Plan your Discord NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPODiscord is pre-IPO. Plan your NSO exercise tax (federal, state, FICA) at any expected valuation.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jun 16, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$119,965
Hold 1 yr wins by $57,073 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $106,550 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$1,545 |
| Additional Medicare | −$959 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $5,867 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$1,649 |
| Net at year 1 | $62,892 |
Sell every share immediately; invest the after-tax cash at the market return for 1 yr, then liquidate. Diversified — no single-stock concentration risk.
Exercise + hold 1 yr
Best payout| Sale proceeds (year 1) | |
| LTCG tax (federal + state + NIIT) | −$23,954 |
| Net at year 1 | $119,965 |
Sold 3,126 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 1,874 shares held 1 yr for LTCG.
Social Security + Medicare are payroll taxes (collectively called FICA) — they apply because you're exercising as a current employee.
Both columns are stated in year-1 dollars: sell-now proceeds compound at the market return and pay LTCG on the gain at year 1; any cash paid out of pocket on the hold side carries the same opportunity cost.
Net at year N — by hold period
Estimates only. Excludes AMT (NSOs do not trigger AMT), state-AMT, multi-state moves, and disqualifying-disposition edge cases. Not financial advice.
You calculated one NSO decision. The beta plans NSOs alongside RSUs and ISOs in a single multi-year tax plan.
Request beta access →About Discord
Discord is a privately held Consumer Internet company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA. S-1 filed Mar 15, 2026.
Last reported secondary-market price: $31.31 per share (as of 2026-06-16). Your own 409A may differ.
Filed Mar 2026.
Equity grants at Discord typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Discord is an American instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media. Communication can be private or in virtual communities called "servers". A server is a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice channels accessed by invitation links. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy after pivoting from gaming startup Hammer and Chisel, Discord runs voice, text, and video chat for gaming and community servers, monetized through Nitro subscriptions and server boosts. The San Francisco company turned down a reported $12B Microsoft offer in 2021. Humam Sakhnini (ex-Activision Blizzard, King) took over as CEO in April 2025, with Citron moving to the board. Discord filed confidentially for a U.S. IPO in January 2026 with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, targeting a March debut; secondary markets imply roughly $7B-$8B versus bull-case scenarios closer to $25B.
Sources: cnbc.com · discord.com · bloomberg.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Discord.
Discord NSO exercise creates ordinary income on the bargain element (federal, state, and FICA) at the price on the day you exercise. The calculator works at any valuation, so you can model your exercise cost at the current 409A FMV, an expected IPO price, or post-IPO scenarios.
Example: at Discord's last reported price of $31.31, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $9.39 strike creates a $109,600 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $29,592 and $49,320 depending on your bracket and state. The calculator above computes the exact figure for your situation and compares selling now vs. holding through the long-term capital-gains threshold.
All Discord tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Discord equity questions
- How is a Discord NSO exercise taxed?
- Exercising a non-qualified stock option (NSO) creates ordinary income on the bargain element (the price on the day you exercise minus your strike), subject to federal income tax, state income tax, and FICA. The calculator above computes that tax for your Discord grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does Discord grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Discord 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 Discord 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 Discord 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 Discord equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.