10 Best Proxy Providers in 2026: Compared for Scraping, Automation & AI

The best proxy provider fits the workload—not necessarily the company with the largest advertised pool or lowest headline price. A developer running Playwright needs different infrastructure from an enterprise buying parsed product records, while mobile testing and high-volume crawling may require different networks.

This umbrella guide compares ten providers across residential, mobile, ISP, and datacenter access; raw versus managed products; targeting; sessions; protocols; developer controls; and pricing model. Use the narrower pricing and network guides once you know what you need.

Quick Answer

There is no universal winner. Proxidize is our pick for teams that already own their scraper, browser, AI agent, or data pipeline and need direct residential and mobile proxy infrastructure. Residential plans start at $25/month for 25GB, with country, city, and ISP targeting, rotating and sticky sessions, HTTP(S)/SOCKS5, and unused purchased bandwidth that rolls over.

Choose Bright Data or Oxylabs when a broad enterprise data platform matters; Decodo for an all-round self-service catalog; SOAX for credit-based traffic and granular routing; IPRoyal, Webshare, or ProxyEmpire when persistent ISP/static options matter; and Bright Data, Oxylabs, Decodo, SOAX, or Infatica when you want managed extraction separately from raw proxies. The right choice depends on the network, location precision, session model, total commitment, and how much of the collection stack you want the provider to operate.

Key Takeaways

• Choose the product model first. Raw proxies, scraper APIs, unblockers, hosted browsers, and delivered datasets solve different parts of collection.
• Choose the network second. Residential fits broad consumer-network coverage, mobile fits carrier-sensitive workflows, ISP/static proxies fit persistent identities, and datacenter proxies fit speed- and cost-sensitive sources that accept them.
• A provider can sell both raw and managed products. Buying a residential plan does not automatically include its scraper API, browser, or structured-data service.
• Do not rank providers by pool size alone. Targeting, session behavior, protocol support, concurrency, support, and valid-output rate are usually more actionable.
• Compare the real commitment. Promotions, geographic surcharges, expiry, bandwidth, per-IP fees, and managed-result charges can change the effective cost.
• Benchmark your own workload. This comparison documents public capabilities; it does not claim one provider is universally fastest or most reliable.

Methodology and disclosure: Prices, product availability, and documented capabilities were checked on September 30, 2026, from first-party pages. Proxidize publishes this comparison and competes with every external provider listed. We did not have equivalent accounts for a shared performance benchmark, so the order reflects documented use-case fit—not measured speed, success rate, or IP quality. Vendor-reported pool metrics are not treated as directly comparable. Terms and inventory change; recheck them before buying.

Quick Comparison: Best Proxy Providers in 2026

This table reflects the broad “best proxy provider” query. Yes means the provider had a current first-party product page or documented public commercial path on September 30, 2026. It does not mean every country, protocol, or selector is available on every plan. “Managed extraction” means a separate scraper API, unblocker, hosted browser, search API, or structured-data product—not something automatically included with raw proxy traffic.

For exact residential purchase costs at 5GB, 25GB, 100GB, and 1TB, use the Residential Proxy Pricing comparison. That page separates introductory offers, normal purchases, bandwidth received, and unused balance; repeating those calculations here would turn this broad guide into a second residential-pricing article.

Shortlist by Buying Need

How This Comparison Works

We compared product availability, geographic controls, session behavior, protocols, authentication, developer controls, public commitments, bandwidth rules, managed products, support, sourcing disclosures, and verification requirements. We did not rank vendor-reported pool sizes or success rates because providers use different definitions and we did not run a controlled ten-provider benchmark.

A raw proxy gives your application an endpoint and credentials. Your team owns the browser or HTTP client, cookies, retries, parsing, validation, storage, and request rates. A managed product may operate some of those layers and may bill per request, page, record, browser gigabyte, or compute unit. Compare both against the same outcome—such as cost per validated record—not against a single dollars-per-gigabyte figure.

