Iron Condor Screener Excel: 2026 Options Income Dashboard for Premium Sellers

Iron condor screener excel - if you sell short premium for a living, you already know that the hard part is not learning the four-leg structure. It is finding the right underlyings to put it on this week. Premium is rich on some names and crushed on others. Realized vol moves around. Expected moves stretch and compress. A spreadsheet that ranks the whole watchlist by the metrics that actually drive the trade - implied volatility, IV rank, the volatility risk premium, expected move, credit per dollar of wing - is faster than scrolling option chains one ticker at a time.

This guide walks through a premium, dashboard-style iron condor screener excel template built on MarketXLS. The workbook screens 25 of the most liquid optionable underlyings, surfaces a 1-sigma short strike ladder, computes credit and max loss per contract, projects payoff across five underlying-move scenarios, and sizes contracts from your buying power. Two downloads at the bottom of the post - a static sample with current snapshot data, and a live-formula template that refreshes every time you open Excel.

Iron Condor Screener Excel at a Glance

Before the deep dive, here is what the dashboard surfaces for each underlying on day one. Numbers below are an illustrative snapshot captured 2026-05-13 from the sample workbook - not a recommendation.

The screener inside the workbook holds all 25 tickers, fifteen columns of data, and three layers of conditional formatting. Sort by IV rank to find the richest premium, sort by IV minus RV to find the largest volatility risk premium, or sort by expected move to find the names with the widest natural profit zone.

What An Iron Condor Actually Sells

An iron condor is a four-leg, defined-risk options structure. The trader sells one out-of-the-money put spread and one out-of-the-money call spread on the same underlying and same expiration. The four strikes look like this from low to high:

1. Long put (buy) - the lowest strike, the bottom wing
2. Short put (sell) - one strike up, the bottom of the profit zone
3. Short call (sell) - well above the current price, the top of the profit zone
4. Long call (buy) - the highest strike, the top wing

The net of those four trades is a credit. The trader collects premium and wants the underlying to finish at expiry between the short put and short call. If it does, all four options expire worthless and the trader keeps the credit. If the underlying drifts outside the short strikes, the long wings cap the loss at (wing width minus credit) times 100 per contract.

What is the iron condor actually selling? Two things, mostly. First, it sells the volatility risk premium - the persistent wedge between the option market's forward-looking implied volatility and what the underlying actually realizes. Second, it sells time. Every day the underlying does not move much, the options bleed value via theta and the position drifts toward max profit. The screener prioritizes finding underlyings where both wedges look attractive at the moment.

When the Setup Works

Iron condor sellers want three things at entry:

• Elevated implied volatility relative to recent realized volatility - the volatility risk premium is the structural edge
• Moderate IV rank - not so low that the credit is unworthy of the wing-width risk, not so high that there is genuinely a fundamental catalyst the market is pricing in
• Range-bound recent action - sideways underlyings finish between short strikes far more often than trending ones

When IV is crushed across the board - VIX in the low teens, IV rank below 20 on most names - the credit you collect on a 1-sigma condor barely covers commissions and the wing width risk dominates. Conversely, when IV explodes near a known event - earnings, FOMC, a tariff headline - the wide expected moves can compensate for the lost narrow-band probability, but only if the catalyst plays out tame. Most condor sellers steer clear of the binary catalysts entirely.

The screener does not make these judgement calls for you. It ranks the universe by the inputs that matter so you can apply your own filter on top.

Iron Condor Screener Excel - What's Inside the Template

The template ships as a 10-sheet workbook. Each sheet has a job; together they cover entry, sizing, and stress.

