Plan your OpenAI ISO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOOpenAI 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 Jun 8, 2026
Tax inputs
Grant timeline
Net final value at year 3 sale — optimized plan
$2.34M
After-tax dollars at end of year 3, net of all federal + state taxes through the sale.
This year: exercise 163 shares (of 10,000 total).
= gross gain at sale − federal + state LTCG − AMT premium above baseline regular tax (time-valued)
AMT premium for exercising: $2,636,569 (on top of $228,434 regular tax across the horizon)
Optimized plan keeps $148,760 more than lump-sum, $128,209 more than even split.
Federal AMT crossover this year: 78 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.
| 1 | 163 | |||
| 2 | 159 | |||
| 3 | 9,678 |
Federal AMT credit
Earned
$2,119,408
Recovered
$0
Remaining
$2,119,408
The AMT credit only recovers in years where regular tax exceeds AMT — typically a year with no ISO exercise. Every year in this schedule has bargain element, so AMT exceeds regular tax in every year and the credit carries forward untouched. Try a longer horizon or fewer total shares to introduce a recovery year.
Plan comparison
Net value at the end of your hold horizon.
Lump-sum
All in Year 1
$2,188,795
−$148,760
Even split
Equal shares each year
$2,209,346
−$128,209
Optimized
Tax-aware schedule
$2,337,555
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 →About OpenAI
OpenAI is a privately held AI company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $733.54 per share (as of 2026-06-08). Your own 409A may differ.
~$500B+; 2026 IPO rumored.
Equity grants at OpenAI typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization headquartered in San Francisco, consisting of OpenAI Group PBC, a for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), partially controlled by OpenAI Foundation, a nonprofit. OpenAI developed the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) family of large language models, the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, and the Sora series of text-to-video models, which have influenced industry research and commercial applications. Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing the AI boom, and widespread interest in generative AI.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Founded 2015 by Sam Altman, Elon Musk (departed 2018), Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and others as a non-profit AI lab, the San Francisco company spun up a capped-profit arm in 2019 and completed its restructure into OpenAI Group PBC in October 2025, with the OpenAI Foundation retaining a 26% stake. Products span GPT-5 and GPT-5.5, o-series reasoning models, ChatGPT consumer and Enterprise, the API, DALL-E, the now-discontinued Sora video generator, and Codex agents. Recent milestones: Altman's five-day ouster in November 2023, Sutskever and Mira Murati exits in 2024, and a $122B March 2026 round co-led by SoftBank, Amazon, and Nvidia at an $852B valuation. Monthly revenue runs about $2B.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · bloomberg.com · openai.com
Equity comp at OpenAI
- OpenAI does not grant traditional stock options or RSUs. Instead, employees get Profit Participation Units (PPUs), a custom contract OpenAI created for itself. A PPU is a right to a share of OpenAI's future profits, with the total cap on what OpenAI can pay out across all partners set at $250 billion. Because PPUs are not stock and not options, the standard tax math (AMT for ISOs, ordinary-income on RSU vest) does not apply. The calculator on this page is best treated as a rough illustration until OpenAI converts equity to ordinary stock for an eventual IPO.
Sources: openai.com · theinformation.com
Researched 2026-05-06.
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by OpenAI.
The calculator works at any OpenAI 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 OpenAI's last reported price of $733.54, exercising 5,000 ISOs with a $220.06 strike creates a $2,567,400 bargain element. Above the 2026 federal AMT exemption ($88,100 single, $137,000 married joint), the 28% AMT rate adds roughly $718,872 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 OpenAI tools → · Use the generic AMT + ISO Exercise Calculator for any company.
OpenAI equity questions
- How much alternative minimum tax (AMT) will I owe exercising OpenAI 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 OpenAI figures.
- Does OpenAI grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at OpenAI 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 OpenAI 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 OpenAI 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 OpenAI equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.