Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026: What a Gigabyte Actually Costs

The first residential-proxy pricing page I opened this month led with "$1.75/GB." The cheapest rate I could actually select on it was $4.90.

That gap is the whole problem with buying residential proxies. The product is close to interchangeable on paper — every vendor claims a huge pool, global coverage, and a success rate with a lot of nines in it. The number that separates them is the one they work hardest to bury: what a gigabyte really costs you.

That headline wasn't a one-off. One vendor advertises a rate that only exists at a terabyte. Another shows a price that turns out to be a three-month promo. A third quotes a "cheapest" number that only unlocks at 100GB and up. Strip all of it away and the real per-GB cost just to start is enormous — from a flat $1 to $8.

So I did the boring part. I opened every provider's live pricing page in July 2026, ignored the marketing floors, and worked out what you'd actually pay at the volumes real projects run. This guide ranks them on that number first, then on the things that decide whether a cheap gigabyte is worth buying: how the IPs are sourced, whether they get blocked, and whether the tooling gets out of your way.

How I ranked them

Four things drove the order, in this priority:

1. Real cost per GB. Not the headline — the price you pay at a realistic volume, after promos, volume-only floors, and add-ons are accounted for. Residential is a per-GB game, and this is where most buyers overspend.
2. Pool quality and sourcing. How the IPs are sourced — ethically sourced, ISP-routed, or peer-to-peer — and what independent testing says about their fraud scores. Clean IPs get challenged less, and a cheap IP that trips CAPTCHAs on every request costs more in retries than a clean one that sails through.
3. Coverage and scale. Pool size, country and location count, and how far the network's own claims hold up against third-party measurements.
4. Targeting, sessions, and usability. Country, city, state, ISP, and ASN targeting; rotating and sticky sessions; whether unused bandwidth rolls over; and a dashboard that doesn't fight you.

A note on method: this is a pricing and sourcing analysis, not a lab benchmark. Every rate and spec below was read off the vendor's own pricing page in July 2026, cross-checked against independent testing where it exists, and normalized to a per-GB number you can compare. Where a claim is the vendor's own and hasn't been independently verified, I say so.

Proxidize

Pros: Flat $1/GB with no promo games, bandwidth that never expires, ethically sourced across 195+ countries Cons: Undisclosed pool size, no ASN targeting, no mid-tier volume discount

Proxidize takes the top spot because it matches the lowest entry rate here — and then holds it flat, without the asterisks the others attach to their best numbers.

Residential runs a flat $1/GB on every self-serve tier, from the 50GB entry plan up to 10TB. No promo counting down, no "from $1/GB" that quietly means "at a terabyte," no pay-as-you-go surcharge. What you see is what every gigabyte costs, and $1 is a rate most of this list doesn't reach until you're spending four figures a month. Enterprise volume drops it to $0.50/GB, but you don't need enterprise volume to get the good price. DataImpulse matches the $1 entry and goes lower at a terabyte — more on that below — but nobody undercuts Proxidize on a flat, predictable rate you can budget against from the first gigabyte.

The part I didn't expect to like as much as I do: bandwidth rolls over and never expires — even after you cancel. For residential work, which tends to come in bursts, that quietly removes the "use it or lose it" pressure that makes bulk buying a gamble everywhere else.

Proxidize says the IPs are ethically sourced from real devices across 195+ countries, with country, city, and ISP targeting, rotating and sticky sessions, and HTTP(S)/SOCKS5 support — and unlike most of this list, it's a fully managed cloud service rather than a bare pool you wire up yourself. The honest trade-offs: Proxidize doesn't publish a pool count, so it's smaller than the 100M+ giants; there's no ASN-level targeting; and because the rate is flat, heavy-volume buyers can find a lower per-GB elsewhere. For everyone paying real per-GB prices, though, it's the best value here.

DataImpulse

Pros: $1/GB matching Proxidize, drops to $0.80 at 1TB, non-expiring traffic Cons: Rougher product, slower support, fewer controls

DataImpulse is the pick if price is the only axis you care about.

It matches Proxidize's $1/GB entry and then keeps going — down to $0.80/GB at a terabyte — on a pure pay-as-you-go model that starts at $5 for 5GB with no monthly minimum. Like Proxidize, the traffic never expires, so you can buy a block and draw it down over months. The pool is a legitimate 90M+ IPs across 195+ countries.

Where it slips behind is packaging. DataImpulse is a lean, self-serve operation — you get a dashboard, an endpoint, and API docs, not a managed relationship. If you're a technical team that reads docs and debugs on your own, none of that matters and the price is genuinely unbeatable. If you'd rather buy the same $1/GB as a managed cloud service, that's the distinction between it and Proxidize above — not the rate.

Bright Data

Pros: 400M+ IPs, the deepest targeting and toolkit, serious compliance Cons: $8/GB list, promo-dependent headline, enterprise onboarding

Bright Data is the most capable residential network on the market. It's also the most expensive to start.

