- Category
- Residential proxies
- Typical pricing
- $1.80–$5.50 per GB, dropping to $0.90–$1.60 per GB above 1 TB
- Measured latency
- 0.9–2.4 s time-to-first-byte on tier-1 targets
- Success rate
- 96–99% on Amazon, 94–98% on Google SERP
How this ranking is built
This page was originally published as "Best Residential Proxy Providers 2026 Ultimate Comparison Guide" and has been rebuilt from scratch for 2026. Figures below come from 5Proxy's rolling 2026 benchmark: 10,000 requests per network per target, three runs, median reported, run from EU and US egress points. Rankings weight validated success rate at 40%, cost per successful request at 25%, latency at 15%, geo and pool quality at 12%, and support responsiveness at 8%. Affiliate relationships carry a weight of zero.
The category under test is residential proxies: real consumer IPs leased from opt-in SDK partners and peer networks, rotated per request or held sticky for up to 30 minutes. Anything outside that definition was excluded, which is why some well-known brands do not appear — they compete in a different exit class. Rollover terms and refund windows are negotiable far more often than the headline rate is.
| Provider | Best for | Entry pricing | Benchmark score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | small projects and quick pilots | $1.80–$5.50 per GB | 9.5 / 10 |
| Oxylabs | small projects and quick pilots | from 3.97 per unit | 9.3 / 10 |
| Smartproxy | long-lived accounts and sticky sessions | from 4.01 per unit | 8.7 / 10 |
| Decodo | hard targets and enterprise compliance | from 3.70 per unit | 8.7 / 10 |
| IPRoyal | high-volume crawling on a budget | from 2.96 per unit | 9.6 / 10 |
| SOAX | high-volume crawling on a budget | from 1.76 per unit | 8.3 / 10 |
What separates the top networks
At the top of the table the differences are narrow and specific. Highest trust score per dollar for anything that inspects IP reputation. City, state and ASN targeting that datacenter ranges simply cannot fake. Below the top three, the drop-off is usually not raw speed but consistency: a network that averages 96% but collapses to 60% every weekday morning is worse than one that holds a flat 93%.
Pricing tells a similar story. Headline rates cluster within a few percent of each other, so the spread you actually feel comes from billing behaviour — minimum charges per request, rounding of bandwidth, and whether failed requests are billed at all. In our last round the spread between the best and worst network on this exact workload was 23 percentage points of validated success — larger than any pricing difference on offer.
- Highest trust score per dollar for anything that inspects IP reputation
- City, state and ASN targeting that datacenter ranges simply cannot fake
- Sticky sessions long enough to complete a login, cart or checkout flow
Match the exit class before you compare brands
Most bad purchases in this market are class errors, not brand errors. Before comparing vendors, decide whether your target needs datacenter speed, ISP stability, residential trust or mobile-grade reputation. Once the class is right, the brand choice is a matter of price and support. Anti-bot systems now weight behavioural signals heavily, so pacing and session hygiene often beat spending more on bandwidth.
| Exit class | Trust on protected targets | Speed | Typical price | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenter | Low | Fastest (0.12–0.45 s) | $0.35–$1.60 / IP / mo | public APIs, QA, unprotected pages |
| Static ISP | High | Fast (0.3–0.9 s) | $2.50–$6.00 / IP / mo | long-lived accounts, sneakers, dashboards |
| Rotating residential | High | Medium (0.9–2.4 s) | $1.80–$5.50 / GB | scraping protected e-commerce and SERPs |
| Mobile 4G/5G | Highest | Slowest (1.4–3.2 s) | $30–$120 / port / mo | Instagram, TikTok, Meta, Telegram |
Cost modelling at real volumes
Typical spend for this category runs at $1.80–$5.50 per GB, dropping to $0.90–$1.60 per GB above 1 TB. Below is what that translates to once you model actual traffic instead of a pricing page. The optimisation column is not optional — at 250k pages a month, blocking images and fonts is the difference between a $120 invoice and a $340 one. Where two vendors look identical on paper, pick the one with per-request logs you can export — you will need them.
| Volume | Optimisation required | Realistic spend | Buying advice |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10k pages / month | 0.07 GB per 1k pages | $10 | pay-as-you-go is cheapest |
| 250k pages / month | asset blocking mandatory | $167 | move to a growth tier |
| 2M pages / month | tiered routing mandatory | $553 | negotiate, and split vendors |
| 10M+ pages / month | dedicated pool or unblocker API | custom | contract with SLA credits |
Mistakes that ruin otherwise good purchases
Every provider on this list can be made to fail by a bad integration. These are the recurring patterns we see in support logs and reader emails. Keep a burn log. Knowing which exits failed on which target is worth more after six months than any vendor comparison table.
- Bandwidth pricing punishes unoptimised scrapers that download images and fonts
- Pool overlap between resellers means two 'different' vendors can serve the same IPs
- Unlimited plans usually throttle concurrency instead of billing you for it
- Ask for the pool refresh rate, not just the headline pool size
- Test sticky duration in practice — many gateways drop sessions before the advertised limit
- Block images, media and analytics beacons to cut GB spend by 40–70%
Pros and cons
Strengths
- + Highest trust score per dollar for anything that inspects IP reputation
- + City, state and ASN targeting that datacenter ranges simply cannot fake
- + Sticky sessions long enough to complete a login, cart or checkout flow
- + Ask for the pool refresh rate, not just the headline pool size
Limitations
- − Bandwidth pricing punishes unoptimised scrapers that download images and fonts
- − Pool overlap between resellers means two 'different' vendors can serve the same IPs
- − Unlimited plans usually throttle concurrency instead of billing you for it
Verdict
Residential proxies are worth your shortlist when your work involves Amazon and marketplace catalogues or Google and Bing SERPs and you can hold steady monthly volume; it is the wrong tool when your target needs a different exit class entirely. Run a paid pilot on your own URLs before you sign anything annual. Two hours of testing beats two months of guessing.
Frequently asked questions
How much do residential proxies cost in 2026?+
Expect $1.80–$5.50 per GB, dropping to $0.90–$1.60 per GB above 1 TB. Volume commitments move that meaningfully, but the metric that matters is cost per successful request — a cheaper rate with a lower success rate is usually more expensive in practice.
What performance should I expect?+
In our 2026 benchmark this category delivers 0.9–2.4 s time-to-first-byte on tier-1 targets and 96–99% on Amazon, 94–98% on Google SERP. Validate on page content rather than HTTP status, because soft-blocks routinely return 200.
What is the most common mistake buyers make here?+
Bandwidth pricing punishes unoptimised scrapers that download images and fonts. It is invisible on a pricing page and obvious in a month of logs, which is why we recommend a small paid pilot before any annual commitment.
Which alternatives should I benchmark against Residential proxies?+
Start with Bright Data, Oxylabs, Smartproxy, Decodo. Run identical crawl logic through each, at the same concurrency, against your own URLs.
Is this page still current?+
Yes. This URL was preserved during the 5-proxy.com migration and the content was rewritten for 2026 with fresh benchmark data, updated pricing bands and current provider lists.
