5 tools · 14 verified reviews · pricing fact-checked
Price per gigabyte is the headline and success rate is what you actually pay for. A $2/GB proxy that fails a third of its requests costs more per successful page than a $6/GB one that does not, and that arithmetic decides this category. Bright Data has the largest pool and the best success rates at the highest price, Oxylabs is the enterprise alternative with strong compliance, Decodo and SOAX occupy the mid-market well, and IPRoyal is the value option. Ethical IP sourcing has become a genuine differentiator; all prices re-verified within the last 30 days.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Our rating |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bright Data | Best success rates and compliance for large-scale data collection | $0.90/mo | 4.4 |
 Decodo | Best mid-market balance of price, performance and usability | $0.50/mo | 4.3 |
 IPRoyal | Best budget option, and best for intermittent projects | $1.39/mo | 4.0 |
 Oxylabs | Best for enterprises where sourcing ethics and compliance are requirements | $1.20/mo | 4.5 |
 SOAX | Best geographic and carrier targeting, especially for mobile IPs | $49/mo | 4.3 |
5 of 5 tools
Best success rates and compliance for large-scale data collection
Bright Data is the market leader on pool size, success rate and compliance documentation. It is also the most expensive and the most complex to price, with a dashboard that assumes a technical operator.
$0.90/mo
7-day free trial
Best mid-market balance of price, performance and usability
Decodo occupies the mid-market well: much cheaper than the enterprise leaders, noticeably better documented and supported than the budget tier, with a dashboard that a small team can operate.
$0.50/mo
3-day free trial
Best budget option, and best for intermittent projects
IPRoyal is the budget option, and its non-expiring traffic credits genuinely suit intermittent work. Success rates on defended targets are the weakest here, which is the trade for the price.
$1.39/mo
starting price
Best for enterprises where sourcing ethics and compliance are requirements
Oxylabs is the closest competitor to Bright Data: similar scale, comparable success rates, and the most explicit ethical-sourcing position in the category. Priced for enterprise, with high entry commitments.
$1.20/mo
7-day free trial
Best geographic and carrier targeting, especially for mobile IPs
SOAX differentiates on targeting precision, particularly for mobile IPs by carrier. Strong for location-sensitive work; its pool is smaller and pricing less competitive at high volume.
$49/mo
3-day free trial
Head to head
Feature-by-feature matchups between leading Proxy Services tools, with a clear verdict.
The list, in detail
Composed from the same fact-checked data as each tool's full review — pricing, features, and verified ratings.
Bright Data is the market leader on pool size, success rate and compliance documentation. It is also the most expensive and the most complex to price, with a dashboard that assumes a technical operator.
4.44 verified reviews
Pricing: Paid plans from $0.90/mo with a 7-day free trial
Decodo occupies the mid-market well: much cheaper than the enterprise leaders, noticeably better documented and supported than the budget tier, with a dashboard that a small team can operate.
4.33 verified reviews
Pricing: Paid plans from $0.50/mo with a 3-day free trial
IPRoyal is the budget option, and its non-expiring traffic credits genuinely suit intermittent work. Success rates on defended targets are the weakest here, which is the trade for the price.
4.03 verified reviews
Pricing: Paid plans from $1.39/mo
Oxylabs is the closest competitor to Bright Data: similar scale, comparable success rates, and the most explicit ethical-sourcing position in the category. Priced for enterprise, with high entry commitments.
4.52 verified reviews
Pricing: Paid plans from $1.20/mo with a 7-day free trial
SOAX differentiates on targeting precision, particularly for mobile IPs by carrier. Strong for location-sensitive work; its pool is smaller and pricing less competitive at high volume.
4.32 verified reviews
Pricing: Paid plans from $49/mo with a 3-day free trial
Methodology
We evaluated 19 proxy providers across 25 criteria, weighted: features 30%, value for money 25%, ease of use 25%, support 20%. Our process:
We pay for our own bandwidth. No vendor can buy a ranking, a rating or a badge.
Proxy Services by the numbers
$1.20/mo
Median starting price
80%
Offer a free trial
0%
Have a free plan
14
Verified reviews
Computed live from the 5 Proxy Services products we track — August 25, 2026
Buyer's guide
Advertised price per gigabyte is close to meaningless on its own. In our testing the cheapest provider by GB was not the cheapest per successfully retrieved page on difficult targets, because failed requests still consume bandwidth and engineering time. Run a paid trial against your actual targets and calculate cost per success. Providers will happily quote per GB because it flatters them.
Datacentre IPs are cheap, fast and easily identified — fine for undefended targets and useless against anything with real protection. Residential IPs come from consumer connections and pass most checks at ten to twenty times the price. Mobile IPs are the most trusted and the most expensive. Most teams overpay by using residential where datacentre would work; test the cheap option first and escalate only where it fails.
Residential proxy supply chains vary from clearly consented — users paid or given a free product in exchange — to opaque bundling inside free apps where consent is buried in a EULA. This is a real ethical and legal question, and increasingly a procurement one. Providers with published compliance frameworks and named consent mechanisms are worth a premium over those who will not explain their sourcing.
Scraping publicly available data is broadly lawful in many jurisdictions but the picture is genuinely complicated, and it varies by what you collect, where you are and what the site's terms say. Personal data brings GDPR obligations regardless of whether the page was public. Get advice before building a business on it rather than after receiving a letter.
FAQ
Residential traffic runs $3.50–8.40 per gigabyte pay-as-you-go (IPRoyal $3.50, Decodo $7, Oxylabs $8, Bright Data $8.40), falling to roughly $3.50–5.90 at committed volume. Datacentre is far cheaper at $0.50–1.39 per GB, and mobile is dearest at $7–12. The figure that actually matters is cost per successful request — a cheap proxy that fails a third of the time on your target is more expensive than a dear one that does not.
Start with datacentre — they are ten to twenty times cheaper and faster, and perfectly adequate for undefended targets like public directories and static sites. Move to residential only where datacentre IPs get blocked, because they come from real consumer connections and pass most checks. Use mobile for the hardest targets, where carrier-assigned addresses carry the highest trust. Most teams overpay by defaulting to residential without testing whether they need it.
From real consumer devices whose owners have agreed to share bandwidth — but the quality of that consent varies enormously across the industry. The better models are explicit: IPRoyal pays users through its Pawns programme, and Oxylabs and Bright Data publish documented consent frameworks and compliance programmes. Less scrupulous providers bundle IP-sharing inside free apps with consent buried in a EULA. Ask directly, and treat an unwillingness to explain as an answer in itself.
Collecting publicly available data is broadly lawful in many jurisdictions, but the position is genuinely complicated and depends on what you collect, where you are and what the site's terms say. Personal data brings GDPR obligations regardless of whether the page was public. Copyrighted content, data behind a login and circumventing technical protections all raise separate issues. Take legal advice before building a business on collected data rather than after receiving a letter — and note that enterprise providers run use-case reviews precisely because this matters.
Write a review and help the next team choose. Every review is moderated, verified where possible, and never pay-to-play.
Write a review