Plan your Mercury NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOMercury 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 Jul 31, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$70,106
Hold 1 yr wins by $48,813 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $35,000 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$508 |
| Additional Medicare | −$315 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $1,986 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$558 |
| Net at year 1 | $21,293 |
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) | −$19,635 |
| Net at year 1 | $70,106 |
Sold 3,832 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 1,169 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 →Related calculators: Stock Concentration Calculator · Multi-Year ISO Exercise Schedule Calculator
About Mercury
Mercury is a privately held Fintech company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $17 per share (as of 2026-07-31). Your own 409A may differ.
$5B+ Apr 2026.
Equity grants at Mercury typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Mercury Technologies Inc., commonly known as simply Mercury, is an American fintech company that provides banking services to start-up companies and small businesses. The company is not a bank, but works with banking service providers to provide bank accounts and other financial services. The company was founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California. As of May 2026, Mercury has a $5.2 billion valuation.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Immad Akhund, Max Tagher, and Jason Zhang founded Mercury in 2017 to give startups and small businesses a banking experience built for companies that move fast. Mercury offers FDIC-insured checking and savings accounts, corporate cards, and treasury products through a software interface rather than a branch. In March 2025 the company raised a $300 million Series C led by Sequoia Capital at a $3.5 billion valuation, doubling its 2021 Series B valuation. Mercury processed $156 billion in payment volume in 2024.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · businesswire.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Mercury.
Mercury 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 Mercury's last reported price of $17, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $5.1 strike creates a $59,500 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $16,065 and $26,775 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 Mercury tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Mercury equity questions
- How is a Mercury 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 Mercury grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does Mercury grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Mercury 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 Mercury 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 Mercury 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 Mercury equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.