The 10 Best Proxy Providers in 2026

The numbering below organizes the shortlist; it is not a universal performance ranking. Each provider is evaluated for the workload where its documented offering fits best.

1. Proxidize — Best for Self-Managed Proxy Infrastructure

Proxidize is a strong fit for teams that own their collection or automation stack and mainly need the network layer. Its Residential Proxies span 195+ countries and support country, city, and ISP targeting, rotating and sticky sessions, HTTP(S), SOCKS5, dashboard/API controls, and non-expiring paid bandwidth. Mobile Proxies cover carrier-network workflows.

Best for: Self-managed scraping, browser automation, AI agents, SEO monitoring, price monitoring, market research, and other teams that want standard proxy access instead of a vendor-owned parser.

Strengths:

• Residential and mobile access through standard protocols, without a required scraping SDK.
• $1/GB residential pricing at the normal 25GB entry plan, plus high-concurrency controls and usage analytics.
• KYC is required, and the Trust Center lists ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2.

Limitations:

• The customer owns fetching, rendering, retries, parsing, and validation; Proxidize is not a managed scraper or hosted browser.
• Residential routing does not advertise state-, ZIP-, ASN-, or coordinate-level selectors.
• ISP and datacenter products remain Coming Soon on the current pricing page.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential plans start at $25/month for 25GB ($1/GB). Public bundles retain $1/GB through 1TB, fall to $0.95/GB at 2TB and 5TB, and $0.90/GB at 10TB. Unused purchased bandwidth rolls over.

2. Bright Data — Best Full-Stack Enterprise Option

Bright Data combines all four major proxy types with Web Scraper APIs, Browser API, Web Unlocker, SERP API, and datasets. Its residential pricing page documents country, state, city, ZIP, and ASN targeting, sessions, API controls, and PAYG access. SOCKS5 has network- and target-specific rules.

Best for: Enterprises that want several web-data layers, procurement support, granular targeting, and the option to move between raw proxies and managed delivery.

Strengths:

• All four major proxy types, granular targeting, and unlimited residential sessions.
• A broad managed web-data portfolio, including hosted browsers and structured scraper outputs.

Limitations:

• The $8/GB residential list price is above low-cost raw providers; the displayed promotion is not the permanent list rate.
• Proxies, browsers, unlockers, scraper records, and datasets use different billing units.
• Residential and mobile access requires a compliance/KYC process.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential PAYG was listed at $8/GB, while the page displayed a 50%-off $4/GB coupon. Bright Data also displayed monthly commitments and custom rates. Forecast against the regular and renewal terms, not only the promotion. See the full Bright Data pricing breakdown for workload calculations.

3. Oxylabs — Best for Enterprise Data Collection and Localization

Oxylabs offers all four major proxy types plus Web Scraper API and Web Unblocker. Its residential plans include rotating and sticky sessions, HTTP(S), HTTP/3, SOCKS5, unlimited concurrent sessions, and continent-to-ZIP targeting.

Best for: Enterprise teams that need precise localization, multiple network types, structured scraping products, and dedicated support.

Strengths:

• Detailed location controls, unlimited residential concurrency, and a four-network portfolio.
• Public datacenter and ISP options, plus managed retrieval for supported sources.

Limitations:

• The smallest residential plan is $30 for 5GB, and managed scraping is a separate purchase.
• Controls differ by product; unlimited residential concurrency does not imply identical ISP or datacenter limits.
• Some targets require additional KYC review.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential starts at $30/month for 5GB ($6/GB), then $100 for 20GB ($5/GB), $500 for 125GB ($4/GB), and $2,500 for 1TB ($2.50/GB). The Oxylabs pricing guide separates raw proxy plans from its managed products.

