Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026: A Practical Comparison

When choosing a residential proxy provider, the decision typically comes down to three factors: Can it handle your project scale? Is pricing sustainable for your use case? Will success rates meet your requirements on specific target sites?

This guide compares leading providers based on publicly documented specifications, pricing structures, and feature sets. Whether you're running SEO rank monitoring, e-commerce price tracking, or ad verification campaigns, understanding the difference between data center and residential proxies—and which providers serve each use case—helps you avoid costly mismatches.

Understanding Residential vs Datacenter Proxies

Before comparing providers, understanding the difference between data center and residential proxies clarifies when each type applies.

Datacenter proxies route traffic through servers hosted in commercial data centers. They offer speed and cost advantages but use IP ranges that websites can identify and block more easily.

Residential proxies route traffic through IP addresses assigned by Internet Service Providers to household connections. These IPs appear as regular consumer traffic, making them harder to distinguish from normal users.

When evaluating datacenter proxies vs residential options, consider your target websites. Sites with aggressive bot detection (major e-commerce platforms, search engines) typically require residential IPs. Less protected targets may work fine with datacenter proxies at lower cost.

The residential vs datacenter proxies decision depends on your success rate requirements and budget constraints.

How We Evaluated Providers

To move beyond vendor marketing claims, we applied consistent evaluation criteria across all providers.

Data Sources:

• Official pricing pages (verified January 2026)

• Published documentation and feature lists

• Third-party research including Proxyway's annual proxy market reports

Evaluation Criteria:

• Entry-level pricing and volume discount structures

• Documented IP pool size and geographic coverage

• Session types (rotating vs sticky) and duration limits

• Free trial availability for independent testing

• Ethical sourcing documentation transparency

What We Did Not Test:This comparison relies on publicly documented specifications rather than performance benchmarks. Success rates and response times vary significantly by target site, time of day, and configuration. We recommend testing providers against your actual use cases using their trial offerings.

Important Disclosure: Proxy001 (featured in this comparison) is our product. We evaluated all providers using the same standardized criteria and have no financial relationship with other providers listed. All specifications are sourced from official provider websites.

Verification Approach:Before committing to any provider, validate claims through:

1. Trial testing against your specific target sites (minimum 100 requests for statistical relevance)

2. IP geolocation verification using third-party APIs (MaxMind, IP2Location)

3. Session behavior testing (rotation timing, sticky session duration)

Provider Comparison Overview

The following table summarizes specifications from provider websites as of January 2026. Pool sizes are vendor-claimed. Pricing reflects publicly listed rates and may differ with promotions or volume commitments.

Pricing verified from official pricing pages January 2026. Promotional codes and volume discounts may reduce rates. Always confirm current pricing directly with providers.

Provider Details by Use Case

Rather than ranking providers, the following sections describe documented features and limitations. Your optimal choice depends on specific requirements.

For Cost-Effective Entry Points

Proxy001 offers tiered pricing from $2.00/GB down to $0.70/GB at higher volumes. The 500MB trial proxy option allows testing before commitment. Documentation includes code examples for Python, Node.js, Java, Go, PHP, and C#.

Documented features: City and state-level targeting, rotating proxies, sticky sessions up to 180 minutes, dedicated residential IP options at $12/IP.

Considerations: Verify SOCKS5 and ASN targeting availability with support for specific requirements.

IPRoyal lists the lowest entry price at $1.75/GB with non-expiring bandwidth. Pool size (32M+) is smaller than enterprise alternatives.

Documented features: Pay-per-GB model, 7-day sticky sessions, country/city targeting.

Considerations: Smaller pool may impact success rates on heavily targeted sites.

Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) advertises rates from $1.50/GB with promotional codes. Non-expiring bandwidth credits prevent waste.

Documented features: User-friendly dashboard, browser extensions, self-service focus.

Considerations: Verify current promotional pricing; standard rates may be higher.

For Enterprise Operations

Oxylabs documents a 177M+ IP pool with ASN and ZIP code targeting. List pricing is $8/GB, commonly discounted to ~$4/GB through promotions.

Documented features: Advanced geo-targeting, detailed usage statistics, 24/7 support with dedicated account managers.

Considerations: Higher pricing and complexity may exceed needs for smaller operations.

Bright Data operates an extensive network with granular session control. List pricing starts at $8.40/GB with PAYG promotions around $4/GB.

Documented features: City/ISP/ASN targeting, static and rotating options, comprehensive proxy management tools.

Considerations: Pricing structure requires careful review. Dashboard has a learning curve.

For Specific Technical Requirements

SOAX offers city plus ASN targeting as standard. Pricing is $3.60/GB with 25GB minimum commitment.

Documented features: UDP protocol support, multi-product subscription access.

Considerations: Minimum commitment may not suit low-volume testing.

NetNut sources IPs directly from ISPs rather than peer-to-peer networks. Pool documented at 85M+ rotating IPs with $3.45/GB pricing (28GB minimum).

Documented features: ISP-based sourcing, detailed success rate and response time statistics.

Considerations: Higher minimums oriented toward medium/large businesses. Some teams prefer ISP-sourced for compliance documentation.

Key Evaluation Factors

Success Rate Varies by Target

Vendor-claimed rates (often 95%+) may not match your specific targets. Test against your actual use cases during trial periods.

Geographic Coverage Quality

Verify pool distribution for your required regions. A provider with "195 countries" may concentrate IPs in major markets with limited coverage elsewhere.

Session Requirements

• Rotating proxies cycle IPs automatically—suitable for data collection

• Sticky sessions maintain identity—necessary for tasks requiring persistence

Confirm session duration limits match your workflow. Dedicated residential IP options provide maximum consistency for long-running tasks.

Bandwidth Policies

Note that no provider offers truly "unlimited" bandwidth. When evaluating unmetered residential proxies claims, compare actual usage caps, price per GB, and overage policies. Some plans forfeit unused bandwidth monthly.

Ethical Sourcing

Providers acquire residential IPs through opt-in programs, ISP partnerships, or peer-to-peer networks. Review sourcing documentation if your compliance requirements mandate it.

Compliance Considerations

Residential proxies serve legitimate business purposes when used appropriately. Before deploying, consider:

• Confirm your use case complies with target website Terms of Service

• Review your organization's automated data collection policies

• Understand applicable laws regarding web scraping in your jurisdiction

• Document proxy usage for audit purposes if required

This guide focuses on legitimate applications: SEO monitoring, price tracking, ad verification, and web testing.

Common Use Cases

SEO Rank Monitoring: Checking search positions across geographic locations.

E-commerce Price Tracking: Monitoring competitor pricing and availability.

Ad Verification: Confirming advertisements display correctly across regions.

Website Testing: Verifying functionality and load times from various locations.

Brand Protection: Identifying unauthorized trademark use across marketplaces.

Making Your Decision

No single provider fits all requirements. Match capabilities to your needs:

• Budget-constrained teams may find Proxy001, IPRoyal, or Decodo's lower entry pricing suitable

• Enterprise operations requiring compliance documentation and dedicated support often justify Oxylabs or Bright Data pricing

• Specific technical needs (ASN targeting, UDP support, ISP-sourced IPs) narrow options to providers offering those features

Start with trial access from 2-3 providers, test against actual use cases, and decide based on measured results rather than marketing claims.

About Proxy001

Proxy001 provides residential proxy services for businesses conducting legitimate web data collection, SEO monitoring, and market research. Like other providers on this list, we offer a free trial (500MB) to evaluate performance against your specific requirements.

Visit proxy001.com to review documentation and current pricing.