1. Cover - branded landing page with title, subtitle, version, data-as-of date, and a clickable table of contents. Hidden gridlines, navy background, gold accents.
2. How To Use - seven-step tutorial covering inputs, watchlist editing, dashboard reading, strike selection, scenario stress, position sizing, and the IV vs realized vol comparison.
3. Inputs - yellow-highlighted input cells: buying power, percent of portfolio per trade, target days to expiration, wing width (as percent of price), risk-free rate, minimum IV rank threshold. Three data-validation dropdowns: premium stance (Conservative / Balanced / Aggressive), vol regime (Compressed / Normal / Elevated / Stressed), bias (Bearish / Neutral / Bullish). All 25 watchlist tickers sit in editable yellow cells.
4. Dashboard - the headline sheet. Six KPI tiles across the top show median IV30, median IV rank, names above the IV-rank threshold, median IV minus RV spread, count of names with positive volatility risk premium, and spot VIX level. Two embedded charts - a horizontal bar chart of IV30 by ticker and a scatter chart of IV rank versus expected dollar move. The screener at the bottom holds 25 rows by 15 columns with three layers of conditional formatting: color scales on IV30, IV rank, and the spread; data bars on expected move and options volume; an icon set on 1-year return.
5. Strike Selection - the actionable sheet. Each row shows the underlying price, expected move, 1-sigma short put strike, long put wing, 1-sigma short call strike, long call wing, wing width, estimated credit per share, max profit, max loss, credit-as-percent-of-width, and the resulting risk-reward ratio. Three data bars (max profit green, max loss red, risk-reward blue) and a color scale on credit-to-width make the ranking visible at a glance.
6. Scenario Analysis - profit and loss at expiry across five underlying-move scenarios (-10%, -5%, flat, +5%, +10%). Color scale from red (loss) through amber (breakeven) to green (full credit). Four interpretation notes below the table cover max profit conditions, max loss conditions, and the reality that real-world condor management rarely waits for expiry.
7. Position Sizing - contracts per name from the buying power input and the percent-per-trade input. Computes risk per trade, contracts that fit, total at risk per name, total credit per name, and percent of buying power. Totals row aggregates the watchlist. Conditional formatting flags when buying power consumption gets uncomfortable.
8. IV vs Realized Vol - the volatility risk premium heatmap. Shows IV30, 30-day realized vol, the spread, the ratio, and a textual verdict (RICH, FAIR, CRUSHED). Embedded bar chart visualizes the spread across the watchlist.
9. Methodology - eleven sections covering the universe, volatility inputs, expected-move math, strike construction, credit and risk estimation, the probability-of-profit assumption, position sizing logic, scenario mechanics, data sources, known limitations, and an honest "what this template is NOT" footer.
10. Glossary & Disclaimer - 22-term glossary covering iron condor, short and long strikes, wing width, credit, max profit, max loss, IV, IV rank, IV percentile, realized vol, volatility risk premium, expected move, probability of profit, breakeven, DTE, delta, theta, vega, buying power reduction, liquidity, and skew - plus a multi-paragraph educational disclaimer.

Tab colors are set per sheet: navy on the cover, blue on the dashboard, gold on inputs, amber on strike selection, purple on scenarios, green on position sizing, red on IV vs RV, gray on methodology, black on glossary. Frozen panes everywhere. Hidden gridlines on the cover and dashboard. Landscape print area set on the dashboard.

The MarketXLS Functions Doing the Work

Live-formula version of the workbook uses these MarketXLS functions, each verified against the Function Docs library:

=QM_Last("SPY")                      Current underlying price
=ImpliedVolatility30D("SPY")         30-day implied volatility
=ImpliedVolatilityRank1Y("SPY")      1-year IV rank (0 to 100)
=ImpliedVolatilityPct1Y("SPY")       1-year IV percentile
=StockVolatilityThirtyDays("SPY")    30-day realized (close-to-close) volatility
=Beta("SPY")                         Beta versus the broad market
=AverageDailyVolume("SPY")           Average daily share volume
=MarketCapitalization("SPY")         Market capitalization in dollars
=StockReturnOneYear("SPY")           1-year total return
=FiftyTwoWeekHigh("SPY")             52-week high
=FiftyTwoWeekLow("SPY")              52-week low
=RSI("SPY")                          14-day Relative Strength Index
=QM_GetOptionChainActive("SPY")      Live option chain (use to verify the displayed strikes)
=QM_GetOptionQuotesAndGreeks("SPY 250620C00580000")  Quote and Greeks for a specific option
=BlackScholesOptionValueWithUserInputs(...)          Theoretical option value cross-check
=QM_Last("VIX")                      Spot VIX cash index

The expected-move formula, written in plain Excel referencing the Inputs sheet, looks like this:

=QM_Last("SPY") * ImpliedVolatility30D("SPY") * SQRT('Inputs'!B7 / 365)

Where cell Inputs!B7 holds your target days-to-expiration input. Change DTE from 30 to 45 on the Inputs sheet and every expected move and every short strike on the Strike Selection sheet shifts accordingly.

