How much more can I lose selling a naked option compared to selling a defined-risk vertical spread for the same credit?

How this is calculated

• Naked put max loss assumes the stock falls all the way to $0 before expiration, the worst mathematically possible outcome, not a prediction that it will happen.
• A naked call has no maximum loss because a stock's price has no theoretical ceiling. That is the key structural difference from a defined-risk spread.
• The defined-risk spread's max loss equals the width between strikes minus the credit collected, multiplied by 100 shares per contract and the number of contracts.
• This tool assumes both structures collect the same premium per share so the risk can be compared side by side. In practice, the exact strikes available for a same-credit spread may differ slightly from the naked option's strike.
• This does not account for early assignment risk on the naked side, which is covered separately in the assignment risk tools below.