Breakeven
The underlying price at expiration where a strategy’s profit and loss equals zero. A long call breaks even at strike plus premium; a long put at strike minus premium; multi-leg structures can have two or more breakevens.
Breakevens turn a vague thesis into a testable statement: “this trade makes money if the stock is above 105 in March” is either plausible or it is not. The payoff calculator on this site computes them exactly by solving each linear segment of the expiration payoff.
Note that expiration breakevens overstate what is needed before expiration — a long option can be sold at a profit long before the stock reaches the static breakeven, and a short position can lose money without it ever being touched.
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