Best Proxy Providers: 6 Services Compared on Real Per-GB Pricing

The best proxy providers for most buyers are Decodo for low-cost residential traffic, Oxylabs for large scraping teams, SOAX for mixed residential and mobile work, and Webshare if you mainly need cheap datacenter IPs. All of them sell access to pools of IP addresses that route your traffic, but they bill very differently: per GB, per IP, or through monthly credit bundles.

That billing model decides your real bill more than the headline rate. A $2.75/GB plan can cost more than a $5/GB one if you are forced into a bigger monthly bundle than you need.

Every price below was read from each provider’s own pricing page in September 2026. Promos are labeled as promos. Treat figures as a guide and confirm on the vendor page before you buy, because proxy pricing changes often.

Quick Comparison: Proxy Providers at a Glance

What Do Proxy Providers Actually Sell?

A proxy provider rents you IP addresses that stand between your device and the websites you visit. Websites see the proxy’s IP instead of yours. Providers differ on where those IPs come from, how many they have, how precisely you can target a country or city, and how they charge you for using them.

There are four main proxy types, and most large providers sell all of them:

• Residential proxies use IPs that home internet providers assign to real households. They are the hardest for websites to block, so they are the default for web scraping and price monitoring. They are almost always billed per GB.
• ISP proxies (often sold as static residential) are registered to consumer internet providers but hosted in data centers, so they are fast and you can keep the same IP for a long time. They are usually billed per IP.
• Datacenter proxies come from cloud servers. They are the cheapest and fastest, but websites detect them more easily.
• Mobile proxies route through 4G and 5G carrier networks. They carry the most trust with strict websites and normally cost the most per GB.

You can browse every guide in this section on our proxy guides hub.

What Proxies Really Cost: The Bundle Trap

The cheapest per-GB rate only saves money if you use the bundle it comes with. Most providers lower the per-GB price as the monthly bundle gets bigger, so a low advertised rate often assumes you commit to 100 GB or more. If you only need 10 GB a month, the rate you actually pay is the one attached to the smallest plan that covers you.

Here is what that looks like for a light user (about 10 GB a month) and a heavier user (about 100 GB a month), using each vendor’s published plans:

Two things stand out. Oxylabs gets expensive for light users because there is no plan between 5 GB and 20 GB, and IPRoyal’s never-expiring traffic suits projects that run in bursts. If your usage is steady, Decodo has the lowest published cost at both usage levels among these four. Webshare advertises residential traffic from $1.40/GB, which is lower still, but its network is a budget pool rather than one of the large premium networks above.

Best Proxy Providers for Residential Proxies

For most residential proxy buyers, Decodo is the value pick and Oxylabs is the scale pick. Decodo’s monthly plans run from $3.75/GB on 3 GB down to $2.75/GB on 100 GB, with Enterprise pricing from $2.50/GB on 250 GB down to $2/GB on 1 TB. Oxylabs starts higher at $6/GB but drops to $2.50/GB on its 1 TB Corporate plan.

For a residential-only ranking with 1 TB pricing, see our guide to the best residential proxies.

Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)

Decodo is the most affordable of the established residential networks we compared. Its pricing page lists a pool of 115M+ IPs in 195+ locations, HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 support, and targeting down to ZIP code and ASN on every plan. New users can take a 3-day trial with 100 MB, and first purchases have a 14-day money-back window with usage limits (it does not apply if you used the trial). Pay as you go costs $4/GB, but you cannot hold a monthly plan and pay as you go at the same time.

Choose Decodo if you want predictable monthly costs at small to mid volumes. Look elsewhere if you need mobile proxies at the same rate as residential.

Oxylabs

Oxylabs sells residential traffic in four monthly bundles: Starter (5 GB at $6/GB, $30), Basic (20 GB at $5/GB, $100), Advanced (125 GB at $4/GB, $500) and Corporate (1 TB at $2.50/GB, $2,500). Its pricing page lists a pool of 100M+ residential IPs. The Starter and Basic plans allow top-ups of up to 100 GB.

Choose Oxylabs if you run steady, high-volume scraping and want enterprise support. Look elsewhere if you only need 10 to 15 GB a month, because the bundle jumps make that range expensive.

