Plan your Starburst ISO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOStarburst 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 16, 2026
Tax inputs
Grant timeline
Net final value at year 3 sale — optimized plan
-$0
After-tax dollars at end of year 3, net of all federal + state taxes through the sale.
This year: exercise 10,000 shares.
AMT premium for exercising: $0 (on top of $228,434 regular tax across the horizon)
Lump-sum stays under your AMT crossover — no schedule optimization needed.
No bargain element to exercise (FMV ≤ strike). AMT does not apply.
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 | 10,000 | |||
| 2 | 0 | |||
| 3 | 0 |
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
-$0
Even split
Equal shares each year
-$0
Optimized
Tax-aware schedule
-$0
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 Starburst
Starburst is a privately held Data company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Boston, MA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $0.59 per share (as of 2026-06-16). Your own 409A may differ.
Trino-based analytics.
Equity grants at Starburst typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Justin Borgman and engineers including Kamil Bajda-Pawlikowski, Dain Sundstrom, and Martin Traverso, core contributors to Facebook's Presto distributed SQL engine, founded Starburst in 2017 to commercialize that technology. The platform, built on the open-source Trino query engine (formerly PrestoSQL), lets analysts run federated SQL queries across data lakes, warehouses, and operational databases without moving data. Starburst raised a $250 million Series D in February 2022 at a $3.35 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $414 million.
Sources: starburst.io · techtarget.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Starburst.
The calculator works at any Starburst 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.
All Starburst tools → · Use the generic AMT + ISO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Starburst equity questions
- How much alternative minimum tax (AMT) will I owe exercising Starburst 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 Starburst figures.
- Does Starburst grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Starburst 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 Starburst 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 Starburst 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 Starburst equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.