Ultimate Options by Andy Tanner Review (2026): Is It Worth $7,997?

Is Andy Tanner's Ultimate Options worth $7,997? That is the question everyone lands on this page asking. This review gives you a straight answer — with every lesson examined, every named framework extracted, and an honest account of where the course delivers and where it falls short. Not cliff notes. Full deconstructions.

Before spending $7,997, you can read the complete structured breakdown of Ultimate Options on coursetoaction.com — every framework decoded, every lesson summarized, audio included — free to start with no credit card required.

Andy Tanner is not a YouTube personality who stumbled into options trading. He is the official Rich Dad Advisor for Paper Assets — chosen personally by Robert Kiyosaki to teach the stock market side of the Rich Dad investing philosophy. His firm has trained over 250,000 people in 108 countries. He's a bestselling author of two books: 401(k)aos, which dissects the hidden dangers of the standard retirement account, and The Stock Market Cash Flow, published in the Rich Dad Advisor series. He's been teaching options since 2008 when he co-developed Rich Dad's Stock Success System. The course you're evaluating here is co-hosted with Corey Halliday, and together they've refined a teaching methodology that builds from first principles up through complex multi-leg strategies without skipping steps.

That credibility matters at $7,997. Here is what is actually inside.

The Course at a Glance

The Core Insight: You Are Already in the Insurance Business — You Just Don't Know It Yet

Most people who come to options come looking for leverage. A way to multiply gains. A shortcut to fast returns. Andy Tanner's central argument inverts that entirely: options are not gambling instruments. They are insurance contracts. And the money in insurance is made on the selling side, not the buying side.

This one reframe changes everything that follows. Insurance companies do not win every claim. They lose regularly, predictably, and that is priced into the model. What they never do is let a single claim bankrupt the business. They use actuarial science — probability, position sizing, portfolio diversification — to ensure that inevitable losses are survivable and that the aggregate math favors the house over time.

Tanner's course teaches you to operate options the same way. Sell premium with high probability of expiring worthless. Size positions at 1–3% of portfolio so that any single loss is recoverable. Build a portfolio of uncorrelated positions so that one losing trade does not cascade into a portfolio catastrophe. Understand the specific, brutal math of drawdowns: a 50% loss requires a 100% gain just to get back to even. That asymmetry is why position sizing is not a secondary concern — it is the entire game.

This is the operating philosophy that makes every other framework in the course make sense. If you internalize it, you will trade differently. If you don't, the strategies still work but you will eventually blow a position because you forgot you were running an insurance company, not a casino.

The Frameworks: Where the Gold Actually Is

1. The Four Pillars of Investing

Tanner organizes all investing decisions around four pillars: Fundamentals (what is the underlying business or asset actually worth?), Technicals (what is the chart telling you about price movement and momentum?), Cash Flow (is this position generating income, and is that income reliable?), and Risk Management (what is your plan when the position goes wrong?). Most retail investors focus on Fundamentals and Technicals because those are what financial media discusses. Tanner's argument — and the argument of the Rich Dad philosophy broadly — is that Cash Flow and Risk Management are where sophisticated investors actually live. The course is organized around all four, but the practical weight sits heavily on Cash Flow and Risk Management. Every strategy taught is evaluated through all four lenses before Tanner considers it complete.

2. The TEST Framework

Before entering any options trade, Tanner applies a four-variable checklist: Time (how much time is left until expiration, and does that timeline match your thesis?), Entry (is the entry price justified by the technical and fundamental setup?), Stop (where does the position get closed if it moves against you, and is that stop defined before entry?), Target (what is the specific profit target, and is it realistic given the setup?). The Stop element is the one most traders skip, because defining a stop requires accepting that the trade might be wrong — and accepting that is uncomfortable. Tanner teaches it as non-negotiable. A trade without a predefined stop is not a trade. It is a hope.

3. The Big Three

Every position Tanner enters is evaluated through three variables simultaneously: Risk (the maximum amount that can be lost on this trade), Reward (the maximum amount that can be gained), and Probability (the statistical likelihood that the position expires profitably). The key insight is that these three do not exist in isolation — they are interdependent, and optimizing for one affects the others. High-probability trades (iron condors at 80–90% win rate) carry limited reward. High-reward trades carry lower probability. Tanner teaches students to find positions where the Probability is sufficiently high to justify the Risk-to-Reward ratio — which, for premium-selling strategies, means accepting modest rewards in exchange for high win rates and defined maximum losses.

