Prestressed steel strands are critical components of prestressed structures, which determine the bearing capacity of the structures. The prestress loss of steel strands causes the bearing capacity to decline. To monitor the stress of prestressed steel strands, a stress monitoring method based on the magnetoelastic effect was proposed. The influence of the material strain was considered to improve monitoring accuracy. To do the monitoring, a coil-based sensor, using a small excitation current to generate a necessary magnetic field, was employed. The sensor converted the stress into inductance. An experimental system was set up, and two batches of specimens were tested. The experimental results showed that the measured inductance was stable and repeatable. There was a nonlinear relationship between the inductance and the stress. Strands of different batches need to be calibrated separately to obtain the inductance-stress equation. Based on the calibration equation and measured inductance, the stress of strands could be calculated. The difference between the calculated stress and the actual stress was small. Besides, to improve the accuracy and ease of the construction, the self-induction coil of the senor should be one layer and with moderate turns.