When comparing residential proxy providers, start with the cost of the traffic you need, IP availability in your target locations and how each network sources its addresses. A large advertised IP pool does not tell you how many suitable IPs will be available for your particular job.
Pick wrong and you’ll prepay for gigabytes that expire, wait on a KYC call, or rent IPs from hijacked TV boxes.
To find the best residential proxies, we read each provider’s pricing, trial, refund and sourcing pages, all checked October 2026, and cut six that didn’t hold up.
The headline price per GB turned out to be the least useful number on the page.
Quick picks by job
- Best overall: Decodo, from $4/GB pay-as-you-go.
- Best for large-scale scraping: Oxylabs, at $4/GB on its $500 tier.
- Best for compliance-heavy teams: Bright Data, which runs KYC before residential access.
- Best for occasional jobs: IPRoyal, whose pay-as-you-go GB never expire.
- Best for residential plus mobile: SOAX, with one rate for both.
- Best for small plans: ProxyEmpire, where unused GB roll over.
How we picked: We haven’t run traffic through these networks for this update, so this is a research-based shortlist. We compared each provider’s pricing, trial and refund terms, targeting, and published sourcing and KYC policies. Providers that closed, were seized, went sales-only or offered less for the money were cut. How we review software
Updated October 2026: prices re-checked; NetNut, GeoSurf, Nimble, WebScrapingAPI, StormProxies and Froxy removed.
Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes our scores. How we make money.
What is a residential proxy, and do you need one?
A residential proxy sends your requests through an IP address that an internet provider assigned to a real household device, such as a laptop or phone on home Wi-Fi. To websites, you look like an ordinary visitor in that city.
Companies use them to scrape public data, verify ads, monitor prices, test sites from other countries and run accounts that get flagged on server IPs. Just want private browsing? A VPN is the simpler tool, and our VPN Black Friday deals list compares this year’s prices and renewals.
Pricing pages sell three other proxy types alongside them:
- Datacenter proxies come from cloud servers, so they’re fast and cheap but easy to spot. ProxyEmpire charges $0.625/GB for datacenter traffic on its smallest plan versus $7/GB for residential at list (pricing page).
- ISP proxies, or static residential proxies, are ISP-issued IPs you keep for weeks, usually priced per IP. They suit logins more than mass scraping; see our ISP proxy providers roundup.
- Mobile proxies use 4G and 5G carrier IPs, usually cost more per GB and suit apps and social platforms; see our list of mobile proxy providers.
Rule of thumb: rotate residential IPs when you need many requests from many places. Pay for ISP or mobile IPs only when one stable identity, or a carrier address, matters more.
Residential proxy pricing compared: what you pay to start
Here’s how the six line up on the numbers that decide your first bill.
| Provider | Starting price per GB | Minimum commitment | Trial or refund | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decodo | $4 pay-as-you-go; $3.75 on the 3 GB plan | None; plans from $11.25/mo | Free 3-day, 100 MB trial; 14-day refund on first orders (conditions) | Most teams |
| Oxylabs | $6 on Starter | $30/mo subscription | $5 one-time credit; no refunds on self-service | Large-scale scraping |
| Bright Data | $8 pay-as-you-go ($4 with a 3-month promo) | None; plans from $499/mo | Free trial, no card; KYC first | Compliance-heavy teams |
| IPRoyal | $7.35 pay-as-you-go | None | No free trial; narrow refunds | Occasional jobs |
| SOAX | $5 for US traffic on Sandbox | None; plans from $200/mo | No free trial; generally no refunds | Residential plus mobile |
| ProxyEmpire | $7 pay-as-you-go ($3.50 with its promo) | None; plans from $40/mo | $1.97 trial; all sales final | Small plans |
The 6 best residential proxy providers in 2026
Decodo: best value for most teams
Decodo is the company formerly called Smartproxy. Its $4/GB pay-as-you-go rate is the lowest list price for pay-as-you-go in our table, and Decodo says every plan includes its full 115M+ IP pool. Our Decodo review covers its scraping tools too.
- Targeting by continent, country, state, city, ZIP code and ASN on every plan.
- A free 3-day, 100 MB trial, or a 14-day refund on a first order if you’ve used under 20% of it.
