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What is the break-even price of an option?

For an option you bought and hold to expiry: a call breaks even at the strike plus the premium paid, and a put at the strike minus the premium paid 1. Above the call's break-even, or below the put's, it comes out ahead, before fees.

A $50 stock and its calls and puts with 30 days left at 30% implied volatility (made-up numbers). Choose a call or a put, and a strike.

Source: the StrikePath engine, pricing with the Black–Scholes formula 2 at 4.3% interest a year; a simulated example, not market prices. For learning; not advice.

In numbers

The $50 call above costs $1.80 by the formula 2, so it breaks even at $51.80 at expiry: the stock has to rise 3.6% in 30 days. The $50 put costs $1.63 and breaks even at $48.37 3.

Before expiry, it is different

An option can be sold before it expires, and then its time value counts as well: before expiry a put's break-even can sit at a higher stock price than at expiry, if enough time value is left 3. By the formula a call's can likewise sit lower 2: see the page on selling a call before it reaches break-even.

What this shows, and what it doesn't

The break-even at expiry, a share, before fees and the bid-ask spread, which a market order pays on the way in and out 4.

Go further

Can I sell a call before it reaches break-even? →Time value, before expiry.How much can I lose buying a call? →What you pay, and no more.
Sources (4), checked 20 October 2026 and 27 October 2026
  1. The Options Industry Council, “Exercising Options”. Read it (read 27 October 2026)
  2. Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, “The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities”, Journal of Political Economy 81(3), 637–654, 1973. Read it (read 20 October 2026)
  3. Nasdaq ISE, “Option Strategies: Long Put”. Read it (read 27 October 2026)
  4. US Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Types of Orders”. Read it (read 20 October 2026)

Now try it on a scenario of your own

Pick where a simulated stock might be, and by when: drag one dot and see, side by side, what buying shares, one option, or a pair of options (a call or put spread) would each do. Free, no sign-up.

Check a trade before you make it →