Plan your Fireworks AI NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOFireworks AI 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 6, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$138,378
Hold 1 yr wins by $46,321 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $157,550 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$2,284 |
| Additional Medicare | −$1,418 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $8,588 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$2,413 |
| Net at year 1 | $92,057 |
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) | −$20,517 |
| Net at year 1 | $138,378 |
Sold 2,931 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 2,069 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 Fireworks AI
Fireworks AI is a privately held AI company, headquartered in Redwood City, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $41.51 per share (as of 2026-06-06). Your own 409A may differ.
$4B; AI inference.
Equity grants at Fireworks AI typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Lin Qiao, who led PyTorch infrastructure development at Meta, co-founded Fireworks AI in 2022 alongside six colleagues from Meta and Google. The company runs a cloud inference platform that lets developers and enterprises deploy open-source and custom models at production scale, optimizing latency and cost through its own serving stack. Fireworks raised a $52 million Series B in July 2024 at a $552 million valuation, with backing from Sequoia, NVIDIA, and AMD. In October 2025 it closed a $250 million Series C at a $4 billion valuation, co-led by Lightspeed and Index Ventures.
Sources: fireworks.ai · businesswire.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Fireworks AI.
Fireworks AI 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 Fireworks AI's last reported price of $41.51, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $12.45 strike creates a $145,300 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $39,231 and $65,385 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 Fireworks AI tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Fireworks AI equity questions
- How is a Fireworks AI 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 Fireworks AI grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does Fireworks AI grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Fireworks AI 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 Fireworks AI 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 Fireworks AI 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 Fireworks AI equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.