Start with your deposit. Cobra Trading opens day-trading accounts at $10,000; CenterPoint Securities requires $30,000. If you’re funding between those two numbers, the decision is already made. Above $30,000, this becomes one of the closest calls in direct access brokerage, and the right answer depends on whether you hold margin or hard-to-borrow shorts overnight.
Choose Cobra Trading if: you’re funding $10,000 to $30,000, you hold hard-to-borrow shorts for more than a day (the locate fee is paid once, with no overnight multiplier), you want Sterling Trader Pro as an alternative to DAS, or you trade 200,000+ shares a month and want to pick your own free software through Cobra PRIME.
Choose CenterPoint Securities if: you’re funding $30,000 or more, you carry margin debits overnight (5.31% against Cobra’s 8% is real money), you want free TrendSpider and TraderSync from day one through CenterPoint Edge, or your shorting leans on a deep easy-to-borrow list rather than locate hunting.
Both are direct access brokers built for the same job: fast fills, real routing control, and short inventory that retail brokers can’t touch. Read our full Cobra Trading review and CenterPoint Securities review for the full breakdowns; this page settles the head-to-head.
Side-by-side comparison
| Cobra Trading | CenterPoint Securities | |
|---|---|---|
| Account minimum | $10,000 to open, $9,000 maintained (Venom by Cobra brand from $3,000) | $30,000 |
| Equities commissions | $0.003/share, down to $0.0015 at 10M–20M shares/mo | $0.003/share, down to $0.001 at 10M–20M shares/mo |
| Options commissions | $0.50/contract, down to $0.30 at 10,000+/mo | $0.50/contract, down to $0.20 at 100,000+/mo |
| Platform fees | DAS Trader Pro $125/mo, Sterling Trader Pro $150/mo; waived at 200,000 shares/mo | CenterPoint Pro $120/mo, CenterPoint Web $20/mo; Pro waived at 250,000 shares or 1,000 contracts/mo |
| Margin rate | 8% flat to $1M | 5.31% (as of December 2025) |
| Intraday buying power | 4:1 intraday, 2:1 overnight | 4:1 intraday, 2:1 overnight |
| Short locates | Live locate desk plus in-platform locate monitor; fee paid once, no overnight multiplier | 6,000+ symbol easy-to-borrow list, in-house lending team, ATLAS locate route; locate fees charged daily |
| Free software program | Cobra PRIME: points-based menu, qualify at 200,000 shares/mo | CenterPoint Edge: tiered bundle from $30,000 equity, free |
| Demo / trial | Demo on request | 14-day platform trial; new accounts get 3 free platform months |
| Our rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.1 / 5 |
All commission and fee figures verified against the official Cobra Trading commission schedule and CenterPoint pricing page in June 2026. Routing and regulatory fees apply on top of base commissions at both brokers. Ratings follow our methodology.
Account minimums: the first filter
The $25,000 pattern day trader minimum died on June 4, 2026, when FINRA’s new intraday margin standards took effect (Regulatory Notice 26-10 has the details, and our intraday margin requirements guide translates them). The two brokers responded in opposite directions, and that split is now the cleanest way to tell them apart.
Cobra went down-market. Day-trading accounts open at $10,000 with a $9,000 maintained balance, the Venom by Cobra brand takes deposits from $3,000, and Cobra’s rule-change page states it intends to offer a product built around the new $2,000 margin-account minimum. Qualified day-trading accounts get 4:1 intraday and 2:1 overnight buying power, now without the old three-round-trips-per-week cap.
CenterPoint published a page saying, in effect, no thanks. Its response to the rule change states it has deliberately chosen to maintain its $30,000 requirement to keep the client base focused, and it points zero-minimum seekers elsewhere. That’s positioning, not a flaw: the support model and the Edge perks are easier to fund when every account clears $30,000.
Winner: Cobra Trading, simply because it serves three times the range of account sizes. If you have $30,000+, this section is a tie and the next three sections decide it.
Commissions, software, and margin: the cost stack
The base schedules look like twins: $0.003 per share, no order minimums, volume discounts, ECN fees and rebates passed through. The differences live in the bands and the margin line.
In the 100,000 to 500,000 shares-per-month band, Cobra’s published rate drops to $0.00275 while CenterPoint stays at $0.003. Cobra also waives platform fees at 200,000 shares versus CenterPoint’s 250,000-share threshold. At the other extreme, CenterPoint’s floor is lower: $0.001 per share at 10M–20M shares against Cobra’s $0.0015, and $0.20 options contracts at 100,000+ monthly contracts against Cobra’s $0.30 floor.
