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Options Meerkat vs OptionStrat
OptionStrat is a visual strategy builder: pick a strategy, drag the strikes, and see the P/L. Options Meerkat is an AI research assistant: ask a question about a stock's options, and it reads the chains, the IV history, the flow, and the backtests to answer it, showing its work. Both price multi-leg strategies; they start from different places.
Checked on October 26, 2026 against OptionStrat's pricing and its site. Prices and plans change; theirs are theirs to state. If something here is out of date, write to us and we will correct it.
The short answer
Which one fits
Choose OptionStrat if
- You build trades by hand and want the best visual P/L editor there is.
- You need symbols outside the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100.
- You want a phone app with alerts on the day's flow.
Choose Options Meerkat if
- You want to ask a question (is this IV high? what did the wheel do here?) and get an answer with the numbers behind it.
- You want to backtest a strategy on a year of real option closes before you trust it.
- You look at IV percentiles, skew, and dealer gamma as well as the P/L.
Side by side
What each one offers
▲ marks the side that is ahead on a row, where one is; the rows it marks for OptionStrat are as much the point as the others.
| OptionStrat | Options Meerkat | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free; Live Tools $39.99 a month; Live Flow $99.99 a month | Free; Pro $29 a month or $290 a year (Options Meerkat ahead) |
| Building a strategy | Its heart: a visual builder with P/L charts over price and time, and an optimizer that searches strategies for a target price and date (OptionStrat ahead) | Multi-leg P/L, breakevens, and the chance of profit; ready-made strategies and an optimizer; or ask Meerkat to build and explain one |
| Quotes | Real-time on the paid plans; delayed on the free one | Real-time on Pro; delayed about 15 minutes on Free |
| Symbols | US optionable stocks and ETFs (OptionStrat ahead) | The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 |
| Option flow | Unusual flow, real-time and with alerts on Live Flow (OptionStrat ahead) | Unusual volume against open interest, large prints, and the market tide: real-time on Pro, delayed on Free, without alerts yet |
| Asking in plain English | No AI assistant that we found | Meerkat answers from the server's data, names the tools it called, and opens the chart; free within a daily allowance (Options Meerkat ahead) |
| Backtests | None that we found | The wheel, puts, covered calls, spreads, and condors over a year of daily option closes, against buy and hold (Pro) (Options Meerkat ahead) |
| Volatility history | The IV of the contracts in a strategy | Each stock's ATM IV ranked against its own year, the 25-delta skew, and the term structure (Options Meerkat ahead) |
| Where it runs | The web, and apps for iOS and Android | The browser (a phone's too), and a program for macOS, Windows, and Linux, in a window or the terminal |
OptionStrat: its pricing page and site as of October 26, 2026. Options Meerkat: the pricing and the questions on this site.
Where Meerkat differs
What it does that OptionStrat does not set out to
- It starts from a question, not a strategy. In OptionStrat you pick the strategy and then see what it does. In Meerkat you can start from “is AAPL's IV high for it?” or “what would a 30-delta put on KO have done over a year?” and follow on; each answer builds on the one before. A case study follows one such path.
- It tests a rule on the past. A P/L chart shows what one trade does at expiry. A backtest shows what a rule did, trade after trade, through a year that went up and down: the drawdowns, the assignments, and the result against just holding the shares. The wheel on five large caps is one.
- It looks at the market around the trade. IV percentiles and skew say whether the options are cheap or dear for that stock; dealer gamma by strike says where hedging may pin or push the price. The dealer gamma case reads them.
Where OptionStrat is ahead
What Meerkat does not do
OptionStrat is the better tool for laying out a trade by hand and watching it change as you move a strike, and its paid plans cover every optionable symbol in real time. Options Meerkat covers the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 (real-time on Pro, delayed on Free), and it has no phone app of its own. Many traders would use both: Meerkat to decide what to look at and test the rule, a builder to fine-tune the strikes.
Try it on a stock you trade
The dashboard runs in the browser with no account; signing in, free, lets you ask Meerkat your own questions.
More comparisons: vs Unusual Whales · vs Market Chameleon
OptionStrat is a trademark of its owner, named here only to compare. Options Meerkat is not affiliated with or endorsed by it. Nothing on this page is investment advice; options can lose their whole value quickly.