to the Nikkei 225, all from one account in multiple currencies.
Analyze Options with AI
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, or other AI tools to your account to research and analyze your options with your live data.
Execution Built on Smart Routing
Orders routed for the best available price, not payment for order flow (PFOF).
Options Tools Built for How You Trade
Interactive Brokers offers options tools for strategy discovery, volatility analysis, risk management, multi-leg orders, and education.
Pick the Way You Trade:
Your Path
Trading a Bullish or Bearish View, or Hedging One
Buy calls and puts outright, define risk with vertical spreads (debit or credit), or hedge a holding with protective puts—all on single names or indexes, with expirations as short as same-day.
Option Strategy Lab
Enter a view on a stock and compare the strategies that express it, ranked against your price and volatility estimates.
Options Liquidity Tool
Post bids and offers inside the NBBO and interact with IBKR order flow, using IBUSOPT.
Performance Profile
See how the Greeks change across a range of underlying prices before you open a position, and how the profile shifts as expiration approaches.
Your Path
Income from What You Already Own
Write covered calls against holdings you keep, sell cash-secured puts on stocks you'd like to own, roll positions as expiration approaches, work time decay with calendar and diagonal spreads, or run box, reversal, and conversion trades.
Write Options
Scan long and short positions for eligible covered calls and protective puts, by symbol, expiration, and strike.
Rollover Options
Find positions approaching expiration and roll them to a later date in a single order.
Risk Navigator
Check how a written position changes portfolio exposure before you place it, and where delta, gamma, theta, and vega sit afterwards.
Your Path
Trading the Volatility Outlook
Trade the level of implied volatility and how it moves, not the direction of the underlying. Compare implied against realized, read the skew, then build the structure: long or short straddles and strangles, or iron condors.
Volatility Lab
Compare realized volatility against implied, set both against peers and the market, and see how implied varies by expiration.
Probability Lab
See the market-implied probability distribution, set your own outlook, and find strategies that fit it.
OptionTrader
Quote and work your orders in volatility rather than price terms, alongside chains, market data, and the underlying, all in one workspace.
Essential Options Trading Tools at IBKR
These apply whichever path you came from.
Risk Navigator
What-if scenarios across the portfolio, and where delta, gamma, theta, and vega sit.
Options Lattice
30-day price history with volume, open interest, and implied volatility across every strike.
Options Strategy Builder
Build a strategy from the chain and see the payoff before you send it.
Probability Lab
Set your own probability distribution against the market-implied one and find the structures that fit.
Write and Rollover Options
Scan positions for eligible calls and puts to write, then roll them as expiration approaches.
ORATS Backtester
Backtest options strategies and combinations on the 100 most popular symbols, in the Discover tool.
Available on:
How to Transfer Your Brokerage Account to Interactive Brokers
Open Your Account
Online, in minutes.
Request a Transfer
Positions move in kind, no selling, no tax event for standard transfers.
Trade
Most transfers settle in days, with guided support for complex ones.
IBKR Campus
Learn Options Trading
with IBKR Campus
Free and open to anyone. No account, no login, no paywall. Eight hands-on lessons, from contract fundamentals and the Greeks to iron condors and butterflies. Drag, adjust, watch the payoff change.
Award-Winning Options Broker
Recognized across the industry for our complete package of options tools.
Best for professional
options traders
Best for Global Options Traders
Best for Advanced
Options Traders
Try IBKR Options Tools
Open an account to access every platform and options tool in this tour.
Where to Access IBKR Options Tools
Every options tool on this page and the platforms they run on.
| Options Tool |
Trader Workstation Most comprehensive |
IBKR Desktop Modern interface |
IBKR Mobile On the go |
|---|---|---|---|
| Option Chain & Combo Builder | |||
| Options Strategy Builder | |||
| Option Exercise / Roll | |||
| Performance Profile | |||
| Write Options | |||
| Options Analytics | |||
| ORATS Backtester | |||
| Options Lattice | |||
| OptionTrader | |||
| Options Portfolio | |||
| Option Strategy Lab | |||
| Volatility Lab | |||
| Probability Lab | |||
| Risk Navigator | |||
| Options Liquidity Tool | |||
| 3D Volatility Surface |
Available
Not Available
What Are the Benefits and Risks of Trading Options?
Options trading offers a range of benefits, depending on your investing goals, risk tolerance and market outlook.
- Leverage: You are able to control a large position with a relatively small investment, creating the potential for higher returns based on invested capital.
- Flexible Strategies: Options can be used for speculation, hedging or income generation, allowing you to match your trades with your market views or risk tolerances.
- Risk Management: Many options strategies allow you to define your maximum loss upfront, offering more control over possible downside than outright ownership of the underlying asset.
- Income Generation: You can earn premiums by selling options, generating income in range-bounded markets.
- Potential to Profit in Any Market Direction: You can use options to profit from volatility, direction or the absence of either.
However, options trading comes with unique risks that can be greater than simply buying or selling assets.
- You Risk Losing Your Entire Investment: Options have an expiration date and if the trade doesn’t move in your favor in time, the option may expire worthless.
- There is Potential for Unlimited Losses: Options sellers engaged in selling a naked call or naked put can expose themselves to unlimited loss if the asset’s price skyrockets or collapses.
- Options are Complex: Options trading requires an understanding of multiple variables, and misunderstanding these variables can lead to unexpected losses.
- Time Decay: Each day that passes without favorable movement erodes the option’s value.
- Liquidity Risk: Some options contracts have low trading volume, leading to wider bid-ask spreads that make it harder to enter or exit a strategy at a fair price.
- Assignment Risk: Traders with short options positions can have those options assigned early, requiring the unexpected fulfillment of a contract.
- Volatility Risk: Changes in implied volatility can increase or decrease an option’s value independently of the underlying stock price.
- Tax Complexity: Some options trades, such as spreads and early assignments, can create complex tax situations.
Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. An option trader should always know what the maximum potential loss is for any given strategy, understand how volatility and time decay may affect their position, be aware of whether they are subject to assignment and have a clearly defined exit strategy before entering a trade.
For more information read the Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options, also known as the options disclosure document (ODD).
Options Trading FAQs
Any trading symbols displayed are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to portray recommendations.
Clients need to request and qualify for higher levels of trading permissions. Requirements may vary.
The projections or other information regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes generated by the Tools mentioned in this webpage are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. It is important to understand that these projections are based on certain assumptions and models, and actual outcomes may differ significantly. Please note that results may vary over time.