4. Decodo — Best All-Round Self-Service Alternative

Decodo, formerly Smartproxy, provides all four major proxy types, Web Scraping API, and Site Unblocker. Its residential offering supports HTTP(S), SOCKS5, rotating and sticky sessions, and continent, country, state, city, ZIP, and ASN targeting.

Best for: Developers and growing teams that want broad proxy choice, easy self-service, small starting plans, and a path to managed scraping without changing vendors.

Strengths:

• Detailed targeting, unlimited residential sessions, $4/GB PAYG, and small monthly plans.
• Dashboard, API, examples, and a separate managed scraping layer.
• A 3-day, 100MB trial and conditional 14-day refund are publicly documented.

Limitations:

• The “from $2/GB” headline requires larger volume; the visible 3GB plan costs $3.75/GB.
• Proxy, unblocker, and scraping-API prices are separate, and product-level concurrency differs.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential starts at $11.25/month for 3GB ($3.75/GB); 10GB is $35; PAYG is $4/GB. The full proxy catalog lists separate mobile, ISP, and datacenter prices. See the Decodo pricing breakdown for larger workload calculations.

5. SOAX — Best for Granular Targeting Under One Credit Model

SOAX uses account credits across residential and mobile traffic. Its pricing page divides locations into traffic tiers and includes country, region, city, and ISP targeting; ASN and ZIP are plan-gated. Residential access supports rotating and sticky sessions, HTTP(S), SOCKS5, UDP/QUIC, APIs, and unlimited sessions.

Best for: Teams that value granular filtering, configurable sessions, residential/mobile flexibility, and one account-level credit model.

Strengths:

• Granular filtering, unlimited sessions, and residential/mobile continuity advertised up to one hour.
• US ISP and datacenter products, plus a separate Web Data API.

Limitations:

• Effective cost changes by geographic tier, plan fee, and traffic bucket; Sandbox includes no free credits.
• The first paid plan is $200/month.
• SOAX's own site says SOC 2 and ISO 27001 work is in progress, so those should not be presented as completed certifications.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Sandbox has no subscription fee or included traffic credits. It listed Tier 1 traffic at $5/GB, Tier 2 at $4/GB, and Tier 3 at $2/GB. Builder costs $200/month with 200 credits and lower usage rates. Credits are valid for 60 days on Sandbox and monthly plans and 365 days on annual commitments. The SOAX pricing guide explains the country-tier and credit calculations.

6. ProxyEmpire — Best for Rollover Traffic and Flexible Rotation

ProxyEmpire offers rotating residential, static residential/ISP, rotating and dedicated mobile, unlimited residential, and datacenter products. Its rotating residential page documents country, region, city, ISP, and ASN targeting; per-request, sticky, and timed rotation; HTTP, HTTPS, HTTP/2, and SOCKS5; rollover on eligible plans; unlimited sessions; and API controls.

Best for: Self-managed teams with uneven traffic that value rollover, several rotation modes, broad location filters, and multiple raw proxy types.

Strengths:

• Rotating and static residential, mobile, and datacenter options under one account.
• Rollover on eligible plans, unlimited concurrent sessions, API management, and examples for common languages.
• A $1.97 paid trial provides a smaller test path than the normal 1GB PAYG purchase.

Limitations:

• The displayed 50%-off residential rates are temporary; the 1GB list price is $7/GB.
• ProxyEmpire documents username/password authentication but not IP-whitelist authentication.
• The advertised Scraping API was still marked Coming Soon; customers currently operate the collection layer when using the raw proxy products.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential PAYG lists 1GB at $7, with a $3.50 promotional price during review. The page also displayed a $1.97 paid trial and volume pricing, including an advertised $0.75/GB floor at 5TB+.

7. DataImpulse — Best for Low-Cost, Non-Expiring Raw Traffic

DataImpulse offers residential, premium residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies without a subscription requirement. Its residential page advertises a one-time $5 introductory purchase for 5GB, country targeting, HTTP(S)/SOCKS5, rotating/sticky sessions, API access, and non-expiring traffic.

