Secfi Equity Planner vs. OptionsAhoy: what is the difference?

Secfi’s free planning tools (its stock option tax calculator, Equity Planner, and Exercise Timing Planner) estimate the cost of an exercise and compare scenarios you choose, such as exercising now versus later under different exit assumptions, and they sit alongside Secfi’s financing and advisory products. OptionsAhoy’s AMT + ISO Exercise Calculator does not ask you to pick scenarios: it searches the space of multi-year exercise schedules and returns the optimum for your income, state, and horizon, with AMT credit recovery and holding-period timing modeled, free, and verified to the cent against independent tax engines. Scenario comparison shows you the plans you thought of; optimization finds the one you did not.

What is the difference between comparing scenarios and optimizing?

A scenario tool evaluates the candidates you supply: exercise everything now, split it evenly, wait a year. An optimizer like OptionsAhoy’s AMT + ISO Exercise Calculator generates and evaluates the candidate space itself, then returns the best schedule it can find. The gap between the two is real money: on a worked 50,000-share example, an even four-year split (a natural scenario to try) ends at about $988,000 after tax while the computed optimum ends at $1,261,000, because the winning schedule exercises small amounts early to bank AMT credit and times the bulk for long-term treatment. That shape is rarely a scenario anyone thinks to enter.

Can an ISO exercise planner account for the AMT credit?

It has to, if it plans across years: AMT paid on an exercise generates a credit that recovers in later years, which is often what makes an early small exercise worth it. OptionsAhoy models credit recovery explicitly, alongside state AMT for CA, CO, CT and MN, grant expiration, and the qualifying-disposition clock. For single-year estimators the credit is out of scope by design; check any scenario tool’s documentation for whether it carries the credit across years.

Do I need an advisor to plan ISO exercises?

You need one for personalized advice, audit defense, and the judgment calls software cannot make. The schedule math itself, which years, how many shares, at what AMT cost, is computable, and you can run it yourself for free before any advisory conversation. Advisors are welcome to use the same tools; the verification page is written to be checked.

ISO exercise planners compared: scenarios you pick vs. a computed optimum

Every ISO exercise planner answers "what if I exercise now vs. later?" The dividing line is what gets searched. Scenario tools (Secfi’s Equity Planner) evaluate the plans you think to try; single-position planners (Equity Simplified) compute exercise amounts against AMT for one year; OptionsAhoy’s optimizers search the space of multi-year plans and return the best one they can prove. Here is who makes what, and when each approach is the right one.

By Andrew Korytko, Founder & CEO, AlphaLatitude Inc. · Published August 14, 2026 · Alternatives, AMT calculators, and others →

Every ISO exercise planner exists to answer the same question: what should I do with these options, and when? The dividing line between tools is who supplies the candidate plans. Scenario tools evaluate the plans you think to try. OptionsAhoy's optimizers generate the candidates themselves, evaluate the whole space, and return the best plan they can prove; the table below lists both, the free calculator for a single grant and the Beta for the whole portfolio. Everything below was last verified on August 14, 2026, with each claim linked to the tool's own page.

Planner	How it plans	Cost
Secfi's planning tools	Tax calculator for the cost of an exercise; Equity Planner and Exercise Timing Planner compare scenarios you choose (now vs. later, different exit assumptions). Offered alongside Secfi's financing and advisory products	Free
Equity Simplified's ISO planner	Computes exercise amounts against AMT (its page says optimal amounts), with the math shown step by step	Free, with a premium tier
StockOpter by Grantd	Equity-award strategy modeling and risk analysis for advisory firms; you get it through an advisor	Firm subscription
OptionsAhoy AMT + ISO Exercise Calculator	Optimizes: searches the space of multi-year schedules and returns the best one for your income, state, and horizon, with AMT credit recovery, state AMT (CA, CO, CT, MN), expiration and holding-period timing. Verified to the cent	Free
OptionsAhoy Beta (invite-only)	Plans the exercise inside your whole portfolio and tax situation: every grant, vest, and position jointly, across years and market scenarios, into one month-by-month plan	Free during beta

A scenario tool is the right choice when you already know the candidates and want them priced: you are choosing between two concrete plans, or sanity-checking an advisor's proposal. The interface is simple because you do the generating. An optimizer, which is what OptionsAhoy builds, is the right choice when the question is open: the winning schedule on real positions is often a shape nobody enters as a scenario, such as exercising a few hundred shares a year to bank AMT credit before a large final-year exercise. Software that only evaluates your guesses cannot find it.

Educational content for general information, not personalized tax, legal, or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional for your specific situation. See Terms.

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Free AMT calculators compared: estimating a year vs. optimizing the schedule

Planning RSUs, ISOs, and NSOs together across tax years

You read the framework. Beta runs it on every grant you own.