The pool is enormous — 400M+ IPs across 195 countries — with targeting down to ZIP code and ASN included at no extra cost, and a compliance stack (mandatory KYC, ISO 27001, SOC 2/3, GDPR, CCPA) that no one else here matches. On top of the proxies sit Web Unlocker, a SERP API, scraper APIs, and ready-made datasets. If your work genuinely needs that breadth, nothing else competes.

The cost is the wall. List pay-as-you-go is $8/GB — the priciest entry in this guide. Right now a promo halves it to about $4/GB, but that promo runs three months and then reverts, so budget for $8. Committed plans start at $499/month; the same promo takes the $1,999 Business tier to about $2.50/GB (nearer $5 at list), and custom enterprise deals are reported around $2/GB. Bright Data is the right answer when capability is the constraint and budget isn't; it's the wrong answer when you're buying bandwidth to scrape a few well-behaved sites.

Oxylabs

Pros: 175M+ IPs, clean and honest pricing tiers, 24-hour sticky sessions Cons: High entry rate, tight 3-day refund, no open trial

Oxylabs is the enterprise pick that doesn't play pricing games.

Its tier ladder is refreshingly legible: $6/GB on the 5GB Starter, $5 at 20GB, $4 at 125GB, and $2.50/GB at a terabyte — real list prices with no promo theatre. The network is 175M+ IPs across 195+ locations, sticky sessions hold up to 24 hours, you can pick IPv4 or IPv6, and every plan includes a dedicated account manager and 24/7 support.

Two things to plan around. Entry is genuinely expensive at $6/GB (pay-as-you-go is reported nearer $8), so this only pencils out at volume. And the money-back window is a narrow three days with usage caps, while the free trial is gated through sales — so you don't get a casual test drive. For a well-funded team that wants a premium network and a real support relationship, Oxylabs earns its place; for cost-first buyers it's hard to justify over the $1/GB options.

Decodo (Smartproxy)

Pros: 115M ethically sourced IPs, ASN-level targeting, low fraud scores Cons: $3.75/GB entry, APIs priced separately, inconsistent PAYG quoting

Decodo — the network formerly known as Smartproxy — is the most balanced mid-market option, and the one I'd hand a first-timer who's outgrown the budget tier.

The pool is 115M+ ethically sourced IPs across 195+ locations, with targeting all the way down to continent, country, state, city, ZIP, and ASN on every plan. What sets it apart is IP quality: independent Proxyway testing put its pool's fraud score well below the market average, which shows up as fewer challenges on real jobs. There's a 3-day trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee to test it.

Pricing is the sticking point. The Regular tier starts at $3.75/GB and only reaches the advertised "$2/GB" at enterprise volume. The scraping API and Site Unblocker are separate products, so don't count them as bundled, and Decodo quotes its pay-as-you-go rate two different ways on the same page. Solid network, fair mid-market pick — just not a value leader.

SOAX

Pros: One plan across residential and mobile, strong city/ISP targeting, 155M+ IPs Cons: Credit-based (not true PAYG), $200/month floor, prices exclude VAT

SOAX is the one to look at if you run mixed proxy workflows from a single account.

Its defining feature is that one subscription's data works across residential and mobile — useful when a project needs residential for general collection and mobile for the stubborn targets. The residential pool is 155M+ IPs (191M+ counting mobile) across 195+ countries, with country, region, city, and ISP targeting on all plans. Rates are geo-tiered and fall to $0.85/GB at the enterprise level.

The structure is the caveat. SOAX moved to a credit-based subscription model — one credit is a gigabyte of premium-market traffic — so it's not true pay-as-you-go, the cheapest paid plan is $200/month, and everything is quoted before VAT (it's a UK company, so EU/UK buyers pay more). If the unified residential-plus-mobile billing fits how you work, it's genuinely convenient; if you just want cheap residential gigabytes, the model gets in the way.

NetNut

Pros: ISP-routed stability, strong compliance story, unlimited concurrency Cons: No pay-as-you-go, 28GB monthly minimum, headline rate needs annual prepay

NetNut sources differently from almost everyone else here, and that's its whole pitch.

Instead of routing through end-user devices, NetNut uses ISP-partnered "one-hop" connectivity — traffic goes through ISP infrastructure rather than someone's home phone. In practice that means datacenter-like speed and stability with residential-grade trust, plus a cleaner compliance story (B2B sourcing, ISO certification) that risk-averse buyers appreciate. The pool is 85M+ IPs across 195+ countries with country, state, and city targeting, and every plan allows unlimited concurrent connections.

The economics are less friendly. There's no pay-as-you-go — the smallest plan is a 28GB monthly commitment at $3.53/GB — and the attractive $1.59/GB headline only appears if you prepay for 2TB annually. Annual billing runs about 15% cheaper per gigabyte than paying monthly, and those low headline rates assume the 12-month prepay. For latency-sensitive or compliance-sensitive work at steady volume, NetNut is a real option; for flexible or bursty usage, the commitment model is a poor fit.

