Bear Call Spread Calculator
A bear call spread sells a call and buys a higher one for protection, collecting a credit that is also your maximum profit. Max loss is the strike width minus that credit. Enter both legs to see where the position turns.
The arithmetic
The default sells the $105 call for $2.20 and buys the $115 call for $0.70 — a net credit of $1.50, or $150.
- Max profit = the credit, $150, kept in full at any price at or below $105.
- Max loss = (strike width − credit) × 100 = (10 − 1.50) × 100 = $850, at any price at or above $115.
- Breakeven = short strike + credit = $106.50.
Read the risk/reward before the win rate
You are risking $850 to make $150. That is roughly 5.7:1 against you, which sounds alarming until you notice the position wins anywhere below $106.50 — including if the stock does nothing at all, which is most of the time. Credit spreads trade a high win rate against a large loss size, and that is a perfectly coherent structure. It is also the structure most likely to be misread, because a long run of small wins feels like skill right up until the single loss that costs six of them.
Run your own numbers through the expectancy calculator: at 5.7:1 against, this position needs to win about 85% of the time just to break even.
The long leg is not optional
Delete the $115 call and you have a naked short call — the same credit, the same behaviour below $105, and an unlimited loss above. The long call costs $70 and converts an unbounded tail into an $850 maximum. That is what you are buying, and on any underlying that can gap, it is worth considerably more than $70.
Where to place the short strike
Further out of the money means a smaller credit and a wider safety margin; closer to the money means more credit and less room. The useful discipline is to pick the strike from the chart, not the credit: find the price you genuinely do not expect the stock to exceed, put the short leg above it, and accept whatever credit that strike pays. Choosing the strike by working backwards from a target credit is how traders end up short strikes they never actually had a view on.
Where the 100x multiplier comes from
Product specification, not convention: OCC defines a standard equity option as covering 100 shares, premium quoted in points where one point is $100[1] — so a $1.85 premium costs $185, and every payoff here applies that multiplier to the leg structure.
One exception is worth knowing about: adjusted contracts, covered on the options profit calculator.
Calculating it is the easy half
The credit and the risk are both one subtraction away. The payoff is arithmetic — anyone can run it. What it cannot show is whether you believed the trade when you put it on, or are describing a winner picked out of a month of noise.
That is the gap kappi closes: the position committed before the fact, sealed and timestamped on a log nobody can edit afterwards. A screenshot of this chart proves you can use a calculator; a sealed commit proves you took the trade. $15/month, no free tier.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
What is the maximum loss on a bear call spread?
The strike width minus the net credit, times 100 per spread. A $105/$115 spread taken in for $1.50 risks $850.
What is the breakeven on a bear call spread?
The short call strike plus the net credit per share. Selling the $105 call for a $1.50 net credit breaks even at $106.50.
Why buy the higher call at all?
Without it the position is a naked short call with unlimited risk. The long leg converts that tail into a fixed maximum loss for a small part of the credit.
What win rate does a bear call spread need?
It depends on the risk/reward. Risking $850 to make $150 needs roughly an 85% win rate to break even before costs — which is why strike selection matters more than credit size.