8 Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026: Compared

The best residential proxy provider is the one that can supply the locations, session behavior, protocol support, and billing model your workload needs—not necessarily the company advertising the largest pool.

This guide compares eight residential proxy providers using practical buyer criteria: the smallest public payment, how traffic is billed, which targeting controls are included, what happens to unused bandwidth, where each provider fits, and the most important documented or measured limitation.

Quick Answer

Proxidize is our pick for teams running their own scrapers, browsers, or AI data pipelines. Its residential plans start at $25/month for 25GB, include country, city, and ISP targeting, support rotating and sticky sessions over HTTP(S) and SOCKS5, and preserve unused purchased bandwidth.

Choose Bright Data when a broad enterprise data platform matters; Oxylabs for enterprise proxy deployments with extensive location controls; Decodo for low-entry self-service access with advanced targeting; IPRoyal for small purchases and long configurable sessions; DataImpulse for inexpensive country-level traffic that does not expire; Floppydata for one low-cost rotating balance across residential, mobile, and datacenter traffic; and SOAX for credit-based residential and mobile usage. These are fit assessments, not results from a shared performance benchmark.

Key Takeaways

• Minimum payment matters more than the lowest advertised unit rate. A low high-volume rate may require hundreds or thousands of dollars upfront.
• Targeting can change the effective cost. DataImpulse includes country selection at its base rate but bills state, city, ZIP, and ASN selection at twice the standard traffic rate.
• Unused traffic follows different rules. Some balances do not expire, while monthly allowances or prepaid credits can reset or expire.
• Pool-size figures are not directly comparable. Providers may count monthly addresses, available peers, or other vendor-defined metrics.
• Raw proxies and managed scraping products are different. A residential proxy changes the network route; your software still handles browser execution, retries, extraction, and validation unless those services are purchased separately.
• No provider is universally best. Test the required locations, targets, sessions, concurrency, and cost per valid result before committing production traffic.
• Measured evidence must remain scoped. Our Floppydata sample does not establish network-wide uptime or make it directly comparable with providers that were not run through the same methodology.

Methodology and Disclosure

Proxidize publishes this comparison and is one of the providers reviewed. We checked first-party pricing, product, and technical documentation through October 5, 2026. We evaluated:

• normal entry payment and billing model;
• whether current promotions were distinguished from regular prices;
• country and sub-country targeting controls;
• rotating and sticky-session support;
• HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 availability;
• bandwidth validity or rollover rules;
• product scope, including raw proxies versus managed collection services;
• documented restrictions or requirements that can materially affect a buyer.

We did not have equivalent paid accounts, routes, target sites, traffic volumes, or commercial terms for a controlled eight-provider benchmark. Therefore, this article does not rank all providers by measured speed, success rate, block rate, or IP quality. Provider-published pool and performance numbers are not used as a leaderboard because their definitions and test methods are not standardized.

We tested Floppydata's residential service. Those observations apply only to the tested configurations and are not a substitute for a shared eight-provider benchmark.

Prices below are public USD prices before tax. Promotions can change. Confirm the checkout total, renewal price, and applicable restrictions before purchasing.

Best Residential Proxy Providers: Quick Comparison

The table prioritizes buyer essentials rather than advertised pool size.

The smallest payment is not automatically the lowest cost for a production workload. For exact 5GB, 25GB, 100GB, and 1TB calculations, see the separate residential proxy pricing comparison.

1. Proxidize: Best for Teams Running Their Own Data Pipelines

Proxidize provides managed residential proxy infrastructure for teams that already operate the scraper, browser automation, AI agent, or data pipeline. The proxy network supplies the route, location, and session controls; the customer's software remains responsible for navigation, retries, parsing, validation, and storage.

Public entry and billing: Residential access starts at $25/month for 25GB, or $1/GB. Public plans keep that rate through 1TB, with lower published rates at multi-terabyte volumes. Unused purchased traffic rolls over and remains available after cancellation.

Targeting and sessions: The current Proxidize Residential Proxies page documents 195+ countries, country/city/ISP targeting, rotating and sticky sessions, HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5, plus dashboard and API controls.

Best fit: Teams running their own web scrapers, Playwright or Puppeteer collectors, SEO monitors, price trackers, or AI data pipelines that want a low public entry price and a bandwidth balance that does not expire.

Main limitation: Proxidize is a raw proxy service rather than a managed browser, scraping API, or delivered dataset. Its public residential controls list country, city, and ISP targeting—not state, ZIP, or ASN selectors. Buyers needing those exact parameters should verify whether another provider is a closer fit.