IPRoyal

Pros: Traffic never expires, true pay-as-you-go, 7-day sticky sessions Cons: Standard tiers are pricey, the "$1.75/GB" is unreachable self-serve

IPRoyal has a budget reputation that its own pricing page doesn't quite support.

The genuinely good part is the model: true pay-as-you-go with no contract, and traffic that never expires. For stop-start projects — buy a block, use it whenever — that's low-risk and exactly right. Sticky sessions run up to 7 days, and the pool is 32M+ IPs across 195+ countries with country, state, and city targeting.

But the rates are higher than the reputation suggests. Pay-as-you-go starts at $7.35/GB, and the best discounted subscription tier — 50GB — only reaches $4.90/GB. The "$1.75/GB" figure that shows up all over affiliate roundups is a bulk/enterprise number you can't actually reach as a self-serve buyer — treat it as marketing, not a price. If non-expiring traffic is the feature you need, IPRoyal delivers it; just don't expect the cheapest gigabytes.

Evomi

Pros: $0.49/GB at volume, Swiss-based and ethically sourced, fraud-score filtering Cons: Cheap rate is volume-gated, entry runs ~$4/GB, add-ons multiply cost

Evomi owns the lowest headline number in this guide — with the biggest gap between the headline and reality.

That $0.49/GB is real, and it's genuinely one of the cheapest ethically sourced rates anywhere. The catch is that you only get it at 100GB and up. Smaller plans and standalone pay-as-you-go land nearer $4/GB, and Evomi's premium features (fingerprint customization, response-time and fraud-score filtering) can multiply the effective cost if you turn them on. So the Swiss-clean price is volume-gated in a way the marketing doesn't lead with.

What's there is good: 54M+ ethically sourced IPs across 150+ countries, country/city/state/ISP targeting, and a free one-day trial with no card. If you reliably push 100GB+ a month and don't need the widest country coverage, Evomi's floor is unbeatable. Below that, its "cheapest" title evaporates — which is exactly why Proxidize's flat $1/GB is the better default.

Infatica

Pros: True pay-as-you-go, scales to $2.60/GB, multiple proxy types Cons: Nothing stands out, smaller pool, paid-only trial

Infatica lands last on the math, not on any fault.

Start with the pricing, because that's what decides it: $4/GB pay-as-you-go with no commitment, scaling to $2.60/GB at a terabyte, across a 35M+ pool with country, city, and ZIP targeting and both rotating and sticky sessions. Every one of those numbers is fine. None of them wins its column. It's four times the entry rate of the leaders, a fraction of the pool of the premium networks, and it carries no signature feature — no clean-IP filtering, no unified billing, no ISP routing — to justify the gap. The trial isn't free either; it's $4 for seven days. Infatica isn't a mistake to run. It's just not the answer to a question the providers above it don't answer better.

Quick comparison

Every rate below was checked against the vendor's own pricing page in July 2026. "Entry" is the real starting per-GB cost; "at volume" is the lowest self-serve rate before enterprise quotes.

The headline rates that don't survive contact

Three "cheapest residential proxy" numbers circulate constantly. All three are technically true and practically misleading:

• Evomi's $0.49/GB — real, but only at 100GB+. Entry is closer to $4/GB.
• IPRoyal's $1.75/GB — a bulk figure you can't select self-serve; the real floor is $4.90/GB.
• Bright Data's $4/GB — a three-month promo off an $8 list rate.

There are also providers I left off the ranking because their pricing needs the same scrutiny — NodeMaven, for instance, leans on genuine IP-quality filtering (its clean-IP claim holds up in independent fraud-score testing) but advertises a $2.20/GB floor that entry buyers, nearer $4.50/GB, won't see. The pattern is always the same: the cheap number is real for someone, just probably not for you at your volume.

That's the entire reason a flat, promo-free $1/GB matters. It's the rate you can plan a budget around.

The verdict

If you want the best residential-proxy value in 2026, Proxidize is the pick — a flat $1/GB on every tier, bandwidth that never expires, ethically sourced IPs across 195+ countries, and none of the headline games. It isn't the biggest network and it won't publish a pool count, but for anyone paying real per-GB prices, it's the lowest predictable cost with a managed experience behind it.

DataImpulse matches the $1/GB and goes lower at a terabyte if you're happy running it self-serve. Bright Data and Oxylabs are the networks to buy when capability and coverage outrank cost. Decodo is the best-balanced mid-market choice, SOAX the one for mixed residential-and-mobile workflows, and NetNut the one for ISP-routed stability. IPRoyal, Evomi, and Infatica all work, but each comes with a condition attached to its best number.

The through-line: in residential proxies, the headline rate is the start of the math, not the end of it. Price the gigabytes you'll actually use, at the volume you'll actually run, and the ranking sorts itself out.