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Residential Proxy Pricing, per GB

Proxy pricing is a mess of per-GB, per-request and per-IP plans. This ranks residential proxies by real cost per GB, both pay-as-you-go and at volume, alongside pool size and free trials, so you can see genuine value for web scraping.

usefulHQ Study · 2026

The dearest proxy provider on the list is cheaper than the median once you commit to volume

We compared 28 residential proxy providers on the price of the same thing, a gigabyte of bandwidth. Advertised rates run from $1.00 to $8.00, an eightfold spread, but the advertised rate is close to fiction: 26 of the 28 discount for volume and the deepest cuts belong to the providers who look dearest. Shifter lists at $4.50 and charges $0.75 on a volume plan, 83% off, which lands below the $3.70 median list price. The median volume rate across the market is $2.30. Ranking these on their headline number sorts them almost backwards.

Median list price
$3.70/GB
across 28 providers
Median volume price
$2.30/GB
26 discount for volume
Dearest list, beats median
12 of 28
once on volume
How much the volume price undercuts the list price
Shifter83%IPRoyal75%Bright Data69%NetNut58%Oxylabs58%Oxylabs Datacenter45%SOAX45%

Advertised pay-as-you-go and entry volume rates in USD per GB for residential proxies, taken from each provider's public pricing and checked periodically. Volume rates are the cheapest publicly listed tier, not a negotiated enterprise price, which will be lower again. Datacentre proxies are a different product and priced far below either figure; the two datacentre entries here are marked as such on the table. Cite this: "usefulHQ Residential Proxies Study 2026", usefulhq.com/residential-proxies/.

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Sorted by pay-as-you-go $/GB, cheapest first. Tap a column heading to re-rank.

See residential proxies priced beside 632 tools and services, in one list →

$/GB pay-as-you-go ▲Provider$/GB at volumeIP poolFree trialPay-as-you-goBest for
$1.00cheapest DataImpulse $1.00 90M+ No Yes Cheapest flat rate, no traffic expiry Visit →
$1.00cheapest PacketStream $1.00 7M+ No Yes Cheap P2P network, smaller pool Visit →
$2.40 ScrapingAnt $1.60 38M+ Yes Yes Ant API with residential pool Visit →
$2.50 Geonode $1.50 40M+ Yes Yes Rotating + static, low minimum Visit →
$2.50 ScrapingBee $2.00 35M+ Yes Yes API for scraping with proxies built-in Visit →
$2.80 Proxy-Store $1.80 25M+ No Yes Cheap rotating, good uptime Visit →
$2.99 Proxy-Cheap $2.00 7M+ No Yes Simple and cheap for light use Visit →
$3.00 Zyte (Crawlera) $2.00 20M+ No Yes Scraping API wrapper, easy use Visit →
$3.00 ScrapeHero $2.00 30M+ Yes Yes Scraping API with residential pool Visit →
$3.50 Decodo (Smartproxy) $2.00 65M+ Yes Yes Best mid-market value, easy dashboard Visit →
$3.50 ProxyEmpire $2.00 9M+ Yes Yes Rollover data, global coverage Visit →
$3.50 NodeMaven $2.50 30M+ Yes Yes Filtered high-quality IPs, low ban rate Visit →
$3.50 Webshare $2.99 30M+ Yes Yes Free plan to start, developer-friendly Visit →
$3.60 Infatica $2.50 15M+ Yes Yes Ethically sourced, decent value Visit →
$3.80 Squid Proxies $2.40 18M+ Yes Yes Simple and fast, clean IPs Visit →
$4.00 SOAX $2.20 155M+ No Min spend Huge pool, precise targeting ($90 min) Visit →
$4.00 Rayobyte $2.50 25M+ Yes Yes US-focused, strong compliance Visit →
$4.20 Storm Proxies $2.60 22M+ Yes Yes Fast rotating, 24/7 support Visit →
$4.50 Shifter $0.75 205M+ Yes Yes Big pool, from $0.75/GB at volume Visit →
$4.80 ProxyRack $2.90 35M+ Yes Yes Rotating residential, global IPs Visit →
$5.00 Bright Data DC $2.80 140M+ Yes Yes Datacenter version, lower cost Visit →
$5.50 Oxylabs Datacenter $3.00 180M+ Yes Yes Bright data, faster than residential Visit →
$6.00 NetNut $2.50 85M+ Yes Min spend ISP-based, fast and stable Visit →
$6.00 Oxylabs $2.50 175M+ Yes Yes Enterprise, top reliability, HTTP/3 Visit →
$7.00 IPRoyal $1.75 32M+ No Yes Budget PAYG with no expiry Visit →
$7.00 Decodo (Mobile) $4.50 20M+ Yes Yes Mobile IPs, premium tier Visit →
$8.00 Bright Data $2.50 150M+ Yes Yes Largest network, best success rate Visit →
$8.00 Apify $7.00 45M+ Yes Yes Automation platform, residential billed per GB Visit →

Indicative residential-proxy pricing as last reviewed 28 August 2026 ; providers run frequent promos, confirm current rates. Prices are for the residential pool; datacentre and mobile proxies are priced differently. Use proxies lawfully and within each site's terms.

How to read this. $/GB pay-as-you-go is what you pay with no commitment, best for testing and small jobs. $/GB at volume is the floor on a monthly commitment, often less than half. But the cheapest per GB is not always cheapest overall: on protected sites, low-quality pools get blocked and you burn GB on retries, so success rate matters as much as price. Budget providers suit easy targets; premium networks (Bright Data, Oxylabs) justify their price on the hardest sites.
Cheapest residential proxy?

By pay-as-you-go, DataImpulse and PacketStream at ~$1/GB; IPRoyal reaches $1.75/GB at volume. Enterprise pools cost more per GB but win on success rate for tough targets. Sort by "$/GB at volume" for committed use.

Why the huge price range?

You pay for IP quality and success rate, not just bandwidth. Cheap pools get blocked more, so you waste GB retrying. For easy sites budget is fine; for Cloudflare-protected targets, premium usually pays off.

Pay-as-you-go or subscription?

PAYG for small or one-off jobs with no commitment. Steady scraping is much cheaper on a monthly plan, this tool shows both so you can compare.

See this beside every other category we rank by value, cheapest per TB, per bay, per serving and more →

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