Best Proxy Providers for Flexible or Occasional Use

If your proxy use comes in bursts, IPRoyal and SOAX avoid paying for traffic you never use. IPRoyal’s pay-as-you-go traffic never expires, and SOAX’s free Sandbox plan lets you pay only for what you use at its entry rates.

IPRoyal

IPRoyal charges $7.35/GB for 1 GB on pay as you go, falling to $5.51/GB at 10 GB, with a 5% discount on subscriptions ($7.00/GB for 1 GB, $5.25/GB for 10 GB). Custom plans reach $1.75/GB, but only from 10 TB. The pricing page lists 64M+ residential IPs in 195+ countries, sticky sessions of up to 7 days, and no monthly minimum.

Choose IPRoyal if you buy proxies a few times a year and hate losing unused traffic. Look elsewhere if you use more than 10 GB every month, where Decodo is cheaper.

SOAX

SOAX uses credit-based plans with one rate across residential and mobile traffic, priced by country tier. The free Sandbox plan charges $5.00/GB for Tier 1 countries, $4.00/GB for Tier 2 and $2.00/GB for Tier 3. Paid plans start with Builder at $200/mo plus VAT, where Tier 1 drops to $3.00/GB, then Team ($500/mo), Scale ($1,500/mo) and Enterprise ($3,000/mo, from $0.85/GB for Tier 1). Credits roll over for 60 days.

Choose SOAX if you need mobile IPs and do not want to pay a mobile premium. Look elsewhere if you want a cheap low-commitment monthly plan, because paid plans start at $200.

Best for Enterprise Coverage and for Tight Budgets

Bright Data is the enterprise option with the broadest tooling, while Webshare is the budget option for datacenter proxies. They sit at opposite ends of the market: Bright Data’s monthly residential plans start at 141 GB included, while Webshare gives away 10 datacenter proxies for free.

Bright Data

Bright Data’s residential pricing page advertises rates from $5.88/GB and lists 400M+ rotating residential IPs in 195 countries, with country, state, city and ZIP targeting included. Its monthly plans are sized at 141 GB, 332 GB and 798 GB, with custom per-GB pricing for enterprises. When we checked, the page was also offering a 50% off code for the first 3 months and a first-deposit match of up to $500. These are promos and can change at any time.

Choose Bright Data if you need enterprise SLAs, very large geographic coverage, or its scraping tools. Look elsewhere if you use under 100 GB a month.

Webshare

Webshare offers a free plan with 10 datacenter proxies, then 100 proxies for $2.99/mo ($0.0299 per proxy), with lower per-proxy rates at higher volumes. Its pricing page lists rotating residential from $1.40/GB and ISP proxies from $0.23 per IP.

Choose Webshare if your targets do not block datacenter IPs and you want the lowest cost. Look elsewhere if you scrape heavily protected sites, where premium residential pools perform better.

How Should You Choose a Proxy Provider?

Start with the proxy type your target websites tolerate, then match the billing model to how steadily you use traffic. Datacenter proxies are enough for many public sites. Protected e-commerce, travel and social platforms usually need residential or mobile IPs.

Next, estimate your monthly GB. Under about 10 GB, pay-as-you-go or small plans (Decodo, IPRoyal, SOAX Sandbox) keep costs low. Between 20 GB and 150 GB, compare Decodo’s and Oxylabs’ bundles directly. Above 250 GB, ask for enterprise quotes from Decodo, Oxylabs, SOAX and Bright Data, since published rates are only a starting point.

Finally, check the terms that change the real cost: whether unused traffic expires, whether you can target by city or ASN on your plan, and whether a refund still applies after you use a trial.

How We Evaluated These Proxy Providers

We compared each provider’s residential pricing, plan sizes, pool size claims, targeting options and trial or refund terms, using only the providers’ own pricing pages, checked in September 2026. Pool sizes are the vendors’ own claims. We did not run our own speed or success-rate tests, so we do not publish performance scores. No provider paid for placement, and affiliate links never change the order. Read more in our editorial policy.

The Bottom Line

For most residential proxy buyers, Decodo gives the lowest published cost among the large premium networks from about 3 GB to 100 GB a month. Oxylabs fits steady high-volume scraping teams, SOAX is the pick if you need mobile IPs at residential rates, IPRoyal suits occasional projects thanks to never-expiring traffic, Bright Data serves enterprises that need maximum coverage, and Webshare is the cheapest way to get datacenter proxies.

Frequently Asked Questions