- Free Chrome and Firefox extensions for switching proxies in a browser.
Price: $4/GB pay-as-you-go from a prepaid wallet, or monthly plans from $11.25 for 3 GB to $275 for 100 GB ($2.75/GB), plus VAT. You can’t mix pay-as-you-go with a subscription (pricing checked October 2026).
Best for: small teams that want low entry prices without losing ZIP or ASN targeting.
Skip it if: you want a no-strings trial. It switches to your chosen plan unless you cancel, and using it voids the 14-day refund.
Oxylabs: best for large-scale scraping
Oxylabs is the premium pick for teams that scrape at volume. One subscription now covers all its products, so the $30 Starter tier is a monthly budget that buys 5 GB of residential traffic at $6/GB. Oxylabs says its pool holds 175M+ IPs in 195 countries; our Oxylabs review covers the rest.
- Targeting by country, state, city, ZIP code, coordinates and ASN, at no extra cost.
- Sticky sessions of up to 24 hours and unlimited concurrent sessions.
- A one-time $5 welcome credit to test the pool before paying.
Price: Starter $30/month ($6/GB up to 5 GB), Basic $100 ($5/GB up to 20 GB) and Flexible $500 ($4/GB up to 125 GB), VAT extra; Enterprise starts at $2,500. Self-service purchases are non-refundable (pricing checked October 2026).
Best for: data teams moving 100 GB or more a month who need ZIP or ASN targeting.
Skip it if: your targets include banks, government sites, streaming, ticketing or Apple domains, which Oxylabs blocks on its residential network.
Bright Data: best for compliance-heavy teams
Bright Data is the enterprise heavyweight, built for buyers who need paperwork. A rep runs a short KYC check, sometimes over video, before you can use its residential network, and the company publishes how devices join its pool.
- Bright Data says it has 400M+ monthly residential IPs in 195 countries.
- Free targeting by country, state, city, ZIP code, carrier and ASN.
- A free trial with no card, plus daily spend caps so a runaway scraper can’t drain your balance.
Price: $8/GB pay-as-you-go with no commitment, or plans from $499 a month. When we checked in October 2026, a code on its pricing page took 50% off residential for three months ($4/GB pay-as-you-go). Unused plan balance doesn’t roll over.
Best for: enterprises that need documented sourcing, customer vetting and carrier-level targeting.
Skip it if: you need proxies running today, because KYC comes before residential access.
IPRoyal: best for occasional jobs
IPRoyal suits work that comes in bursts, because pay-as-you-go traffic never expires: buy 10 GB in March and spend it in December. IPRoyal says its pool has 64M+ IPs in 195+ countries; our IPRoyal review covers its other proxies.
- Rotate on every request, or keep one IP for up to 7 days.
- Country, state and city targeting over HTTP(S) or SOCKS5.
- Volume pricing from $7.35/GB down to $1.84/GB at 10 TB.
Price: $7.35/GB for one pay-as-you-go GB, $5.51/GB for 10 GB, or 5% less on a monthly subscription. There’s no free trial, and refunds apply only if support can’t fix a problem within 24 hours or the service can’t be delivered (pricing checked October 2026).
Best for: freelancers and small teams with irregular scraping or SERP checks.
Skip it if: you need ZIP or ASN targeting, since IPRoyal’s residential page lists country, state and city only.
SOAX: best for mixing residential and mobile
SOAX now sells prepaid credits that pay for residential and mobile traffic at the same rate, which helps when only some targets need carrier IPs. SOAX says its residential pool has 155M+ IPs in 195+ locations, built from addresses people share voluntarily.
- One balance for residential and mobile, priced by the exit country’s tier, with the US in the top tier.
- Country, region, city and ISP targeting on every plan; ASN and ZIP need the $1,500 Scale plan.
- Postpaid billing for approved businesses, so production jobs don’t stop at zero credits.
Price: Sandbox has no subscription, but US traffic costs $5/GB in top-up credits. Builder ($200/month plus VAT) cuts that to $3/GB and Scale ($1,500) to $1.50. Sandbox and monthly-plan credits expire 60 days after purchase, and payments are generally non-refundable (pricing checked October 2026).