Best for: Self-managed projects that prioritize low unit pricing, non-expiring traffic, and standard raw proxy access—and understand the difference between the introductory purchase and repeat-purchase minimum.

Strengths:

• The one-time $5 introductory purchase is a small test path; standard residential traffic is $1/GB and does not expire.
• Country targeting is included, and sticky sessions can last up to 120 minutes.
• A default allowance of 2,000 concurrent threads can be increased after support review and KYC.

Limitations:

• State, city, ZIP, and ASN selection costs extra or requires the $5/GB Premium product.
• The 2,000-thread allowance is not unlimited; no ISP product or broad managed scraper was documented.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: The one-time introduction is $5 for 5GB; subsequent purchases have a $50 minimum. Country targeting is included, while state, city, ZIP, or ASN selection through Target Filter is billed at twice the standard traffic rate. See the DataImpulse pricing guide for the billing calculation.

8. IPRoyal — Best for Long Configurable Residential Sessions

IPRoyal sells all four proxy types plus Web Unblocker and Video Scraper API. Its residential product supports HTTP(S), SOCKS5, country/state/city targeting, API controls, unlimited sessions, sticky windows advertised up to seven days, and non-expiring traffic.

Best for: Teams that need unusually long residential session settings or want several raw proxy types in a self-service catalog.

Strengths:

• Long sticky settings, unlimited residential sessions, IP whitelisting, and language examples.
• ISP and datacenter bandwidth is subject to a fair-use policy.

Limitations:

• The headline $1.75/GB requires 10TB; one gigabyte costs $7 by subscription or $7.35 PAYG.
• A requested seven-day sticky window cannot guarantee that an underlying peer device remains online for the full period.
• Managed tooling is narrower than the broad enterprise suites.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: A 1GB residential subscription was $7/GB and PAYG was $7.35/GB. The $1.75/GB subscription floor applied at 10TB; the comparable PAYG floor was $1.84/GB. See the IPRoyal pricing guide for workload comparisons.

9. Webshare — Best for Free Entry and Customizable Self-Service

Webshare offers rotating residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, but not mobile. Its residential page documents HTTP/SOCKS5 and country-to-ASN selectors with combination limits. Its endpoint generator supports rotation and one-minute-to-24-hour sticky windows.

Best for: Developers who want a permanent free datacenter starting point, granular plan customization, and a straightforward dashboard/API before moving to paid residential or ISP access.

Strengths:

• Ten datacenter proxies and up to 1GB/month are available permanently without a card.
• API documentation, downloadable lists, two authentication methods, and configurable plans support self-service use.

Limitations:

• No mobile proxies or broad managed scraping API were documented.
• The displayed $3.50/GB rate was promotional against a $7 list price.
• Limits vary by plan; ISP shows 500–3,000 threads. The free tier is datacenter, not residential.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential displayed 1GB at $3.50/month under a 50%-off promotion, with a $7/GB list price. General datacenter access starts free; static residential displayed a 20-proxy plan at $6/month. The Webshare pricing guide separates promotions from regular plan terms.

10. Infatica — Best for Detailed Proxy-List and Session Controls

Infatica offers all four major proxy types plus Web Scraper, SERP, AI Search, and custom data products. Its residential documentation covers two authentication methods, country/region/city/ISP/ZIP/OS filters, per-request or 5–60-minute rotation, sticky mode, HTTP/SOCKS5, and up to 1,000 ports per list.

Best for: Technical teams that want detailed proxy-list generation, operating-system filters, several session modes, and raw proxies plus optional managed APIs.

Strengths:

• Detailed filters, documented list/session controls, PAYG, and a small paid trial.
• Managed scraping and search products are available separately.

Limitations:

• The site-wide $0.30/GB claim is a volume floor; public PAYG entry is $4/GB.
• Residential lists support up to 1,000 simultaneous ports, not unlimited concurrency.
• KYC requires a government-issued document and selfie before purchase.