4. Three Crystal Balls (Plan A / Plan B / Plan C)

This is the framework that separates Tanner's risk management approach from generic options education. Before entering any position, he requires a plan for three scenarios: Plan A (price goes up), Plan B (price goes down), Plan C (price goes sideways). Most traders have a Plan A. Some have a Plan B. Almost no one has a Plan C — which is why sideways markets, the most common market condition, destroy traders who have not planned for them. Tanner walks through specific adjustments for each scenario, including when to roll a position forward, when to close early, and when to do nothing. The Three Crystal Balls framework is what makes iron condors and covered calls manageable rather than terrifying when the market moves against you.

5. The Six-Scenario Risk Management System

Tanner maps every possible options trade outcome onto six distinct scenarios — combining price movement (up, down, sideways) with time (before expiration, at expiration). Each scenario has a specific management protocol: roll, close, hold, or adjust. This grid-based approach prevents the most common trading mistake, which is making reactive emotional decisions under pressure. When your iron condor is being tested, you do not need to improvise. You need to identify which of the six scenarios you are in and execute the protocol for that scenario. The systematization of what most traders handle emotionally is one of the most practically valuable contributions in the course.

6. The Delta Hedging Framework

Delta measures how much an option's price changes for each $1 move in the underlying asset. Tanner teaches delta hedging as a method for neutralizing directional risk — constructing a position where the net delta is near zero so that the position profits from time decay and volatility contraction regardless of which direction the stock moves. This is the mechanism underlying the iron condor strategy and several of the more advanced multi-leg positions in the course. The lesson sequence — from explaining what delta means, to showing how delta changes as the underlying moves, to demonstrating how to construct a delta-neutral position on a live option chain — is one of the clearest explanations of this concept available in any format.

7. The Three Sides of the Crypto Coin

The six-lesson crypto module teaches a framework specific to crypto assets: the Three Sides of the Crypto Coin — the underlying technology and its utility (Side 1), the regulatory and macroeconomic environment (Side 2), and the market sentiment and trading dynamics (Side 3). Tanner's core point is that most crypto investors only evaluate Side 1 (the tech), and are blindsided by Sides 2 and 3. The module also covers how to sell covered calls on crypto positions to generate monthly income — the specific example used demonstrates approximately $3,100 per month in premium income from three positions — which is the most practically interesting application for crypto holders who currently generate no cash flow from holdings.

8. The Federal Reserve Policy Levers Model

The ten-lesson Federal Reserve module teaches monetary policy through a simplified model of the levers the Fed can pull — interest rates, reserve requirements, open market operations, quantitative easing and tightening — and how each lever affects asset prices, credit conditions, and the broader economy. Tanner's argument for including this module is direct: if you do not understand what the Fed is doing and why, you are trading in the dark. Interest rate changes are the single largest driver of options premium levels (via their effect on implied volatility and the risk-free rate component of options pricing). Understanding Fed policy is not just macroeconomic literacy — it is a competitive advantage in managing an options portfolio.

What It Teaches Exceptionally Well

What It Doesn't Cover

This is the section no other review will give you. We tell you what the course does not cover.

Tax implications of options trading are entirely absent. This is a significant gap given that options strategies — particularly short-term premium selling — generate ordinary income in many tax jurisdictions, which is taxed at a different rate than long-term capital gains. You will need a CPA familiar with options taxation before implementing these strategies at scale.

Earnings-based fundamental analysis is mentioned but not built into the course. Tanner covers what fundamentals are and why they matter (via the Four Pillars), but does not teach how to read an income statement, evaluate a balance sheet, or assess a company's competitive position. If you are selecting underlying stocks for covered call or iron condor strategies using fundamental criteria, this course does not give you that analytical toolkit.

Real estate, business equity, and commodity investing are outside scope by design. This is a paper assets course — stocks and options on stocks, and crypto options. If your portfolio includes real estate or business equity, the Fed module provides useful macroeconomic context but the strategies themselves do not cross asset classes.

Several lessons in the course — particularly review and recap sessions — have thin content relative to their runtime. These are unlikely to damage your learning, but they dilute the overall density of the material and are worth being aware of if you are evaluating value per lesson.

Who This Course Is Actually For

You are the ideal student for Ultimate Options if you fall into one of these specific situations:

You are a stock investor who holds a portfolio of individual stocks or ETFs and has never generated income from that portfolio. You understand the market but your only return mechanism is price appreciation. Covered calls on your existing holdings could generate meaningful monthly cash flow from assets you already own — and this course teaches you how to execute that safely.