Best for: teams that need residential and mobile IPs, or ISP targeting, without an enterprise contract.
Skip it if: you need Texas IPs, which SOAX says it doesn’t support, or a free trial.
ProxyEmpire: best for small plans that roll over
ProxyEmpire suits small budgets: unused GB roll over and never expire, with no contracts or monthly minimums. Its residential plans include ZIP, ISP, ASN and OS targeting, and it says it’s a certified member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI).
- Rollover on pay-as-you-go and monthly plans alike.
- A $1.97 trial with 100 MB of residential and 50 MB of mobile traffic that doesn’t turn into a subscription.
- HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 and HTTP/2, with unlimited concurrent sessions.
Price: $7/GB pay-as-you-go at list, or monthly plans from $40 for 7 GB down to $3/GB at 1,000 GB. When we checked in October 2026, its pricing page applied a 50% promo automatically.
Best for: solo operators who buy a few GB a month and hate losing what they don’t use.
Skip it if: you want a refund safety net, because its refund policy says all sales are final.
What most residential proxy lists get wrong
Most roundups rank providers by pool size and the lowest price on the page. Both mislead, and neither says where the IPs come from.
Pool sizes aren’t comparable. Oxylabs’ FAQ says its figure multiplies unique exit nodes per day by the days in a quarter, while Bright Data counts IPs per month. Neither tells you how many homes in your target city are online right now.
The starting price is rarely the bill. Promos, plan minimums and expiry rules move the total. Here’s what 10 GB of US traffic in one month costs:
| Provider | 10 GB costs | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Decodo | $35 on the 10 GB plan | Monthly plan, VAT extra; pay-as-you-go would be $40 |
| SOAX | $50 in Sandbox credits | Credits expire 60 days after purchase |
| IPRoyal | $55.10 pay-as-you-go | Never expires; $52.50 on a subscription |
| ProxyEmpire | $70 at list ($35 with its promo) | Unused GB roll over |
| Bright Data | $80 at list ($40 with its promo) | Promo lasts three months; KYC first |
| Oxylabs | $30 Starter plus a top-up, or $100 | Starter covers 5 GB; Basic covers up to 20 GB |
Sourcing is now a legal risk. Since early July 2026, NetNut’s website has shown an FBI seizure notice. In a report on the takedown, Google said NetNut’s network spans at least 2 million devices, enrolled through software kits for smart TVs and streaming boxes.
Google also has high confidence that many popular proxy brands resell NetNut under their own names. A seizure isn’t a court verdict, but a vendor that can’t explain its sourcing could be renting you the same pool.
Here’s what the providers above publish about where their IPs come from:
- Bright Data: devices join only after owners opt in through its SDK in partner apps, with a two-click opt-out (sourcing page).
- Oxylabs: only consenting, informed users who are paid for the traffic they share (residential page).
- Decodo: partner networks where users opt in and earn per GB, and it co-founded the EWDCI (sourcing page).
- IPRoyal: Pawns.app, a bandwidth-sharing app it partners with, plus other IP providers (sourcing page).
- SOAX and ProxyEmpire: pools described as ethically sourced, with ProxyEmpire citing its EWDCI certification.
Paid, opt-in sharing still has critics: the same Google report tells consumers to be “extremely wary” of apps that pay for “unused bandwidth”. Expect KYC as well: Bright Data runs it before residential access, and Decodo asks for ID if its automated checks flag your account.
Before you buy anywhere else: ask where the IPs come from, whether the provider resells another network, and how device owners opt out. No clear answer is your answer.
How to choose a residential proxy provider
Start with the job, not the brand:
- How many GB? ProxyEmpire’s pricing page puts a typical product page at 2 to 4 MB with images blocked, roughly 250 to 500 pages per GB. Under 10 GB a month, start with Decodo or IPRoyal; past 100 GB, compare Oxylabs with Decodo’s bigger plans.
- Steady or sporadic? Sporadic work favors GB that never expire, at IPRoyal or ProxyEmpire. Steady work favors monthly plans.
- One IP for days? Use ISP proxies, or IPRoyal’s sticky sessions of up to 7 days.
