CenterPoint Securities is the strongest locate operation we cover, and it earns a 4.0 out of 5 for traders who short low-float stocks with a $30,000-plus account. If you trade long-only from your phone or you’re starting with $5,000, this broker was deliberately not built for you, and it says so itself.
Our rating: 4.0 / 5
| Best for | Short-biased and high-volume day traders with $30,000 or more |
| NOT for | Accounts under $30,000, long-term investors, futures or forex traders |
| Pricing | Equities from $0.003/share (negotiable to $0.001 with volume); CenterPoint Pro platform $120/mo, CenterPoint Web $20/mo, both waivable with volume |
| Pros | Roughly 6,000 easy-to-borrow symbols backed by an in-house lending desk. Over 40 routes including dark pools, with a free smart route. |
| Cons | $30,000 minimum, deliberately maintained after the PDT rule ended. Desktop platform is Windows-only; Macs need a virtual machine. |
Sub-scores per our rating methodology: core capability 5.0, value 4.0, ease of use 3.5, trust and transparency 4.5, support and education 4.0.
What CenterPoint is and who runs it
CenterPoint Securities is a direct-access broker built for active equity traders, offered by Clear Street, a fintech brokerage with over $650 million in capital funding. Accounts carry standard SIPC protection plus excess coverage purchased from Lloyd’s of London: up to $1.9 million for cash and $62.5 million for securities per account beyond SIPC limits, with a $250 million aggregate cap. That insurance structure matters more here than at a retail broker, because the typical CenterPoint account is six figures.
The product is narrow by design. Per the broker’s own help center, there are individual, joint, and corporate accounts; no IRAs, and no futures trading. This is a stock and options shop for people who trade every day, not a place to park retirement money. It belongs to the direct-access tier of our broker rankings, where execution control and short inventory decide everything.
Short locates and the borrow list
This is the reason CenterPoint exists. The easy-to-borrow list runs to roughly 6,000 symbols, and locates beyond it are handled by an in-house securities lending team rather than a queue at a third-party clearing firm. Locates are secured inside the platform: you search live inventory, see the price and availability, and accept or pass, from 4 AM to 8 PM ET. Clients also get access to ATLAS, the broker’s own locate route, on every Edge tier.
Locate pricing is per-share, charged daily, and quoted per symbol through the in-platform tool; there is no published rate card because borrow costs float with demand. That’s the category norm, not a CenterPoint quirk; no direct-access broker prints a fixed locate menu. The cost discipline is on you. Say a locate on a low-float runner quotes at two cents a share and you take 5,000 shares: that’s $100 spent before you’ve sold a single share short, so the trade needs to clear $100 just to break even on the borrow. Locates on low-float garbage get expensive fast, and the traders who profit here treat the locate price as part of the risk calculation, not a footnote. New to that math? Start with how short locates work.
One scope note: overnight borrow is billed separately, at a rate set on the settlement date’s market borrow rates, with odd lots rounded up to the nearest hundred shares. If you hold shorts overnight, that rounding quietly raises the effective rate on small positions.
Routing and executions
CenterPoint publishes a full route table with more than 40 options: smart routes, ECNs, dark-pool routers, market-maker wheels, and TWAP/VWAP algos, each with its add and take fees listed per share. Several routes pay ECN rebates for adding liquidity. CPGOS, the in-house smart route, charges nothing to add or take liquidity, which is rare; on a 2,000-share round trip, routing through CPGOS instead of a taker route at $0.0032/share saves $6.40, roughly the same as the commission itself.
There’s also SAGEAE, an advanced short-sale execution route priced at $0.01/share for stocks under $99, built for getting short into fast tape where ordinary routes choke. All routes are available on the desktop platform; CenterPoint Web carries a selected subset. The full schedule sits on the official routes page, and route fees are charged by the executing brokers, so they change without much notice.
The practical read: this is the routing control DAS-style traders want, with the locate system bolted directly into the order flow. If you’ve only ever used a retail broker’s single smart route, the difference shows up in fills on thin names, where choosing your destination is the difference between getting filled and chasing.
Platforms: CenterPoint Pro, Web, and mobile
CenterPoint Pro is the flagship desktop platform at $120/month, mobile app included, and the fee is waived once you trade 250,000 shares or 1,000 options contracts in a month. It’s a DAS-based platform: Level 2 with routing from the montage, customizable hotkeys with scripting, 30+ chart studies, basket trading, API access, and built-in risk controls (max loss per trade, max loss per day, loss warnings). It is Windows-only; the broker’s own FAQ says Mac users need Bootcamp or Parallels. If you run Apple hardware, that’s a real friction, not a footnote. Traders comparing standalone DAS subscriptions should read our DAS Trader review for context on what the platform itself does and costs elsewhere.
