Plan your Scale AI NSO exercise
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOScale 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 Jul 29, 2026
Tax inputs
Hold strategy
Best after-tax payout — at year 1
$10,207
Hold 1 yr wins by $8,212 over Sell + invest.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
Sell + invest
| Bargain element (sale − strike) | $3,050 |
| Federal | |
| State | |
| Medicare | −$44 |
| Additional Medicare | −$27 |
| Market gain over 1 yr at 10.0% | $186 |
| LTCG on diversified gain (fed + state + NIIT) | −$52 |
| Net at year 1 | $1,994 |
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) | −$3,262 |
| Net at year 1 | $10,207 |
Sold 4,825 shares at exercise to cover strike + tax; 175 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 Scale AI
Scale AI is a privately held AI company, headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $10.61 per share (as of 2026-07-29). Your own 409A may differ.
~$13B; data labeling.
Equity grants at Scale AI typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
Scale AI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence infrastructure and software company based in San Francisco, California. Originally focused on data annotation, the company also offers RLHF services, large language model (LLM) evaluation, and enterprise software suites to build and deploy AI applications.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Scale AI's data labeling, model evaluation, and enterprise AI platform serves frontier model developers and U.S. defense programs from its San Francisco headquarters. MIT dropout Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo founded the company through Y Combinator in 2016; Wang later joined Meta as Chief AI Officer under a June 2025 deal that gave Meta a roughly 49% non-voting stake at a $29B valuation, with Jason Droege elevated to CEO. Defense work includes the Donovan LLM on classified networks and the Thunderforge planning contract with Anduril and Microsoft. 2026 revenue tracks toward $2B.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org · scale.com · cnbc.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Scale AI.
Scale 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 Scale AI's last reported price of $10.61, exercising 5,000 NSOs with a $3.18 strike creates a $37,150 bargain element, taxed as ordinary income on the day you exercise. Combined federal + state + FICA on that bargain typically lands between $10,031 and $16,718 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 Scale AI tools → · Use the generic NSO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Scale AI equity questions
- How is a Scale 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 Scale AI grant and compares selling the shares now against holding past the one-year mark for long-term capital-gains treatment.
- Does Scale AI grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Scale 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 Scale 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 Scale 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 Scale AI equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.