01
Proxy001
9.0/10 · from $1.00/GB100M+ residential and datacenter proxies with simple, flat pricing.
Why it ranks here: Lowest effective cost per successful GB in our budget bracket.
Best Proxies · Updated 2026-07-28
The Best Cheap Proxies of 2026
Budget networks that still clear real targets, ranked by effective cost per successful request.
Cheap proxies are only cheap if they work. A $1/GB network with a 55% success rate costs more per successful request than a $4/GB network at 97%.
This list ranks budget options on effective cost after retries, not on the rate card.
The ranked picks
02
IPFly
9.1/10 · from $0.80/GB90M+ residential pool with static ISP and datacenter proxies at value pricing.
Why it ranks here: Cheap entry tiers plus a 500MB dynamic trial to validate before paying.
03
IPRoyal
8.8/10 · from $1.75/GBCheap, honest SOCKS5 with a strong pay-per-GB residential offer.
Why it ranks here: Non-expiring traffic means unused budget is never wasted.
04
GeoNode
8.2/10 · from $9/threadUnlimited-bandwidth residential SOCKS5 (per-thread pricing).
Why it ranks here: Unlimited-concurrency plans for high-volume, low-value reads.
05
Proxy-Cheap
8.5/10 · from $2.99/GBAggressively priced SOCKS5 across every proxy type.
Why it ranks here: Cheapest dedicated IPs for monitoring and QA.
How we tested
Success rate
Median success on tier-1 targets over 30 days of scheduled requests from four regions.
Pool quality
Unique IPs seen per 100k requests, ASN diversity and duplicate-subnet rate.
Latency
Time to first byte measured against a control endpoint, p50 and p95.
Pricing
Effective cost per successful GB, not headline rate-card pricing.
Compliance
Sourcing disclosure, KYC posture and abuse handling.
Scores are recomputed whenever a vendor changes pricing, sourcing or infrastructure. This list was last verified on 2026-07-28. We earn commission from some links on this page; placement is decided from test data before any commercial terms are discussed.
Frequently asked questions
Are free proxies ever acceptable?+
Only for throwaway connectivity checks. Free lists are unencrypted, frequently logged and often injected — never route credentials or client data through them.
What is the cheapest reliable option?+
For volume, budget residential at $1.50–$2.50/GB. For fixed endpoints, dedicated datacenter IPs at $1–$3 per IP per month.
