Leaving Writer? Plan your 90-day ISO window
Calculator · free · no signup · pre-IPOWriter is pre-IPO. Left with vested ISOs? Model the 90-day exercise-or-forfeit decision and its AMT cost at any valuation: current 409A or an expected exit price.
Beta · invite-only · AlphaLatitude Inc. · Free Tools
Your grant
Seeded from secondary-market data, as of Jun 1, 2026
Tax inputs
Grant timeline
Recommended exercise quantity
Exercise all 10,000
With 10%/yr expected growth over the 3-yr hold, every share's expected after-tax gain exceeds its marginal AMT cost. Net value: $141,294 at horizon.
Net after-tax value vs. shares exercised
Each point is the expected after-tax NPV at your hold horizon if you exercise that many shares now and let the rest expire.
Year-by-year tax breakdown
You pay the higher of Regular tax and Tentative AMT per jurisdiction, then subtract Credit recovered. The result is Net tax. Hover any number for the bracket-by-bracket breakdown.
| 1 | 10,000 | |||
| 2 | 0 | |||
| 3 | 0 |
Federal AMT credit
Earned
$76,652
Recovered
$29,764
Remaining
$46,888
The AMT credit only recovers in years where regular tax exceeds AMT — typically a year with no ISO exercise. It carries forward indefinitely (Form 8801) and applies in any future tax year where regular tax exceeds AMT.
Estimates only. Excludes disqualifying dispositions, NSOs, multi-state moves, and AMT preferences other than ISO bargain elements. Long-term capital gains tax assumes a qualifying disposition (ISO held ≥1 yr from exercise and ≥2 yr from grant); state LTCG follows ordinary brackets except where the state grants preferential treatment (HI, ND, SC, WI, AR, NM) or has a dedicated LTCG-only tax (WA). Assumes you are within the $100K ISO limit (any portion of an annual ISO grant whose FMV at grant exceeds $100K is treated as NSO from the start, §422(d)). State AMT figures are 2025 (next-year values published in late 2026). Not financial advice.
QSBS note. If your shares qualify (typically pre-IPO C-corp grants held 5+ years), a federal rule lets you exclude up to $10M of gain on a future sale from federal tax. That single rule shifts exercise-timing math more than AMT does. (This is §1202 “qualified small-business stock”.) Modeled in beta, not here.
You solved the exercise window. The beta plans what comes after it: the new shares, your remaining equity, hedges, and taxes in one multi-year plan.
Request beta access →About Writer
Writer is a privately held AI company, headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
Last reported secondary-market price: $35.53 per share (as of 2026-06-01). Your own 409A may differ.
Enterprise AI platform.
Equity grants at Writer typically include incentive stock options (ISOs) and non-qualified stock options (NSOs).
May Habib and Waseem Alshikh, who previously co-founded the localization SaaS Qordoba together, launched Writer in San Francisco in 2020 to build an enterprise AI platform for complex, multi-step agentic workflows rather than single-turn text generation. Writer sells to regulated industries (legal, finance, and healthcare), integrating with existing data systems and enforcing compliance guardrails. The company raised $200 million in a Series C at a $1.9 billion valuation in November 2024, co-led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures, and ICONIQ Growth, bringing total disclosed funding to $369 million.
Sources: techcrunch.com · writer.com
OptionsAhoy is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Writer.
If you are leaving Writer with vested incentive stock options (ISOs), most stock plans give you 90 days from departure to exercise or forfeit them. The calculator works at any valuation: enter your strike and the current 409A fair market value (FMV) or an expected exit price. It computes your window deadline, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) cost of exercising in full, and the partial-exercise share count that maximizes expected after-tax value.
Example: leaving Writer with 5,000 vested ISOs at a $10.66 strike, with the last reported price at $35.53, exercising all of them inside the 90-day window puts a $124,350 bargain element into one tax year. Above the 2026 federal AMT exemption ($88,100 single, $137,000 married joint), the 28% AMT rate adds roughly $34,818 on top of regular tax before any state AMT (CA, CO, CT, MN). Exercising fewer shares lowers that bill at the cost of forfeiting the rest; the calculator above finds the count that maximizes expected after-tax value for your exact figures.
All Writer tools → · Use the generic Post-Termination ISO Exercise Calculator for any company.
Writer equity questions
- I left Writer. How long do I have to exercise my ISOs?
- Most stock plans give you 90 days from your departure date to exercise vested incentive stock options (ISOs); unexercised options are forfeited when the window closes. Tax law is slightly wider: ISO treatment requires you to have been an employee within 3 months of exercise (Internal Revenue Code Section 422(a)(2)), so options exercised under an employer-extended window are taxed as non-qualified stock options (NSOs). Check your grant agreement for Writer's exact terms. The calculator above computes your deadline from your departure date, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) cost of exercising, and the share count that maximizes after-tax value.
- Does Writer grant ISOs, NSOs, or RSUs?
- Equity compensation at Writer 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 Writer 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 Writer 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 Writer equity alongside hedging, vesting, and de-concentration, across bullish, neutral, and bearish market scenarios. Free during beta.