Run the numbers on a 150,000-share-per-month trader. At Cobra: $412.50 in commissions plus $125 for DAS Trader Pro, about $537.50 monthly before routing fees. At CenterPoint: $450 plus $120 for CenterPoint Pro, $570. Cobra wins by roughly $32 a month for the pure intraday trader.
Now add a $50,000 margin debit held overnight. At Cobra’s 8% that costs about $333 a month; at CenterPoint’s 5.31%, about $221. The $112 monthly margin gap swallows the commission gap three times over. CenterPoint also pays interest on idle cash above $30,000 (2.25% on its December 2025 rate sheet); Cobra’s published fee schedule doesn’t list an idle-cash rate, so ask before assuming either way.
The small-print fees split too. Cobra charges nothing for broker-assisted trades, $20 for domestic wires, and a $15 quarterly inactivity fee. CenterPoint charges $0.0095 per share (minimum $20) for broker-assisted trades, $25 for domestic wires, and a $25 monthly inactivity fee. Take a two-month break from trading and the difference is $50 versus roughly $15.
Winner: depends on your overnight habits. Pure intraday traders in the mid-volume bands pay slightly less at Cobra. Anyone carrying margin overnight pays meaningfully less at CenterPoint, and at extreme volume CenterPoint’s lower floors win outright.
Short selling and locates
This is the matchup traders actually argue about, and both brokers earn the argument. Each one integrates a locate tool directly into the platform, maintains short inventory far beyond what retail brokers offer, and staffs a desk that handles hard-to-borrow requests during extended hours. The structural differences are worth knowing before you pick. (New to borrowing mechanics? Start with how short locates work.)
CenterPoint documents the deeper standing inventory: roughly 6,000+ symbols on its daily easy-to-borrow list, an in-house securities lending team, locate access from 4 am to 8 pm ET, and a proprietary ATLAS locate route, with an additional no-share-limit route for Pro-tier Edge clients. If your shorts are mostly liquid names that should be on a good borrow list, the breadth means fewer locates to pay for in the first place.
Cobra documents the friendlier fee structure for what you do pay. Its locate policy states the upfront fee is paid once, with no multiplier if you hold the shares overnight, and its desk will hunt locates over live chat, often finding shares at no upfront cost. CenterPoint’s fee schedule states locate fees are charged daily, with overnight borrows accruing at the market borrow rate on settlement. For a short you plan to hold two or three days, that’s a fee structure difference you should price before entry, not after.
Per-symbol locate prices change by the hour at both brokers and neither publishes a rate card, so any blanket claim about who is “cheaper” on locates is noise. Serious short sellers often hold accounts at both and compare inventory in real time; nothing in either fee schedule punishes you for doing exactly that.
Winner: CenterPoint for borrow-list breadth, Cobra for multi-day hard-to-borrow holds. Both belong on our best brokers for short selling list, and that’s not diplomacy, it’s the documented split.
Platforms
Both ecosystems run on the same DNA. Cobra offers DAS Trader Pro ($125/mo, web and mobile included) and Sterling Trader Pro ($150/mo, web and mobile as a $25 add-on), both with the locate monitor built in. CenterPoint Pro ($120/mo, mobile included) is built on DAS, alongside CenterPoint Web at $20/mo, which is waived at just 20,000 shares a month and runs in any browser. Our DAS Trader review covers what the platform itself can and can’t do.
The desktop software is Windows-based at both shops; Mac users run Parallels or Bootcamp, or live on the web versions. Hotkeys, Level 2, direct routing, and per-route pricing are table stakes at both. The honest differences: Cobra gives you a genuine choice of two professional platforms, which matters if you have Sterling muscle memory from a prop firm, while CenterPoint’s $20 web tier is the cheapest way into a direct access stack that either broker offers, and new CenterPoint accounts get three free platform months.
Winner: Cobra by a nose for platform choice; CenterPoint for the cheapest entry point.
Free software: Edge vs PRIME
Both brokers will pay for your trading tools. The eligibility mechanics are where they diverge, and almost no comparison page covers this.
CenterPoint Edge gates by equity or volume, whichever you hit first. Every account at the $30,000 Base tier gets free TrendSpider and TraderSync outright, plus three free months of Trade Ideas, Benzinga Pro, Dilution Tracker, and Tradervue. At the Active tier ($100,000 equity or 100,000 shares/mo), Trade Ideas and the rest become free for as long as you qualify. CenterPoint values the full stack at up to $7,500 a year, which is its marketing math, but the individual subscriptions are real and individually verifiable.
Cobra PRIME gates by volume: trade 200,000 shares a month (with at least $25,000 in the account) and you earn points to spend on a menu of about thirty tools, including Trade Ideas Premium, TradingView, TrendSpider, Benzinga Pro, Dilution Tracker, and several journals. The points system means you choose what you actually use instead of taking a fixed bundle. Fall below the volume average and the subscriptions cancel, though Cobra offers discounted continuation rates.