The recommendation is based on documented price, targeting, protocols, session controls, and rollover—not a claim that Proxidize won a shared speed or success-rate test. Review the current residential proxy plans before purchasing.

2. Bright Data: Best Broad Enterprise Data Platform

Bright Data combines raw proxy networks with scraping APIs, browser infrastructure, datasets, and enterprise account controls. That wider catalog is the main reason to consider it when the requirement extends beyond standard proxy credentials.

Public entry and billing: The residential pricing page lists $8/GB as regular PAYG pricing and displayed a 50% coupon rate of $4/GB when reviewed. PAYG has no monthly commitment. Displayed monthly commitments were $499 for 141GB, $999 for 332GB, and $1,999 for 798GB under the promotion.

Targeting and sessions: Bright Data documents country, state, city, ZIP, and ASN targeting, along with rotating and sticky-session controls. It also offers separate managed products for buyers that do not want to operate every retrieval layer themselves.

Best fit: Enterprises that value a broad data platform, procurement support, extensive location controls, and the option to buy raw proxies, managed retrieval, browser execution, or datasets from one vendor.

Main limitation: Raw residential traffic is expensive compared with the lower-cost providers in this guide. The displayed coupon should not be treated as a permanent list or renewal rate unless checkout confirms its eligibility and duration. Bright Data's usage documentation also says unused monthly commitments do not roll over.

Our Bright Data pricing breakdown separates promotional and regular prices and explains the managed products that are not directly comparable with raw proxy bandwidth.

3. Oxylabs: Best for Enterprise Proxy Deployments With Precise Targeting

Oxylabs sells residential proxies alongside scraping APIs, datasets, and other proxy types. Its residential documentation provides one of the clearest lists of included location controls in this comparison.

Public entry and billing: The current Oxylabs residential pricing starts at $30 for 5GB, followed by $100 for 20GB, $500 for 125GB, and $2,500 for 1TB. Oxylabs also documents residential PAYG at $8/GB for 1–50GB per month.

Targeting and sessions: The official residential setup documentation lists continent, country, city, state, ZIP/postal code, coordinate, and ASN targeting at no additional charge. It also documents HTTP(S), SOCKS5, HTTP/3, and session controls.

Best fit: Enterprise teams that need precise geographic routing, a formal procurement path, multiple proxy protocols, and access to a broader web-intelligence catalog.

Main limitation: Small-volume traffic costs more than the budget-focused providers here. Monthly allowances normally do not transfer to the next period, while PAYG traffic is valid for three months. Some advanced filters may also require KYC.

See the full Oxylabs pricing guide for package coverage, PAYG limits, and separate managed products.

4. Decodo: Best Low-Entry Self-Service Option With Advanced Targeting

Decodo, formerly Smartproxy, combines a low PAYG entry with monthly residential packages and broad location controls. It is a practical shortlist candidate for developers who want to begin with a small purchase and move into predictable subscriptions later.

Public entry and billing: The current Decodo residential pricing page lists $4 for 1GB PAYG and monthly plans beginning at $11.25 for 3GB. Published subscriptions reach $275 for 100GB and $2,000 for 1TB.

Targeting and sessions: Decodo lists continent, country, state, city, ZIP, and ASN targeting at no additional cost, along with rotating and sticky sessions over HTTP(S) and SOCKS5.

Best fit: Self-service developers and growing teams that want granular targeting without a large initial payment, plus a choice between one-off PAYG traffic and monthly packages.

Main limitation: Its lowest per-GB prices require larger monthly commitments. Monthly traffic normally expires at renewal or downgrade, while PAYG has a 12-month validity period. The standard setup copy describes sticky sessions up to 30 minutes, so workflows needing longer continuity should verify the exact session product before buying.

The Decodo pricing breakdown explains its packages, Wallet mechanics, trial, and refund conditions.

5. IPRoyal: Best for Small Purchases and Long Sticky Sessions

IPRoyal offers residential bandwidth through one-time PAYG purchases and auto-renewing subscriptions. Its public documentation is particularly clear about configurable sticky sessions and the conditions attached to ISP-level targeting.

Public entry and billing: The public IPRoyal residential pricing lists 1GB at $7 on subscription or $7.35 through PAYG. Subscriptions renew automatically and are advertised at 5% below the corresponding PAYG purchase. Exact 25GB, 100GB, and 1TB totals are not shown publicly and must be checked in the dashboard.

