Plan your Runway NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPORunway 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 9, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$55,687
Hold 1 yr wins by $40,706 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $24,550 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$356 |
| Additional Medicare | −$221 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $1,398 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$393 |
| Net at year 1 | $14,981 |
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) | −$16,302 |
| Net at year 1 | $55,687 |
Sold 4,063 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 937 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 Runway
Runway is a privately held AI company, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in New York, NY.
Last reported secondary-market price: $14.91 per share (as of 2026-06-09). Your own 409A may differ.
Generative video.
Equity grants at Runway typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Runway AI, Inc. is an American company headquartered in New York City that specializes in generative artificial intelligence research and technologies. The company is primarily focused on creating products for generating videos, images, and various multimedia content through developing commercial text-to-video and video generative AI models.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Founded in 2018 by Cristóbal Valenzuela, Anastasis Germanidis, and Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz after meeting at NYU's Tisch ITP program, Runway builds generative video models from its New York headquarters. The Gen-3, Frames, Act-One performance-capture, and Aleph in-context editing releases anchor a product suite used across filmmaking, advertising, and visual effects. Studio deals with Lionsgate (2024) and AMC Networks (2025) brought trained-on-catalog workflows into production pipelines. General Atlantic led an April 2025 Series D at a $3B+ valuation, with Nvidia, SoftBank, Fidelity, and Baillie Gifford participating.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · deadline.com · runwayml.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Runway.
Runway 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 Runway's last reported price of $14.91, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $4.47 strike creates a $52,200 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $14,094 and $23,490 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 Runway tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Runway equity questions
- How is a Runway 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 Runway grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does Runway grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Runway 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 Runway 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 Runway 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 Runway equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.