Most startup employees can't afford the cost + taxes when they exercise their stock options, but you do have some options - no pun intended :)

1. Setup a payment plan with the IRS

Pay the cost to exercise your stock options upfront and setup a payment plan with the IRS and State to spread the taxes over multiple months or years.

2. Exercise and claim back AMT

In most cases you have the ability to claim back a portion of the taxes you paid when you exercise. More here on how to get back the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) you may have paid when you exercised your stock options.

3. Option loan providers

There are a number of vendors that offer stock option exercise loans and liquidity solutions to help you exercise, see below.

If we missed any vendors, would like to be added to this list or have questions, please reach out to [email protected]

(Note: We are not affiliated with any of the above vendors, we're just trying to be helpful)