- Only a few static IPs? Skip per-GB pricing. NinjaProxy sells per-IP plans from $9 (see our NinjaProxy review), and Webshare gives away 10 datacenter proxies (see our Webshare review).
- Restricted targets? Oxylabs and Decodo both restrict categories such as banking, government and streaming sites, so test yours during a trial.
Six providers we cut, and why
The previous version of this list had 12 names. These six were cut when we checked in October 2026:
- NetNut: its website shows an FBI seizure notice.
- GeoSurf: closed since December 2023 after a settlement with Bright Data, and its site no longer loads.
- Nimble: pivoted to an AI web-data platform. Its docs say residential access needs KYC and isn’t open to self-service accounts, and its pricing page lists no proxy plan.
- WebScrapingAPI: now sells residential proxies, but its $8.50/GB pay-as-you-go rate is higher than all six above at list.
- StormProxies: sells unlimited-bandwidth ports from $19 a month, but only with US or EU IPs and a fixed 5-minute rotation.
- Froxy: plans start at $5.50 for 1 GB with rollover, but Decodo is cheaper per GB and ProxyEmpire offers the same rollover.
Residential proxy FAQs
Are residential proxies legal?
Yes, in most countries, as long as the job itself is lawful, such as collecting public data, checking ads or comparing prices. What you do through the proxy can still break laws or a site’s terms, for example scraping personal data or mass-creating accounts. That’s why providers block some targets and screen customers.
Can websites detect residential proxies?
Sometimes. A residential IP passes the basic checks that catch datacenter servers, because a consumer internet provider owns it. But proxy-tracking firms such as Spur and Synthient map residential proxy exit nodes, and sites also judge request rates and browser fingerprints. Pace requests like a real visitor, or expect CAPTCHAs.
Is a residential proxy the same as a VPN?
No. A VPN encrypts all the traffic from your device and is built for personal privacy. A residential proxy routes requests from a specific app or script through other people’s home IPs, usually billed per GB, for data collection and location testing. For private browsing, a VPN is the simpler tool.
Are free residential proxies safe to use?
No. Whoever runs a free proxy can see the traffic that passes through it, and you can’t check where its IPs came from. IPRoyal and SOAX both warn against free proxy networks in their own FAQs. To test cheaply, use a paid trial or a few dollars of pay-as-you-go traffic.
How do you connect to a residential proxy?
You get a gateway address, a port and login details, then paste them into your scraper, browser extension or tool. Oxylabs, for example, uses pr.oxylabs.io on port 7777, and Decodo uses gate.decodo.com on port 7000. Country and session settings usually go into the username string.
Should you use rotating or sticky sessions?
Use rotating sessions when you collect many pages, so each request or batch leaves from a different home IP. Use sticky sessions for multi-step flows that break when the IP changes, such as logging in or filling a cart. Keep sticky sessions short, since home devices go offline.
Can you pay for residential proxies with crypto?
Some providers accept it. IPRoyal lists crypto among its payment methods and Decodo takes crypto for residential plans, but Oxylabs says it doesn’t accept Bitcoin. Read refund terms first, because crypto payments are often final: ProxyEmpire, for one, never refunds them.
Are there residential proxies with unlimited bandwidth?
Yes, but you pay for time, speed or IPs instead of GB. ProxyEmpire sells unlimited residential access from $200 a day at 100 Mbit, with country targeting only, and IPRoyal’s static residential IPs include unlimited bandwidth for each lease. Per-GB rotating plans give finer targeting.
Which residential proxy provider should you pick?
For most readers, the best residential proxy provider right now is Decodo, because $4/GB pay-as-you-go, plans from $11.25 and a published sourcing policy keep the first bill and the risk small.
- Choose Oxylabs if you’ll move 100 GB or more a month, because its $500 tier brings residential traffic to $4/GB.
- Choose Bright Data if compliance has to sign off, because it vets customers and documents how devices opt in.
- Choose IPRoyal if your jobs come in bursts, because its pay-as-you-go GB never expire.
- Choose SOAX if you need residential and mobile IPs from one balance.
- Choose ProxyEmpire if you buy a few GB a month and want the leftovers to roll over.
- Skip residential proxies if you need one stable login identity, because ISP proxies do that job better.
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