Targeting and sessions: IPRoyal documents region, country, state, and city targeting. Its location documentation also lists ISP targeting, but says this requires verified identity and at least $1,000 in spending. Sticky-session duration can be configured from one second up to seven days, subject to exit availability.

Best fit: Buyers who need a very small initial bandwidth purchase, non-expiring traffic, or unusually long configurable sticky-session settings.

Main limitation: The public pricing page does not expose the full discount curve for common mid-volume workloads, so headline high-volume rates should not be applied to smaller purchases. ISP targeting is also not an unconditional feature for every new account.

Our IPRoyal pricing guide distinguishes the published entry prices, renewal model, and dashboard-only custom totals.

6. DataImpulse: Best for Low-Cost Country-Level Traffic

DataImpulse offers inexpensive prepaid residential traffic with a one-time introductory purchase and no bandwidth expiration. The critical buying detail is that its advanced targeting is not included at the same effective rate as country-level routing.

Public entry and billing: The current DataImpulse residential page offers new users a one-time $5 purchase for 5GB. After that offer is used, the documented minimum becomes $50. Standard residential traffic starts at $1/GB, while the public 1TB package costs $800.

Targeting and sessions: The official targeting documentation includes country selection/exclusion and ASN exclusion at the base price. State, city, ZIP, and ASN selection are Target Filters billed at twice the standard traffic rate. Rotating and sticky sessions are available.

Best fit: Cost-sensitive buyers whose workloads primarily need country-level routing, especially when usage is irregular and a non-expiring balance is valuable.

Main limitation: Advanced targeting doubles billable traffic. At the standard $1/GB residential rate, 25GB of city-targeted usage consumes 50 billable gigabytes, producing a calculated $50 cost rather than $25. A separate premium residential product advertises full targeting at $5/GB, so compare the correct DataImpulse product rather than combining claims from two tiers.

For a broader feature comparison, read Proxidize vs. DataImpulse. The detailed DataImpulse pricing article focuses on the same targeting multiplier in its mobile product.

7. Floppydata: Best for One Low-Cost Rotating Balance Across Proxy Types

Floppydata sells a unified rotating traffic balance that can be used for residential, mobile, or datacenter connections. That model is useful when a team wants to change the network type without purchasing and tracking a separate bandwidth package for each one.

Public entry and billing: The current Floppydata residential proxy page advertises rotating traffic at $1/GB. Floppydata confirmed that the minimum purchase is 19GB for $19. The provider describes discounted expiring traffic, valid for 30 days, and a separate non-expiring option. Confirm the selected balance type and its expiration terms before purchasing.

Targeting, protocols, and sessions: Floppydata confirmed that its dashboard supports country, state, city, and ASN selection. Its service also supports HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 compatibility, per-request rotation, sticky behavior, and timed rotation. In our account, the connection API accepted US residential configurations for per-request rotation, keep-IP behavior, a 15-minute interval, and New York targeting.

What we observed: We tested Floppydata's US residential service using rotating, sticky, timed, and city-targeted configurations. The tested configurations produced US exits, changed exits under per-request rotation, retained an exit under sticky behavior, and changed it after the configured timed interval. New York targeting generally mapped to New York City, with some exits classified in nearby locations by IPinfo. We also completed controlled data transfers and observed no 2x targeting or billing multiplier. These observations describe the configurations we tested, not network-wide performance.

Best fit: Cost-conscious buyers that want one rotating balance across several proxy types, country/state/city/ASN targeting, and a choice among per-request, sticky, and timed session behavior.

Main limitation: Large per-request transfers were less consistent in our controlled sample, with some attempts ending in ChunkedEncodingError. The sticky and timed-session transfers we tested completed. This target-specific sample does not establish a universal Floppydata success rate, speed, or uptime figure, and we did not test protected commercial targets.

8. SOAX: Best for Credit-Based Residential and Mobile Usage

SOAX uses one prepaid credit balance across products and prices proxy traffic according to the egress country's geo tier. This can suit teams that want to manage residential and mobile usage within the same billing system.

Public entry and billing: The current SOAX pricing page says Sandbox has no subscription fee and no included credits. Users purchase top-up credits at the rate shown at checkout; the public page does not state a universal minimum top-up. Builder costs $200/month with 200 included credits. For US Tier 1 traffic, the public calculator showed Builder at $3/GB and a calculated $300 total for 100GB.

Targeting and sessions: Country, region, city, and ISP targeting are listed across public tiers. ASN and ZIP controls begin on Scale, currently $1,500/month. SOAX also supports rotating and sticky sessions.

