By Realtime Options ResearchUpdated
Options screeners and scanners
An options screener reduces a market of thousands of underlyings and millions of contracts to a research list. The four kinds — flow, chain parameter, volume and open-interest change, and volatility — answer different questions, and picking the wrong one is the most common reason a screener feels useless.
- Pages on this topic
- 22
- Where to start
- Read the scanner category page first to work out which type you need, then the specific screener page, then the tool guide for the dashboard that does the job.
- Applies to
- US-listed stock and ETF options
- Not included
- Signals, recommendations or predicted outcomes
Screening is a narrowing step, not a conclusion
A result surviving a filter means it passed the filter. It does not mean the trade behind it was informed, directional, or opening rather than closing. Ranking by premium finds the largest money committed; ranking by volume finds the largest contract counts, and those two lists rarely agree.
Realtime Options is flow-first: it screens executed activity and then supplies the strike, expiry, open interest and exposure context needed to interpret a result. It does not screen the chain by delta, implied volatility rank or spread width, and it does not rank strategies by expected return.
Concept guides
- Option finder tools: what each 'finder' query actually means
Option finder is not one product.
- Covered call screener: what it screens and how to read it
A covered call screener ranks call options you could sell against shares you already own, usually by premium received, return if the stock is unchanged, return if the shares are called away, an annualised equivalent of those returns, and the downside buffer the premium provides.
- Cash-secured put screener: collateral, yield and assignment
A cash-secured put screener ranks put options you could sell while holding the full strike value in cash, usually by premium, return on that collateral, an annualised equivalent and the effective purchase price if you are assigned.
- Unusual options activity
Unusual options activity is contract trading that stands out from a relevant baseline, such as typical volume, premium, trade count or repeat activity at a strike.
Screens, tools and comparisons
- Options screener for flow, strikes and unusual activity
An options screener reduces a large options market to the contracts and tickers worth researching.
- Free options scanner tool: what you can use without paying
A genuinely free options scanner usually provides delayed activity, a limited contract screen or real-time quotes inside a funded brokerage account.
- Live options flow with call, put and price context
Live options flow is a continuously updated view of executed options activity, usually classified by call or put, premium, strike, expiry and where the trade occurred relative to the bid and ask.
- Options flow tracker for sessions, history and context
An options flow tracker records how premium, volume, trade count and put/call activity change over time.
- Options scanner: the four types and which one you need
An options scanner is software that watches the US options market and surfaces contracts or tickers that meet a condition, so activity worth reviewing appears without reading the chain by hand.
- Free options screener: what free means, tool by tool
A free options screener is usually free in one of five different ways: bundled with a funded brokerage account, published free but delayed 15 to 30 minutes, freemium with the useful filters withheld, free for a fixed trial period, or genuinely free forever with a limited feature set.
- High premium options screener: two opposite meanings
High premium options screener describes two opposite searches.
- Best options screener: an honest evaluation, August 2026
There is no single best options screener, because the category contains three incompatible products.
- Options volume scanner: reading a volume spike correctly
An options volume scanner ranks contracts and tickers by how much trading occurred, usually against their own recent average, so unusually active strikes surface without reading the chain by hand.
- Options trading and analysis tools, organized by job
The options research toolkit divides into seven jobs: reading the chain and quotes, tracking flow and unusual activity, mapping positioning and dealer exposure, measuring volatility, modelling a strategy's payoff, following news and the calendar, and reviewing your own past decisions.
- Options strategy scanner
An options strategy scanner searches an option chain for multi-leg structures that match a target payoff, credit or probability, then ranks the candidates.
- Seven options flow tools and scanner alternatives compared
The best options flow tool is the one that preserves the context your decisions require.
Dashboard guides
- Algo Flow and Top Tickers dashboard
The Algo Flow and Top Tickers dashboard compares call and put volume through the session with the underlying price and ranked ticker activity.
- Bullish and Bearish Volume Change scanner
The Bullish and Bearish Volume Change scanner ranks symbols whose classified options activity changed most within the selected comparison window.
- Conviction Radar market scan
Conviction Radar plots contracts using classified premium, urgency, sweep share, persistence and recency, then records whether defined historical evidence conditions were met.
Applied workflows and method posts
- Why options volume alone misleads
A contract volume number is a sum, and sums destroy the structure that made them interesting.
- Premium versus contract count
Premium is a more honest measure of options activity than contract count because contracts are not comparable units.
Questions people ask about this
Is there a genuinely free options screener?
Yes, several — broker-bundled screeners and public tools from Barchart and exchange sites cover chain-parameter screening at no cost. Free flow screening is rarer: it is usually delayed, sampled or trial-limited. The free pages below name the real options and their limits.
What is the difference between a screener and a scanner?
In practice the words are used interchangeably. On this site, screening means filtering contracts by their characteristics, and scanning means watching executed trades as they print. The distinction matters because the two produce different lists from the same market.
Realtime Options is a data analytics and visualisation platform. It does not provide financial advice or trading recommendations, and it is not a registered investment advisor or broker-dealer. Options trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.