Quote from reg:
If I'm not mistaken, the .0125 per share rate is for traders who join Pairco. These guys at Pairco get a piece of the action in commissions on top of what Bright charges them.
The last time I went to Bright and talked to Don, the rate he was offering me was similar to what bighitter1 just stated - .007 for the first thousand and .004 for anything above that per trade.
I just left Bright, so I can share my experience. Don't mean to speak for everyone there, though. It's a bit of a family operation, so I'm sure there are plenty of special deals going around.
When you first join, you are essentially trading out of a retail account. You will get low leverage, get charged 0.0125/share plus $400/mo seat fees. When you pass your Series 7, then this rate will drop to 0.01/share.
When talking to Don and others at Bright, they will tell you that this rate changes as you move greater volume. Others will tell you that your seat fee gets discounted as you move greater volume. From what I've seen, you get charged 0.01/share and $400/mo ($200 for remote) and then, based on volume, you get a rebate at the end of the month. If you trade a high volume and stick with Bright for a full year, you get an additional rebate.
You can think of it as coming off your seat fees, or you can think of it coming off your per-share fees, but the net result is the same.
Personally, I left because for my style of trading, the fees were killing me. I couldn't scale up because my margins were so slim. If you are holding overnight, or playing for larger moves, using a lot of leverage (e.g.: opening moves) then Bright's comission structure may work for you. They also have a lot of other perks, like the ability to borrow shares from a common account, giving you the effective ability to short on a downtick.
And yeah, there's something to be said for having a broker that is unlikely to collapse and take all of your money with it.