Best fit: Teams that want a unified residential/mobile credit balance, project-level proxy packages, team controls, and country-aware cost modeling.

Main limitation: One headline per-GB price does not describe every country. The egress country's geo tier changes the burn rate, and ASN/ZIP selection requires a higher plan. Credits added on Sandbox or monthly plans expire after 60 days; annual-plan credits last 12 months.

Read the SOAX pricing breakdown for US cost examples, credit expiry, targeting tiers, and cancellation behavior.

Which Provider Fits Each Buying Situation?

Use these as shortlist recommendations, not universal winners:

For a requirements-first checklist covering sourcing, support, targeting, and effective cost, see how to choose a residential proxy provider.

Why We Do Not Rank Providers by Advertised Pool Size

An advertised pool total can indicate potential reach, but it does not reveal how many suitable exits are available for one country, city, ISP, or time window. It also does not establish session stability, target success, latency, or reputation.

Providers may report unique IPs seen over a month, total sourced addresses, concurrent peers, or another internal metric. A smaller but relevant active pool can outperform a larger headline number for one workload. Test the exact location and target instead of assuming that a bigger number guarantees better results.

The same caution applies to vendor-published success and latency numbers. Unless every provider is tested with the same targets, locations, clients, timeouts, concurrency, validation rules, and sample windows, those numbers should not be used as a cross-provider ranking.

How to Test a Residential Proxy Provider Before Committing

Run a controlled pilot with the same workload for every shortlisted provider:

1. Define the observation. Record the exact target pages, countries or cities, protocol, session policy, concurrency, timeout, and expected output.
2. Use the same client configuration. Keep headers, browser version, asset-loading rules, retries, and validation logic consistent.
3. Validate more than the status code. Check that the returned content, language, currency, store, or other market context is correct.
4. Measure session behavior. Record the exit before and after each multi-step flow and flag unexpected changes.
5. Measure latency as a distribution. Report median and p95 latency, not only the fastest request or a vendor-wide average.
6. Record every attempt. Include timeouts, proxy-authentication failures, invalid pages, incorrect locations, and retries.
7. Calculate total cost per valid result. Include proxy traffic, unused package capacity, browser compute, retry traffic, and extraction costs.

A useful comparison table should include sample size, test dates, target mix, requested and observed location, valid-result rate, median/p95 latency, data transferred, and cost per accepted record. Our guide to testing proxies and the IP score testing process explain the supporting checks.

Common Residential Proxy Comparison Mistakes

• Treating a temporary promotion as the regular rate. Bright Data's displayed $4/GB rate uses a coupon; its regular PAYG price is $8/GB.
• Assuming every targeting control is included. DataImpulse's advanced Target Filters double billable traffic, while SOAX reserves ASN and ZIP controls for higher tiers.
• Using a package that does not cover the workload. A 20GB plan is not a valid price for a 25GB requirement.
• Ignoring bandwidth validity. Monthly expiration, 60-day credits, 12-month PAYG validity, and non-expiring balances have different economic consequences.
• Comparing raw proxy bandwidth with successful-request APIs. The provider may be operating retries, rendering, or parsing in an API price that a raw proxy does not include.
• Using isolated reviews as technical proof. User feedback can identify questions to test, but one complaint does not establish network-wide performance.
• Turning one controlled sample into a provider-wide rate. Our Floppydata observations document what happened under one client, target mix, date, and configuration; they do not establish universal uptime, speed, or success.
• Assuming residential always wins. Datacenter, ISP, or mobile proxies may be faster, cheaper, or operationally better for the specific permitted workload.

Final Verdict

Proxidize is our recommended starting point for teams that run their own scraper, browser automation, or AI data pipeline and want country/city/ISP targeting, rotating and sticky sessions, standard protocols, and non-expiring purchased traffic from a $25 entry plan.

It is not the best fit for every buyer. Bright Data and Oxylabs offer broader enterprise data platforms; Decodo provides advanced targeting with a low PAYG entry; IPRoyal combines small purchases with long configurable sessions; DataImpulse is compelling for low-cost country-level traffic; Floppydata offers one low-cost rotating balance across several proxy types; and SOAX combines residential/mobile credits with plan and team controls.

Shortlist the providers whose documented model fits the requirement, then test them on the same target, location, client, and validation rules. The meaningful winner is the provider with the best cost per valid result for your workload—not the largest advertised pool or the lowest isolated headline rate.

If Proxidize's model fits, compare the current Residential Proxy pricing or create an account to test it with your own permitted workload.