The Best Cash-Secured Put Screeners in 2026

Disclosure: TickerRisk publishes this page and is one of the tools compared. We have tried to be straight about where the others are better, because a comparison that concludes “use ours” for every job is not worth reading. Where a competitor wins, it says so.

The short answer

If you want the deepest filtering and real-time data, use Barchart or Option Samurai. If you want a fast free scan with no signup, use Pineify or CoverEdge. If you want one number telling you whether anything is scheduled inside your expiry window — earnings, FDA decisions, legal filings, SEC events or clinical milestones — that is the specific job TickerRisk was built for.

Most people selling puts regularly end up using two tools: a deep screener to find candidates, and something to check the calendar before committing.

Comparison at a glance

Barchart

The most established of the group and the one to beat on raw capability. Its naked-put screener filters on the things you would expect — delta, days to expiry, premium, implied volatility — across a large universe with real-time data.

Relevant here: Barchart has a “Flag Earnings” option that marks any contract whose next earnings date falls on or before expiration. If earnings is the only event you care about, this covers it, free, from a source with far more history than us.

Where it falls short: the flag is earnings only, and it is a column you enable rather than a filter that removes traps by default. Nothing on FDA decisions, litigation or SEC events. The interface is dense if you are new to options.

Use it if: you want the widest, deepest options screening available and are comfortable doing your own event research.

Option Samurai

A paid screener aimed at people running systematic strategies, with prebuilt scans, backtesting and a large filter set. Well regarded in wheel and premium-selling communities.

Where it falls short: paid after the trial, and like Barchart its event awareness stops at earnings.

Use it if: you want saved, repeatable scans and are willing to pay for them.

Market Chameleon

The strongest of the group on volatility research, and the only mainstream tool we found that tracks biotech catalysts and links those dates directly to option chains. If you trade biotech, look at this before ours.

Where it falls short: catalyst coverage is concentrated in healthcare rather than being a general event-risk gate across the index, and much of the value sits behind a subscription.

Use it if: you trade earnings and biotech volatility specifically.

CoverEdge and Pineify

Two lighter free tools. CoverEdge ranks the highest-yielding puts across a couple of hundred tickers and refreshes during market hours. Pineify calculates annualised return on capital across the chain with no signup at all.

Where they fall short: both rank primarily by yield — which is exactly the metric that floats an earnings gap to the top of your list. Treat a high ranking as a question rather than an answer.

Use them if: you want a fast free look and will do the event check yourself.

TickerRisk

Ours, so read this with appropriate suspicion. It exists for one job: telling you whether anything is scheduled to happen to a stock before your option expires.

It scores every S&P 500 ticker 0–100 across five event types — earnings reports, FDA decisions, legal filings, SEC events and clinical milestones — for a specific expiry window, then filters wheel and covered-call candidates on that score rather than showing it as an optional column.

The genuinely distinctive part is that the score changes with your expiry. On one day in July 2026, Apple scored 51/100 (MEDIUM) over a one-week window and 97/100 (HIGH) over four weeks, because earnings fell in week three. Sell the weekly and the report is not your problem; sell the monthly and you have sold straight through it. A single static risk number cannot express that.

Where it falls short, plainly: option premiums come from a delayed feed rather than live NBBO, and are estimated where no bid exists (flagged in the output), so confirm in your broker before trading. Outside US market hours quotes go stale and candidate lists thin out. Coverage is the S&P 500 plus common ETFs, not every optionable stock. And the filter set is deliberately smaller than Barchart’s.

Use it if: your recurring mistake is selling into an event you did not know about. If you already check the calendar carefully by hand, a deeper screener may serve you better.

How to choose

• Widest filters, real-time data: Barchart
• Saved systematic scans: Option Samurai
• Biotech and volatility research: Market Chameleon
• Fast and free, no signup: Pineify or CoverEdge
• Catalyst check before selling: TickerRisk

One habit matters more than the tool you pick: before selling any put, check what is scheduled between today and expiry. Every gap-down story starts with someone who did not.

Try the catalyst check

Our wheel scanner shows this week’s cash-secured put candidates with the catalyst score already applied, and the cash-secured put screener frames the same data for acquiring stock at a discount. Related reading: how to check earnings risk before selling options and how to pick stocks for the wheel.