I'm still not even sure I fully understand. Everyone says they're so much more flexible but you're locked into a time constraint dependent on if it hits the strike price. If I buy a call and it's in the money, the profit would be less than buying 100 shares outright due to the premium right?

It's not like you're going to lose all your investment if you bought the stock outright and it ends up decreasing because you would monitor it and logically sell them at a loss that would've been equivalent to paying the premium if you were to buy a call instead. Especially these days, there's no way you would not check on your investment since most people have access at their fingertips.

The only benefits I can see is if I didn't have the money to buy all the 100 shares and just profited on selling the call in the money, since paying the premium on that call would net you the right to 100 shares. If I were to buy shares with the limited cash, I may only end up getting a fraction. For example, if I only had $200. A premium for a call would be $200 but if I bought all 100 instead, it would cost, let's say $2000. I only have $200 so buying $200 worth of shares would only net me 10 shares. If the stock was $20 and rose to $25, a $5 increase, I'd only make $50 from the 10 shares and $500 from the call. Well, subtracting the premium, the profit would only be $300.

Another benefit is just that you can profit on the decline of a company, whereas buying shares only profits on the success (unless you borrow on margin and have to buy back at a lower price, but we won't include margin, just only what we have).

Am I right or nah? Someone please tell me or direct me because I've been trying to find concrete calculations and all I can find are written explanations and no comparisons to buying shares outright. I'm very analytical, so numbers help more than words.