You are a stock trader who already knows how to read charts and evaluate companies, and you are ready to add options as an income layer rather than a speculation tool. The TEST Framework and the Big Three give you a systematic entry and exit process that integrates with your existing analytical approach.

You are a crypto holder who is sitting on a position generating zero cash flow, watching the value fluctuate, and wondering if there is a more productive way to hold these assets. The crypto module's covered call income example — approximately $3,100 per month from three positions — is the most concrete answer to that question available in a structured course format.

You are an entrepreneur, business owner, or executive who wants to understand how Federal Reserve policy affects your business, your investments, and the economy you operate in. The monetary policy module alone provides a level of financial literacy that is genuinely rare outside formal economics training.

Who Should Skip This Course

If you are a complete beginner with no stock market experience, this course will be hard. Tanner assumes you know what a stock is, what an exchange is, and why prices move. He does not assume you know options — those mechanics are built from the ground up — but the foundational stock market knowledge needs to exist before you arrive.

If you are looking for active day-trading strategies, this course is not built for that. Premium-selling strategies like iron condors are designed around weekly and monthly expiration cycles. The mindset is that of an insurance company — patient, systematic, probability-driven — not a day trader managing intraday momentum.

If you need tax guidance, tax-loss harvesting strategies, or any legally specific financial advice, this course does not provide that and is explicit about not providing it. You will need professional tax and legal counsel alongside any options trading education.

If $7,997 is a significant financial stretch given your current portfolio size, the math may not work in your favor. The 1–3% position sizing rule implies a meaningful minimum portfolio size to generate income worth the tuition in a reasonable timeframe. This is worth calculating before enrolling.

The Verdict

Ultimate Options is the most complete options income education available in this format. The frameworks — particularly the Big Three, the Three Crystal Balls, and the Six-Scenario Risk Management System — are not filler. They are the actual operating system for managing a premium-selling portfolio, and they are taught with a clarity and sequencing that reflects over a decade of refinement in how Andy Tanner and Corey Halliday have identified where students get lost and stuck.

The insurance company reframe is the anchor. If you internalize it before you execute your first trade, you will avoid the position-sizing errors that destroy most retail options traders. That framing — options as insurance, profit through probability and discipline — is worth more than the mechanics of any single strategy in the course.

The course is worth $7,997 if you hold a meaningful stock or crypto portfolio and are currently generating zero income from it. The covered call strategies alone — particularly on existing holdings — can meaningfully offset or exceed the course cost within a reasonable timeframe depending on portfolio size and execution.

It is not worth $7,997 if you are a complete beginner who needs foundational stock market education first, or if your portfolio is too small for the position sizing math to generate meaningful returns.

Frequently Asked Questions

No prior options knowledge is required. Tanner builds the mechanics from the ground up — starting with what an option contract is, moving through calls and puts, strike prices, expiration, premium, and option chains — before introducing any strategy. You do need basic stock market familiarity: understanding what stocks, exchanges, and price charts are will make the early lessons much easier to process.

That depends entirely on your portfolio size and your current income generation from it. If you hold a six-figure stock or crypto portfolio and are currently generating zero income from those holdings, the covered call and iron condor strategies — implemented correctly with Tanner's position sizing discipline — can generate monthly cash flow that pays back the tuition within a year. If your portfolio is small, the math may not work in your favor yet.

The primary differentiators are the depth of the risk management frameworks (particularly the Six-Scenario System and the Three Crystal Balls), the integration of Federal Reserve monetary policy as a trading context, the crypto income module, and the sequencing — every complex strategy is built from the six basic positions taught early, so nothing feels arbitrary or bolted on. Generic courses teach mechanics. This course teaches operating philosophy alongside mechanics, which is the difference between knowing what to do and knowing how to make decisions when a position moves against you.

The core frameworks — position sizing, probability-based premium selling, the TEST Framework — are not market-condition-dependent. They are structural. The Federal Reserve module is the one most sensitive to current conditions, and the monetary policy levers it teaches are the permanent mechanisms the Fed uses, not specific to any single rate cycle. The crypto module reflects the period of its production, but the Three Sides of the Crypto Coin framework applies across market cycles.

Yes. The Course To Action breakdown includes every framework Andy Tanner and Corey Halliday teach across all 60 lessons, the position sizing math laid out clearly, the iron condor construction from first principles, the crypto covered call income example, the Federal Reserve Policy Levers Model, and an honest assessment of who the course serves well — and who it doesn't. Not cliff notes. Full deconstructions. We have the courses. Not the clips. Not the webinars. The courses.