Reading the IV Rank Column

IV rank is the single most useful number on the dashboard. It scales today's implied volatility against the trailing 1-year envelope from 0 (today's IV is at the 1-year low) to 100 (today's IV is at the 1-year high). The screener color-scales IV rank from red below 20 through amber around 40 to green above 60.

Why does IV rank matter so much for iron condors? Because the iron condor seller is structurally short vega. They profit when implied volatility falls. If IV is already at a 1-year low when the trade is opened, there is not much room for it to compress further. The pricing of the short legs is correspondingly thin and the credit relative to wing width is poor.

When IV rank is high - say above 50 - the implied volatility is elevated relative to its own history. The credit collected on a 1-sigma condor is richer. If volatility mean-reverts back toward the lower part of its 1-year range, the trade benefits both from time decay and from the vega-driven mark-to-market improvement.

This is one of the few cases where a single number does most of the work. Most experienced premium sellers will not put on an iron condor at IV rank below 30. The default Inputs threshold is 30 for that reason.

The Volatility Risk Premium Column

IV rank tells you where today's IV sits in its own history. The IV minus RV column tells you whether the option market is pricing more volatility than the underlying has actually delivered recently. That gap - the volatility risk premium - is what condor sellers structurally harvest.

The math is straightforward. Implied volatility is the option market's forward expectation. Realized volatility is the annualized standard deviation of close-to-close returns the stock actually printed. If IV is 25% and RV is 18%, the option market is pricing about 7 percentage points more annualized volatility than the stock actually realized. That 7-point gap is the seller's edge - the compensation paid to whoever is willing to take the other side of a tail-risk trade.

The screener color-scales the IV-RV spread from red (negative, meaning IV is below realized vol and selling premium is a bad idea) through amber (zero, fairly priced) to green (positive, premium is rich). Most months across most underlyings the spread is mildly positive. When it is across-the-board negative, premium selling gets harder.

The Strike Selection Logic

Strike Selection lays out a textbook 1-sigma symmetric iron condor for every name on the watchlist:

• Short put = Price - Expected Move
• Short call = Price + Expected Move
• Long put = Short Put - Wing Width
• Long call = Short Call + Wing Width
• Wing Width = Price * 5% (editable on Inputs)
• Credit per share ≈ 0.32 * IV * sqrt(DTE / 365) * Price (educational approximation)
• Max Profit = Credit * 100 (single contract)
• Max Loss = (Wing Width - Credit) * 100

The credit-per-share formula is a teaching tool, not a pricing engine. Real prints will differ - especially on names with steep skew where the put side trades richer than the call side. The methodology sheet inside the workbook is honest about this. Always cross-check displayed credits against the live option chain via =QM_GetOptionChainActive("SPY") or =QM_GetOptionQuotesAndGreeks(...) before placing the trade.

Why does the screener use 1-sigma symmetric? Because it gives a consistent ranking framework across the watchlist. Some sellers prefer 16-delta short strikes (slightly outside 1-sigma), others prefer 30-delta short strikes (closer in, higher credit, lower probability of profit). The 1-sigma anchor is the common middle ground and the strike grid translates easily into either alternative by widening or narrowing the short strikes.

Position Sizing Inside the Template

Iron condors are defined-risk, but they are not low-risk. The margin (buying power reduction) for a defined-risk condor at most retail brokers equals the max loss per contract. Position sizing matters because a sequence of three or four losing condors during a vol expansion can easily eat a quarter of an undersized account.

The Position Sizing sheet starts from two inputs on the Inputs sheet: total buying power and percent of portfolio per trade. The default settings ($100,000 buying power, 2% per trade) imply $2,000 of risk per condor. The sheet then divides $2,000 by the per-contract max loss to get the contract count, rounds down, and reports total at-risk capital and total credit collected.

A SPY iron condor with $28 wing width and $14 credit has max loss around $14 * 100 = $1,400 per contract. Two thousand dollars of risk budget allows one contract. A TSLA iron condor with much wider wings ($218 * 5% = $11 wing width is too tight; real TSLA condors use 15-20% wings) and a much larger max loss might fit only a fraction of a contract - and the sizer will show zero contracts.

