- Category
- Proxy networks
- Typical pricing
- $0.35 per datacenter IP up to $9 per GB for premium mobile bandwidth
- Measured latency
- 0.15–3.2 s depending on exit class
- Success rate
- 35–99.5% depending on the match between exit class and target protection
Proxy networks explained
This page was originally published as "Bright Data the Leading Platform for Web Data Collection and Proxy Services" and has been rebuilt from scratch for 2026. Proxy networks are intermediary servers that route your requests through a different IP, with the exit type — residential, mobile, ISP or datacenter — deciding how much trust you inherit. In 2026 the category prices at $0.35 per datacenter IP up to $9 per GB for premium mobile bandwidth, delivers 0.15–3.2 s depending on exit class and lands 35–99.5% depending on the match between exit class and target protection on the targets it was designed for: web scraping, SEO and rank tracking, ad verification, social media management, e-commerce and pricing intelligence.
Buying the wrong proxy is rarely obvious on day one — it shows up three weeks later as a success rate that quietly slid from 98% to 71%. That is why this page leads with measurements rather than descriptions. Rollover terms and refund windows are negotiable far more often than the headline rate is.
- Matching exit class to target protection matters more than any brand choice
- Tiered routing keeps costs low without sacrificing hard-target success
- Trials and pay-as-you-go plans make head-to-head testing cheap
Providers that compete in this category
The names below are the ones that survive our benchmark rounds consistently. Scores move between rounds — treat them as a shortlist to test, not a leaderboard to copy. 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.
| Provider | Best for | Entry pricing | Benchmark score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | small projects and quick pilots | $0.35 per datacenter IP up to $9 per GB for premium mobile bandwidth | 8.7 / 10 |
| Oxylabs | teams that need a real account manager | from 1.20 per unit | 8.5 / 10 |
| Smartproxy | balanced price and success rate | from 2.32 per unit | 9.7 / 10 |
| Decodo | geo-precise data collection | from 1.30 per unit | 9.0 / 10 |
| IPRoyal | hard targets and enterprise compliance | from 3.10 per unit | 9.1 / 10 |
| SOAX | balanced price and success rate | from 3.27 per unit | 8.4 / 10 |
How to choose without guessing
Choice in this market is a filtering exercise, not a search for a winner. Filter by exit class, then by geo coverage where you actually operate, then by billing model, and only then by price. Most buyers reverse that order and pay for it later. Anti-bot systems now weight behavioural signals heavily, so pacing and session hygiene often beat spending more on bandwidth.
- Define the target and its protection tier before shopping
- Run a 10k-request pilot on your own URLs before committing
- Compare on validated success rate and total cost, never on pool size
- Confirm refund, trial and rollover terms in writing
| Metric | Market range | Target to demand |
|---|---|---|
| Validated success rate | varies by tier | ≥ 96% on your own targets |
| Median TTFB | 0.15–3.2 s | under 1.5 s for residential |
| Support first response | 5 min – 48 h | under 2 h with a named manager |
| Trial availability | common | paid pilot or refundable credit |
Budgeting realistically
The table below models spend at four volumes. The pattern is consistent across vendors: optimisation, not negotiation, produces the biggest savings until you reach seven-figure request counts. 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 | 0.08 GB per 1k pages | $10 | pay-as-you-go is cheapest |
| 250k pages / month | asset blocking mandatory | $204 | move to a growth tier |
| 2M pages / month | tiered routing mandatory | $527 | negotiate, and split vendors |
| 10M+ pages / month | dedicated pool or unblocker API | custom | contract with SLA credits |
Risks and constraints to plan around
Every category has structural limits that no vendor can engineer away. Knowing them in advance turns surprises into planned trade-offs. Keep a burn log. Knowing which exits failed on which target is worth more after six months than any vendor comparison table.
- Headline pool sizes are marketing numbers, not concurrency guarantees
- Bandwidth pricing hides the real metric: cost per successful request
- Reseller overlap means brand diversity does not always mean IP diversity
Pros and cons
Strengths
- + Matching exit class to target protection matters more than any brand choice
- + Tiered routing keeps costs low without sacrificing hard-target success
- + Trials and pay-as-you-go plans make head-to-head testing cheap
- + Define the target and its protection tier before shopping
Limitations
- − Headline pool sizes are marketing numbers, not concurrency guarantees
- − Bandwidth pricing hides the real metric: cost per successful request
- − Reseller overlap means brand diversity does not always mean IP diversity
Verdict
Bright Data is worth your shortlist when your work involves web scraping or SEO and rank tracking 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 proxy networks cost in 2026?+
Expect $0.35 per datacenter IP up to $9 per GB for premium mobile bandwidth. 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 0.15–3.2 s depending on exit class and 35–99.5% depending on the match between exit class and target protection. Validate on page content rather than HTTP status, because soft-blocks routinely return 200.
What is the most common mistake buyers make here?+
Headline pool sizes are marketing numbers, not concurrency guarantees. 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 Bright Data?+
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.