Plan your Motive ISO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOMotive is pre-IPO. Plan your AMT impact at any valuation: current 409A, expected IPO price, or post-IPO scenarios.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jul 31, 2026
Tax inputs
Grant timeline
Net final value at year 3 sale — optimized plan
$97,098
After-tax dollars at end of year 3, net of all federal + state taxes through the sale.
This year: exercise 3,334 shares (of 10,000 total).
= gross gain at sale − federal + state LTCG − AMT premium above baseline regular tax (time-valued)
AMT premium for exercising: $0 (on top of $228,434 regular tax across the horizon)
Optimized plan keeps $1,332 more than lump-sum.
Federal AMT crossover this year: 4,703 shares ($57,238 bargain element). Above that, each additional share this year adds federal AMT.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Net final value by year
Running tally: NTV from shares exercised through year y, minus AMT premium paid through year y. The last year matches the plan's headline NTV. Hover a year for plan totals.
Optimized exercise schedule
You pay the higher of Regular tax and Tentative AMT per jurisdiction, then subtract Credit recovered. The result is Net tax. Hover any number for the bracket-by-bracket breakdown.
| 1No AMT | 3,334 | |||
| 2No AMT | 3,333 | |||
| 3No AMT | 3,333 |
Federal AMT credit
Earned
$0
Recovered
$0
Remaining
$0
Plan comparison
Net value at the end of your hold horizon.
Lump-sum
All in Year 1
$95,766
−$1,332
Even split
Equal shares each year
$97,098
Optimized
Tax-aware schedule
$97,098
Highest
Estimates only. Excludes disqualifying dispositions, NSOs, multi-state moves, and AMT preferences other than ISO bargain elements. Long-term capital gains tax assumes a qualifying disposition (ISO held ≥1 yr from exercise and ≥2 yr from grant); state LTCG follows ordinary brackets except where the state grants preferential treatment (HI, ND, SC, WI, AR, NM) or has a dedicated LTCG-only tax (WA). Assumes you are within the $100K ISO limit (any portion of an annual ISO grant whose FMV at grant exceeds $100K is treated as NSO from the start, §422(d)). State AMT figures are 2025 (next-year values published in late 2026). Not financial advice.
QSBS note. If your shares qualify (typically pre-IPO C-corp grants held 5+ years), a federal rule lets you exclude up to $10M of gain on a future sale from federal tax. That single rule shifts exercise-timing math more than AMT does. (This is §1202 “qualified small-business stock”.) Modeled in beta, not here.
You optimized one grant in isolation. The beta optimizes ISOs alongside your RSUs, NSOs, and stock in one plan.
Request beta access →Related calculators: QSBS Qualification Checker · NSO Exercise Calculator · Post-Termination ISO Exercise Calculator
About Motive
Motive is a privately held Vertical SaaS company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $17.17 per share (as of 2026-07-31). Your own 409A may differ.
Fleet mgmt.
Equity grants at Motive typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Motive Technologies, Inc. is a technology company that creates software used by truck companies. Its main product is Hours of Service monitoring using GPS tracking and dashcams.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Shoaib Makani, Ryan Johns, and Obaid Khan founded Motive in 2013 in San Francisco under the name KeepTruckin, initially targeting electronic logging device (ELD) compliance for truck drivers. The company now operates a fleet management platform covering GPS tracking, AI dashcams, driver safety scoring, vehicle maintenance, and spend management for roughly 100,000 customers across trucking, construction, oil and gas, and manufacturing. In December 2025, Motive filed an S-1 (the registration statement required to go public in the U.S.) disclosing $327 million in revenue for the nine months ended September 2025.
Sources: cnbc.com · gomotive.com
Equity comp at Motive
- Motive issued RSUs under its 2013 Plan subject to both a time-based service condition and a liquidity event condition. The liquidity event trigger (the second condition, requiring either a qualified IPO or a change of control before shares settle) is satisfied by whichever occurs first. RSUs outstanding at the December 2025 S-1 filing were set to settle upon effectiveness of the registration statement, meaning employees who separated before the IPO would forfeit time-vested RSUs if the event trigger had not yet been satisfied.
Sources: sec.gov · gomotive.com
Researched 2026-05-10.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Motive.
The calculator works at any Motive valuation: enter your strike, the current 409A FMV, an expected IPO price, or anywhere in between. AMT is triggered on the bargain element (FMV minus strike) when you exercise; the calculator models federal AMT, state AMT, and the multi-year credit-recovery path.
Example: at Motive's last reported price of $17.17, exercising 5,000 ISOs with a $5.15 strike creates a $60,100 bargain element. Above the 2026 federal AMT exemption ($88,100 single, $137,000 married joint), the 28% AMT rate adds roughly $16,828 on top of regular tax before any state AMT (CA, CO, CT, MN). The credit recovers in later years when your regular tax exceeds AMT. The calculator above runs your exact figures.
All Motive tools → · Use the generic Multi-Year ISO Exercise Schedule Calculator for any company.
Motive equity questions
- How much alternative minimum tax (AMT) will I owe exercising Motive ISOs?
- Exercising incentive stock options (ISOs) does not create regular income tax, but the bargain element (the fair market value at exercise minus your strike price) counts toward the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The amount depends on the bargain element, your other income, your filing status, and your state. The calculator above models federal and state AMT, the AMT crossover point, and how the credit recovers in later years for your exact Motive figures.
- Does Motive grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Motive typically takes the form of incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Incentive stock options can trigger the alternative minimum tax (AMT) when you exercise.
- Are Motive shares eligible for QSBS?
- They might be. Qualified small business stock (QSBS) under Internal Revenue Code Section 1202 can exclude federal tax on much of the gain when shares were acquired at original issuance from a C-corporation while its gross assets were under $50 million, and held at least five years. Whether your Motive shares qualify turns on when you acquired them and the company's asset size at that time.
One piece of the puzzle.
OptionsAhoy plans your Motive equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.