CenterPoint Web is the lighter option at $20/month, waived at just 20,000 shares or 100 contracts a month, which almost any active trader clears. It runs in a browser on anything, including Macs, with the mobile app as a $25/month add-on. The mobile platform is iDASTrader on iOS and Android, with Level 2, charting, and full order routing. Every new account also gets three free months of platform access, and a 14-day free trial is available before you commit.
Market data is a la carte on top of platform fees: Nasdaq Level 1 at $2, NYSE/AMEX Level 1 at $6, Level 2 at $20, TotalView at $20, ARCA Book at $15 (non-professional rates, per month). A realistic active setup of Level 1 plus Level 2 runs about $28/month. Professional-status traders pay multiples of that, so check your classification before budgeting.
CenterPoint Edge: the software bundle
Edge is the free client-perks program, and it’s genuinely material money. Tiers are set by a three-month trailing average of equity or volume: Base ($30,000+ equity), Active ($100,000+ equity or 100,000 shares/month), and Pro ($250,000+ equity or 250,000 shares/month). Every tier gets free TraderSync and TrendSpider subscriptions, the free CPGOS route, ATLAS locate access, trading-desk support, and interest on idle cash. Base-tier clients get three months free of Trade Ideas, Dilution Tracker, Benzinga Pro, and Tradervue; Active and Pro tiers keep those subscriptions free on an ongoing basis. New clients start at the Active tier or higher for their first three months. The broker values the bundle at up to $7,500 a year; that’s its own marketing number, but a Trade Ideas plus TrendSpider plus Benzinga Pro stack genuinely runs thousands annually at retail prices.
The Trade Ideas piece deserves emphasis: a scanner most traders pay $89 to $178 a month for comes free at the Active tier, which makes the membership math interesting for anyone already paying retail. We break that route down in how to get Trade Ideas free through your broker. One catch from the fine print: market data is not included in the free platform months, and Base/Active accounts go to standard platform billing after the three-month grace period.
Pricing and fees
Verified against the official CenterPoint pricing page in June 2026.
Equities commissions (per share, by monthly volume):
| Monthly volume | Rate |
|---|---|
| Under 500k shares | $0.003 |
| 500k–1M | $0.0025 |
| 1M–5M | $0.002 |
| 5M–10M | $0.0015 |
| 10M–20M | $0.001 |
| Over 20M | Negotiated |
There are no minimum order fees, so a 100-share scalp costs $0.30, not a $1 ticket minimum. The detail most reviews miss: the pricing page states your initial commission rate remains in effect regardless of monthly volume unless negotiated otherwise. The tiers are a negotiating table, not an automatic ladder. If your volume grows, call the desk and ask; nobody reprices you unprompted.
Options: $0.50/contract under 10,000 contracts a month, stepping to $0.20 above 100,000, plus regulatory and index fees (SPX $0.60, other indices $0.40). Exercise or assignment costs $1.50/contract, capped at $100 per transaction.
Account fees worth knowing: domestic wire $25, foreign wire $50, reorganization fee $35 per event, forced margin sellout $25 plus commission, broker-assisted trades $0.0095/share with a $20 minimum, and a $25 monthly inactivity fee for any calendar month with zero transactions. That last one is the clearest signal of who this account is for; an idle CenterPoint account costs $300 a year just to exist.
Interest and margin: no interest is paid on the first $30,000 of cash, which is to say the entire minimum deposit earns nothing. Above $30,000, the pricing page lists 2.25% while the Edge page advertises up to 3.00% paid daily on settled overnight balances, and helpfully, day trades count as settled cash for the calculation. The margin rate is 5.31%. Leverage is 4:1 intraday and 2:1 overnight per the help center, the standard direct-access profile.
The $30,000 minimum after the PDT rule
The pattern day trader rule and its $25,000 minimum are gone. The SEC approved FINRA’s replacement framework in April 2026, swapping the old day-trading margin provisions for modern intraday margin standards under Rule 4210; the details are in FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-10, and the baseline margin-account minimum is now $2,000. Most brokers responded by dropping their thresholds; Cobra Trading, the closest peer, now advertises $10,000 to open with $9,000 maintained.
CenterPoint went the other way, publicly and on purpose. Its response page states it is deliberately maintaining current account requirements, the help center puts the minimum at $30,000, and the stated logic is service density: a focused client base funds two-ring phone pickup (the broker’s own claim), an in-house lending desk, and the Edge bundle. For small accounts it points traders to Clear Street’s separate zero-minimum trading app rather than loosening its own gate.
So the $30,000 figure sits well above the post-rule-change peer norm, and that’s the single biggest reason to choose someone else. It’s also coherent: the locate desk and trading-desk support that justify this broker’s existence are exactly the things that don’t scale to ten thousand $2,000 accounts. If you’re under the bar, the honest move is a smaller direct-access account elsewhere while you build size; the new margin regime itself is explained in our intraday margin requirements guide.
