VolRadar's answer:

VolRadar is the only daily options analytics platform built specifically for premium sellers — iron condors, credit spreads, cash-secured puts, covered calls, the wheel. Three things set it apart:

• Weather Score (0–100) — a single proprietary number telling you whether today is actually a good day to sell premium, synthesizing term structure, regime, and event density. No other tool gives you this one-glance regime check.
• Volatility Risk Premium (VRP) ranking — instead of just showing IV Rank, VolRadar computes the realized-vs-implied edge on every S&P 500 ticker using Yang-Zhang RV, ranking setups by true edge, not just high IV.
• Computed strikes, not just data — you get the actual short strikes (1SD / 2SD) for every top setup, so morning research takes 30 seconds, not an hour.

Free tier forever, no credit card. Built solo by a retail options trader for retail options traders.

VolRadar's answer:

Compared to OptionStrat or Market Chameleon: VolRadar is workflow-first, not data-first. Those tools give you a strategy builder or a data terminal; VolRadar pre-computes which strikes to sell on which tickers for tomorrow's open — you don't build, you act.

Compared to Barchart or free broker screeners: Barchart gives raw IV data; VolRadar ranks setups by Volatility Risk Premium (realized-vs-implied edge), not just high IV. High IV without VRP just means the market expects movement — VolRadar tells you when selling is actually overpriced.

Compared to thinkorswim or ToS's options analytics: No brokerage account needed. Works in a browser. Free tier gives you the Weather Score, 4 free calculators (IV Rank lookup, Expected Move, Options P&L with 14 strategies, Wheel tracker), and the basic scanner — forever, no credit card.

Compared to paid newsletters: VolRadar is the data, not opinion. The Weather Score and computed strikes are transparent, methodology-documented, and updated every trading night — you make the decision, the tool saves you the research.

Starter plan is $15/mo. No annual lock-in games, no upsell ladder.

VolRadar's answer:

Retail options traders who sell premium — the "theta gang" community. Specifically:

• Wheel strategy traders running CSPs and covered calls on SPY, QQQ, and S&P 500 names looking for consistent income
• Iron condor and credit spread sellers who need to know when IV is rich enough to sell and where to place strikes
• PMCC and covered call ETF builders looking for high-IV names with defined downside
• Indie traders graduating from paper trading who need quant-grade tooling without a $300/mo Bloomberg terminal
• Part-time traders with day jobs who have 5 minutes before the open, not 60

Typical user: $25k–$500k portfolio, 2–10 open positions at a time, runs the wheel and/or sells premium on 5–15 core tickers. Wants edge, not hopes. Already reads r/thetagang, subscribes to tastytrade, and has opinions about VIX term structure.

VolRadar is NOT for day traders, crypto speculators, or buy-and-hold long-only investors.

VolRadar's answer:

VolRadar started from a personal pain point: every trading morning, I was burning 30–60 minutes pulling up 20–30 tickers on multiple tabs, cross-checking IV Rank, glancing at VIX term structure, reading earnings calendars, and guessing where to place short strikes for iron condors and the wheel.

The workflow was slow, inconsistent, and prone to anchoring bias — on choppy weeks I'd talk myself into trades that didn't actually have edge. I wanted three things:

• A single number that tells me if today is a good day to sell premium at all (hence the Weather Score).
• A ranking of tickers by actual edge (VRP — realized-vs-implied), not just high IV (which can be a trap).
• Pre-computed short strikes so I'm not re-doing the same 1SD math on 30 symbols every morning.

I built the first version for myself over 2024, ran it through a full earnings season, and kept adding the pieces that actually changed my trading — the scanner, the ticker-level context, the free calculators (wheel tracker especially — critical for the cost-basis-through-assignment math).

VolRadar launched publicly in 2025 as a freemium tool so other premium sellers could use the same engine I use daily. Free tier forever because the wheel and iron condor crowd is my people, and I don't believe in paywalling edge behind $300/mo Bloomberg terminals when the retail community deserves better tooling.

Built solo, bootstrapped, from Latvia.

VolRadar's answer:

Frontend: Next.js (React), Tailwind CSS. Server-side rendered with ISR for SEO; client-side hydration for interactive scanners and calculators.

Backend: Python (FastAPI) for the computation service, PostgreSQL for ticker and snapshot storage, Render for hosting. Analytics via Polygon.io (OHLC) and CBOE (VIX/VIX3M) data feeds.

Analytics engine: Yang-Zhang realized volatility estimator (log-OHLC), proprietary VRP and Weather Score scoring models, nightly batch ingest for 500+ S&P 500 tickers.

Payments: Paddle (merchant-of-record — handles EU VAT and compliance).

Auth: Clerk.

Monitoring + CI: GitHub Actions, standard observability stack.

No AI/LLM in the core analytics — the Weather Score, IV Rank, and VRP calculations are classical quantitative finance (not machine learning). AI is used only for methodology content and glossary authoring.