Pricing checked September 30, 2026: Residential PAYG is $4/GB; 25GB costs $96 ($3.84/GB), 100GB costs $360 ($3.60/GB), and 1TB costs $2,600 ($2.60/GB). The seven-day, 1GB trial costs $4.

What the Broad Comparison Means in Practice

The table near the top answers what each provider sells. The provider reviews explain where each catalog is most useful. Exact residential costs belong in the residential pricing comparison, while network-specific shortlists belong in the residential provider guide and rotating mobile provider guide.

For self-managed scraping, browser automation, or AI agents, prioritize standard endpoints, the required locations, session semantics, authentication, and predictable traffic accounting. For managed extraction, compare supported sources, rendering behavior, output schema, retry policy, and billing unit—not just the provider's underlying proxy pool.

The most useful cross-model metric is:

cost per usable record = (network + browser + retries + extraction + validation + engineering) / validated records

A cheap route that returns challenges, incomplete HTML, or the wrong location can cost more than a higher-priced route that produces valid records. See the web scraping proxy guide and Best Proxies for AI Agents for implementation-specific choices.

Raw Proxies vs Scraping APIs

Choose raw proxies when you:

• Already have a collector, browser, crawler, or agent tool.
• Need direct control of sessions, rendering, validation, and custom sources.
• Can maintain source-specific code and prefer bandwidth/IP-based network pricing.

Choose a scraping API when you:

• Want the vendor to manage routing, retries, rendering, and access logic.
• Need structured output from supported sources and accept less implementation control.
• Prefer per-result billing because engineering time costs more than the premium.

Choose both when your collector handles ordinary sources economically but managed retrieval is cheaper for a difficult subset. Model billing separately and validate both paths against the same schema.

How to Choose a Proxy Provider

1. Decide Which Proxy Type You Need

Use datacenter for tolerant high-volume targets, residential for consumer-network origin and broad geography, ISP for stable identities, and mobile when carrier origin matters. See the dedicated residential or rotating mobile provider comparison once the network is confirmed.

2. Define Geographic Precision

Country is not equivalent to city, ZIP, ISP, ASN, or carrier targeting. Check availability and surcharges, then verify the target's visible location and localized fields.

3. Map Rotation to the Work Unit

Rotate between independent observations. Use a sticky/static identity for a multi-step task that preserves location, cookies, or cart state; application state cannot restore a disconnected peer.

4. Check Protocol and Authentication Requirements

Confirm product-level HTTP(S)/SOCKS5, DNS behavior, and username/password or IP-whitelist support. Vendor-wide protocol logos can hide network-specific restrictions.

5. Estimate Concurrency and Bandwidth

Measure assets, redirects, retries, and simultaneous workers. “Unlimited connections” remains bounded by target policy, application capacity, bandwidth, and reasonable request rates.

6. Compare the Real Pricing Model

Record the minimum, renewal price, promotion, volume threshold, expiry, overage, and targeting fees. Normalize raw traffic and managed-result prices to usable output.

7. Review Sourcing, Compliance, and Verification

Review sourcing, acceptable-use, privacy, trust, and KYC/KYB material. Understand which documents approval requires and how long it takes.

8. Test the Actual Workload

Test representative targets, locations, session lengths, and peak load. Track valid outputs separately from successful connections; a 200 response can still be a challenge, wrong market, or incomplete record.

For a deeper selection checklist, read How to Choose the Best Residential Proxy Provider.

Choose the Provider That Matches the Stack You Already Own

A comparison narrows a test plan; it does not replace one. Choose raw or managed access, then validate the network, locations, sessions, protocols, load, billing, and complete records against real targets.

If your team already owns the application layer and wants direct network control, explore Proxidize Residential Proxies, Mobile Proxies, or current pricing. For workload-specific architecture, see the Web Scraping and AI Agents use-case guides.