Funding and withdrawals
Funding is by ACH or wire, and withdrawals run through the same rails using the account forms (ACH relationship or wire request). Domestic outgoing wires cost $25, foreign $50; ACH transfers carry no listed fee. Account transfers in from another broker are supported. There’s no instant-deposit gimmick here, and given the account sizes involved, most clients wire.
Learning curve and support
CenterPoint Pro is a DAS-style professional platform, and it reads like one. Montage routing, hotkey scripts, and route selection are power tools with a real learning curve; expect days of setup and a few weeks before the layout feels like yours. The broker publishes video tutorials (platform intro, order routing, the locate tool) and an onboarding track, and CenterPoint Web is a far gentler on-ramp for anyone who doesn’t need every route. None of it is beginner education, because the client base isn’t beginners.
Support is the marketing centerpiece: in-house teams, a dedicated trading desk for clients, phone, email, and a help center that publishes straight answers to pricing and account questions. The advertised two-rings-average phone pickup is the broker’s own number and we treat it as such, but the support infrastructure (live desk, published direct lines, in-house lending team you can actually reach about a locate) is documented and unusual at this price point.
Who should open an account, and who shouldn’t
Open an account if you short sell seriously, trade 100,000-plus shares a month, or both. The locate inventory, ATLAS route, free CPGOS routing, and the Edge software bundle compound for exactly this trader: at the Active tier you’re effectively being handed a scanner, charting platform, journal, and news feed that would cost several hundred dollars a month retail. The fee structure rewards size at every step.
Skip it if your account is under $30,000 (you can’t get in), if you hold positions for weeks (the inactivity fee and zero interest on your first $30,000 punish idleness), if you need an IRA or futures (not offered), or if you want a polished Mac-native desktop experience. And whatever your size, go in with realistic expectations: most day traders lose money, and a premium locate desk raises your cost of being wrong on every short.
Alternatives
The natural comparison is Cobra Trading, the other dedicated direct-access shorting broker, which now opens accounts at $10,000 and runs DAS and Sterling platforms; we put the two head-to-head in Cobra Trading vs CenterPoint, and the full Cobra Trading review covers its locate model in depth. Among unmonetized-here mainstream options, Interactive Brokers offers a deep borrow list and tiered per-share pricing with no platform fee for a fraction of the minimum, at the cost of slower human support and no in-house locate desk. The wider field is ranked in our direct access broker guide and, for this broker’s specialty, the best brokers for short selling.
Verdict
CenterPoint Securities scores 4.0 out of 5, weighted per our methodology: core capability 5.0 (the locate desk, roughly 6,000 ETB symbols, and a 40-route table with a free smart route are exactly what a direct-access broker exists to deliver), value 4.0 (the Edge bundle and waivable fees are excellent for the intended high-volume client, but discounts require negotiation and idle cash under $30,000 earns nothing), ease of use 3.5 (a Windows-only DAS-style platform with a real learning curve, softened by the Web version), trust and transparency 4.5 (full fee and route tables published, Clear Street’s SIPC-plus-excess insurance, and a refreshingly blunt public statement of who the broker serves), and support and education 4.0 (a live trading desk and solid tutorials; the response-time claims are the broker’s own).
It’s the best-documented locate operation in our coverage and it knows precisely who it’s for. If that’s you, the next step is the head-to-head with its closest rival: Cobra Trading vs CenterPoint.
FAQ
What is the CenterPoint Securities account minimum?
$30,000, per the broker’s help center. CenterPoint publicly chose to keep that minimum after the PDT rule was eliminated in 2026, positioning itself for larger active accounts while pointing smaller traders to Clear Street’s separate zero-minimum app.
Is CenterPoint Securities worth it?
For a short-biased trader with $30,000 or more doing real volume, yes: the locate inventory, 40-plus routes, and the free Edge software bundle are hard to replicate anywhere. For long-only, small, or occasional traders, the minimum, platform fees, and $25 monthly inactivity fee make it a poor fit.
Does CenterPoint offer a free trial?
Yes, a 14-day free trial of the platform, and every new account gets three free months of platform access (market data not included).
Does CenterPoint work on Mac?
CenterPoint Pro is Windows-based; the broker’s FAQ says Mac users need Bootcamp or Parallels. CenterPoint Web runs in any browser on any device, and the iDASTrader mobile app covers iOS and Android.
How much do short locates cost at CenterPoint?
There’s no fixed rate card. Locates are priced per share, per symbol, charged daily, and quoted live through the in-platform Short Locator tool; hard-to-borrow names cost more when demand spikes. Roughly 6,000 symbols are on the easy-to-borrow list and need no locate at all.
Can I trade futures or open an IRA at CenterPoint?
No on both, per the help center. Account types are individual, joint, and corporate, for stocks and options only.
How much leverage does CenterPoint offer?
4:1 intraday and 2:1 overnight, the standard direct-access margin profile under the current Rule 4210 framework.