The totals row at the bottom of the sheet sums total at-risk capital across the whole watchlist. If you put on every condor the screener suggests at the default 2% per trade, you might commit 30-40% of buying power. Most experienced sellers stagger across 4-8 positions and re-deploy as winners close.

Iron Condor Screener Excel vs Generic Options Tools

Many brokers offer in-platform options screeners. Many third-party options platforms offer IV rank lookups. Where does an iron-condor-focused excel template add value?

• One workbook with one watchlist - the same 25 (or your chosen 30) tickers ranked the same way every day, instead of bouncing between three different tools with different universes
• Excel-native - read formulas, edit formulas, fork the workbook to test variations, save versions next to your trade log
• Live MarketXLS data - prices, IV, IV rank, IV percentile, and realized vol all refresh in place when the workbook is open
• Methodology you can audit - every column is computed from documented formulas you can see, not from a black-box screener

This template is also opinionated. It bakes in the 1-sigma symmetric strike construction, the 5%-of-price wing width default, the credit approximation, and the educational IV-rank threshold of 30. None of those defaults are sacred. The Inputs sheet exposes every one of them - change them and the whole workbook recomputes.

Putting the Workbook to Work

A typical Sunday-night routine using the iron condor screener excel template might look like this:

1. Open the workbook. Confirm prices refreshed by checking the data-as-of header on the Cover sheet.
2. Glance at the dashboard KPI tiles. Median IV rank above 30? Volatility risk premium positive? VIX inside the historic range? If yes, proceed. If no, sit out the week.
3. Sort the dashboard screener by IV rank descending. Note the top eight names.
4. Cross-reference the Strike Selection sheet for the top eight. Eliminate any names where the credit-to-width ratio is below 20%. Eliminate any names trading inside 5% of their 52-week high or low (use the FiftyTwoWeekHigh and FiftyTwoWeekLow MarketXLS columns).
5. Check the IV vs Realized Vol sheet. Drop any names with verdict CRUSHED.
6. Read the Scenario Analysis row for each survivor. Verify the -5% and +5% cells are still green (full credit retained).
7. Open the Position Sizing sheet. Confirm contract counts fit the buying-power budget. Aim for 4-6 positions, never more than 8.
8. Pull up the live option chain in your broker for each survivor. Compare displayed strikes and credits to the workbook. Adjust short strikes to actual deltas. Stagger entries to avoid concentration risk.

The whole workflow takes about 20 minutes - faster after the first two weeks once muscle memory kicks in.

How the Screener Behaves in Different Vol Regimes

The screener is most useful in compressed-to-normal volatility regimes (VIX 13 to 20). In those windows IV rank dispersion across the watchlist is wide enough that some names are still rich while others are crushed - exactly the dispersion the screener is designed to exploit.

In elevated regimes (VIX 22 to 30) the dashboard typically lights up green across the IV-rank column. Selling premium is rich. The harder problem is that expected moves are wider, so the screener's 1-sigma short strikes drift further from the spot price. Wing widths need to scale up correspondingly or the wide strikes leave the position with skinny credit relative to width.

In stressed regimes (VIX above 30) most experienced premium sellers reduce position size, widen the days-to-expiration, and shrink the wings. The template's defaults (30 DTE, 5% wing) are aimed at compressed-to-normal regimes; the Inputs sheet exposes every parameter for adjustment.

The screener does not have a "skip this week" warning. Reading the KPI tiles is the human's job.

Backtested vs Lived Reality

The template's payoff math assumes the trader holds to expiration. Real iron condor sellers almost never do. The standard playbook closes the entire position at 25 to 50 percent of max profit, which on the credit-per-share approximation corresponds to closing 7 to 14 days after entry on a 30-DTE condor. Holding to expiration converts a high-probability income trade into a binary expiration-day coin flip on the short strikes - exactly the opposite of what condor sellers want.

The Scenario Analysis sheet inside the workbook is therefore a worst-case static snapshot, not a backtest. The interpretation notes at the bottom of the sheet are clear about this. The numbers in the scenario columns answer the question "What happens if I do nothing and let it ride to expiry?" - which is useful for sizing the downside, not for projecting expected return.