The practical read: a $35,000 account trading 80,000 shares a month gets free software at CenterPoint and nothing yet at Cobra. A 250,000-share-a-month trader gets more choice, including the Holly-equipped Trade Ideas Premium tier, at Cobra. Either way, broker perks are now the cheapest legitimate route into Trade Ideas; we break the options down in our Trade Ideas free trial guide.
Winner: CenterPoint for most traders, Cobra for high-volume traders who want to pick their own stack.
Support and service
Both brokers sell high-touch service as the reason to pay direct access prices, and both publish claims we can’t independently time-test: CenterPoint says calls are answered within two rings on average; Cobra says when you need answers, it answers the phone. Treat both as marketing until you’ve made the calls yourself, ideally during a halt at 9:45.
What the fee schedules document is more useful. Cobra charges nothing when a broker works an order for you over the phone; CenterPoint charges $0.0095 per share with a $20 minimum for the same service. If your platform freezes while you’re holding 2,000 shares of a moving stock, exiting by phone is free at one broker and at least $20 at the other. Cobra publishes its desk hours (7:30 am to 5:30 pm ET weekdays, slightly shorter Fridays) and runs locate requests through live chat; CenterPoint routes clients to a priority trading desk and a searchable help center.
Winner: Cobra, narrowly, on the documented difference: free broker-assisted trades are exactly the kind of fee that doesn’t matter until the worst possible moment.
Verdict: two right answers, sorted by account
There’s no universal winner here, and anyone declaring one hasn’t read both fee schedules. The honest sort:
Under $30,000, Cobra Trading is the answer by default, because CenterPoint won’t open the account. That includes the post-PDT crowd funding $10,000 day-trading accounts for the first time. Just remember the rule change removed the regulatory minimum, not the math: most day traders lose money, and a smaller account just means less cushion while you find out which side of that statistic you’re on.
At $30,000 and up, pick by overnight behavior. Margin held overnight and borrow-list shorting favor CenterPoint (5.31% margin, 6,000+ easy-to-borrow symbols, free TrendSpider and TraderSync from day one). Multi-day hard-to-borrow holds, Sterling preference, free phone executions, and 200,000+ share months favor Cobra. Both clear the bar that matters most in direct access brokerage: you get real routes, real locates, and a human on the phone. The wrong choice between these two costs you basis points, not your account.
Frequently asked questions
What are the account minimums at Cobra Trading and CenterPoint?
Cobra Trading day-trading accounts open at $10,000 with a $9,000 maintained minimum, and the Venom by Cobra brand accepts deposits from $3,000. CenterPoint Securities requires $30,000 and has stated it will keep that requirement despite the 2026 elimination of the pattern day trader rule.
Is the $25,000 PDT minimum still required at either broker?
No. FINRA eliminated the pattern day trader rule and its $25,000 minimum on June 4, 2026, replacing it with intraday margin requirements under Rule 4210. Each broker now sets its own minimum: $10,000 for Cobra day-trading accounts and $30,000 at CenterPoint.
Which is better for shorting low-float stocks?
Both are built for it. CenterPoint documents a 6,000+ symbol easy-to-borrow list, an in-house lending team, and its ATLAS locate route. Cobra documents a one-time locate fee with no overnight multiplier and a live desk that often sources locates at no upfront cost. For single-day shorts it’s close to a coin flip; for holds beyond one session, Cobra’s fee structure is the documented advantage. Per-symbol locate prices change constantly at both, so active short sellers often keep accounts at each.
Do both brokers offer free Trade Ideas access?
Yes, with different gates. CenterPoint Edge includes three free months of Trade Ideas at the $30,000 Base tier and ongoing free access at the Active tier ($100,000 equity or 100,000 shares per month). Cobra PRIME offers Trade Ideas Standard or Premium as menu picks for clients trading 200,000+ shares per month with at least $25,000 in the account.
Can I use DAS Trader at both brokers?
Yes. Cobra offers DAS Trader Pro directly at $125 per month, and CenterPoint Pro is built on DAS and costs $120 per month. Both waive the fee at volume thresholds (200,000 shares at Cobra; 250,000 shares or 1,000 options contracts at CenterPoint) and both include mobile access.
Do the platforms work on a Mac?
The desktop platforms at both brokers are Windows-based. CenterPoint states that running CenterPoint Pro on a Mac requires Bootcamp or Parallels, while CenterPoint Web runs in any browser. Cobra’s software likewise requires Windows for the desktop apps, with web and mobile versions included with DAS and available for Sterling.