Max pain calculator

Max pain is arithmetic, so the honest version of a "calculator" is one that has already run on real open interest and shows its work. Below: tonight's levels for 43 tickers, computed from the 2026-08-31 close — and the exact recipe to reproduce any of them yourself, so you never have to take our number on faith.

The calculator output — every ticker we cover, 2026-08-31

Front expiration of each chain. Click through for every expiration, the strike-level chart and the walls. Free, no key. If your ticker is missing, the chain was too thin to compute honestly (fewer than 3 expirations or 200 contracts) — a number from a threadbare chain would be noise wearing a suit.

Why this page beats a paste-your-chain form

A calculator form asks you to find a chain, export it, paste it and trust whatever comes back. But the input — open interest — is settled once per trading day by the clearing house. Run the same chain through the same arithmetic at 10am and 3pm and you get the same answer, because the input has not changed. So a nightly batch job over the official end-of-day file is not a convenience compromise; it produces exactly the number an on-demand form would, with the date stamped honestly on it. Anything that claims to be a "live" max pain calculator is recomputing last night's open interest under a fresher price.

What the calculation did for SPY tonight

Concretely, for SPY expiring 2026-09-02 (open interest settled 2026-08-31): the chain carries 69,656 call contracts against 98,869 puts across the listed strikes. The calculator tested every strike as a hypothetical settlement price, summed what all in-the-money calls and puts would pay at each one, and the smallest total landed at $767.00. SPY last traded at $761.90 — -0.66% away. That is the whole computation; there is no model and no tuning parameter anywhere in it.

The recipe — run it yourself in a spreadsheet

Verifying us takes about ten minutes the first time:

1. Get one expiration's chain with open interest per strike (your broker shows this on the option chain screen; every row needs strike, call OI, put OI).
2. Put strikes in column A, call OI in B, put OI in C.
3. For each candidate settlement price P (one column per strike value): call payout = MAX(0, P - strike) * callOI * 100, put payout = MAX(0, strike - P) * putOI * 100.
4. Sum each candidate's column. The P with the smallest sum is max pain.

The five-strike version of this is worked cell by cell in what is max pain, including the full payout table. If your number disagrees with ours, check two things before anything else: the open-interest date (ours is stamped on every page) and the expiration — those two explain nearly every calculator disagreement on the internet.

Same output, machine-readable

Every number in the table above is also published as plain static HTML per ticker, which an AI agent can read without a scraper. If you want the calculator as an endpoint — any optionable US symbol, every expiration, full oi_by_strike detail as JSON — that is GET /v1/maxpain/{symbol} on the paid API ($149/month, covers all four endpoints; see pricing and the API reference).

Common questions

Is there a free max pain calculator?

This page is one, with the work already done: max pain for 43 US tickers — ETFs like SPY and QQQ plus individual stocks — recomputed every night from end-of-day open interest, no login and no key. Because the input (open interest) only settles once per trading day, a calculator that runs nightly gives you exactly the same number as one you run yourself intraday.

How do I calculate max pain myself?

Get the option chain for one expiration with open interest per strike. For each candidate settlement price (use each listed strike), compute every call's payout as max(0, price - strike) x call open interest x 100 and every put's payout as max(0, strike - price) x put open interest x 100. Sum all payouts at that candidate price. The candidate with the smallest total is max pain. It is pure arithmetic — a spreadsheet or any AI assistant can do it from a pasted chain.

Why do different max pain calculators give different numbers?

Four common reasons: they snapshot open interest on different days (it settles nightly, so a one-day lag changes the input); they use different expirations (weekly vs monthly chains give different levels); some include only near strikes or drop low-open-interest strikes; and some quietly blend expirations together. When comparing two calculators, check the open-interest date and the expiration first — a mismatch there explains almost every disagreement.

Does a max pain calculator predict where the price will go?

No. The calculation only says where the total payout to option holders would be smallest; nothing in it makes the price move there. We grade that claim against our own nightly forecasts at quantdata.uk/research/does-max-pain-pin, with every observation listed. Treat any calculator output as a positioning snapshot, not a target.