Anyone serious about systematizing iron condors should pair the screener with a separate trade log that records entry date, exit date, entry credit, exit debit, percent-of-max realized, and management actions. The screener picks the trades; the log measures whether the picks were any good.

Iron Condor Screener Excel - FAQ

What is an iron condor screener?

An iron condor screener is a ranking tool that surfaces underlyings well-suited to iron condor entry on a given day. The metrics that matter are implied volatility, IV rank, the volatility risk premium (IV minus realized vol), expected move, and liquidity. The iron condor screener excel template ranks 25 liquid optionable underlyings on all of those at once and adds strike selection and position sizing.

How do I use the iron condor screener excel template?

Open the workbook in Excel with the MarketXLS add-in installed. Edit the Inputs sheet to set your buying power, percent-per-trade, target days-to-expiration, wing width, and minimum IV rank. The Dashboard, Strike Selection, Scenario Analysis, and Position Sizing sheets refresh automatically. Sort the dashboard by IV rank descending, eliminate names with CRUSHED verdicts on the IV vs RV sheet, and verify the Scenario Analysis sheet shows green cells at -5% and +5%.

What IV rank is good for selling iron condors?

A common educational rule of thumb is to sell iron condors when IV rank is at least 30 to 50. Below 30 the credit collected on a 1-sigma condor is typically thin relative to the wing width risk. Above 50 implies the option market is pricing elevated forward volatility; if the underlying then realizes calmer, the position benefits from both vega compression and theta decay. The template's default IV rank threshold is 30 and is editable on the Inputs sheet.

What is the volatility risk premium?

The volatility risk premium is the gap between implied volatility (the option market's forward expectation) and realized volatility (what the underlying actually delivered). A persistent positive gap means option buyers are paying option sellers more than the underlying's actual movement warrants. That structural wedge - typically 3 to 6 percentage points annualized across major indices over multi-year windows - is what short-premium strategies harvest.

Which underlyings are best for iron condors?

Liquid index ETFs (SPY, QQQ, IWM, DIA), sector ETFs (XLE, XLF, XLK, GLD), and the most heavily-optioned mega caps. Tight bid-ask spreads, deep open interest, and weekly expiration cycles are mandatory - thin options chains can eat the entire condor credit in slippage on entry and exit. The 25-name default watchlist inside the template is curated for liquidity; edit the tickers on the Inputs sheet if you want to focus on a different universe.

How many contracts should I trade per iron condor?

Most experienced premium sellers risk 1 to 3 percent of total buying power per condor. The Position Sizing sheet inside the template starts from two inputs - total buying power and percent-per-trade - and divides risk budget by per-contract max loss to compute the contract count. Aim for 4 to 8 simultaneous positions across uncorrelated underlyings; never concentrate the whole book on one sector or one name.

When should I close an iron condor?

Common playbook: close at 25 to 50 percent of max profit, or close one tested side and roll the untested side for additional credit. Holding to expiration converts a managed high-probability income trade into a binary expiration-day coin flip on the short strikes - exactly the opposite of what iron condor sellers want. The template's Scenario Analysis sheet shows expiry payoff for sizing the worst case, not for projecting expected return.

The Bottom Line

The iron condor screener excel template is a 10-sheet dashboard that surfaces IV rank, the volatility risk premium, expected move, credit, max loss, probability of profit, scenario P&L, and position sizing across 25 liquid optionable underlyings in one workbook. It does not pick trades for you. It surfaces the candidates that meet a clear set of criteria, lets you tune the criteria on a single Inputs sheet, and shows the math behind every column so you can audit and modify.

It is a tool for the iron condor seller who already knows the mechanics and wants the screening to be fast, consistent, and Excel-native. It is also a useful learning artifact for anyone who wants to see how the inputs that matter for short-premium options trading fit together inside a real workbook.

Download the template, open it in Excel with the MarketXLS add-in connected, and the whole thing refreshes the next time the market opens. To explore the full MarketXLS function library and how the screener was built, visit marketxls.com or book a demo for a walkthrough on the platform's options data, screening, and Excel integration.

Download the templates:

• - static snapshot, each data cell comments the MarketXLS formula that produced it
• - live formulas, refreshes every time you open Excel