What Do Residential Proxies Cost Per GB in 2026?

TL;DR: Residential proxy list rates in 2026 span $1/GB to $7/GB at entry — a sevenfold spread for the same category of product.

• Proxidize and DataImpulse share the lowest entry rate at $1/GB, checked July 26, 2026.
• At 1TB, DataImpulse is cheapest at about $800; Proxidize holds $1,000 on a flat ladder.
• Expiry rules, plan minimums and pay-as-you-go surcharges change the effective rate more than the headline figure does.

Residential proxies are sold by the gigabyte, and the published price for a gigabyte in 2026 ranges from $1 to $7 depending on who you buy it from. That spread is not explained by quality alone — it reflects different pricing models, different minimum commitments, and different rules about what happens to bandwidth you don't use.

I read the published rates on all seven providers' official pricing pages on July 26, 2026. List and regular prices only: where a page shows a discounted figure beside a crossed-out regular price, the regular price is what appears here, because promotional rates lapse and renewals happen at list.

This guide sets out the full tier ladders, models what a 100GB and a 1TB month actually costs at each provider, and covers the four mechanisms that make a low headline rate expensive. For a quality-first ranking rather than a price-first one, see Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026.

What Is the Lowest Residential Proxy Rate in 2026?

The lowest published residential rate is $1/GB, shared by Proxidize and DataImpulse — every other provider checked starts at $3/GB or above.

Entry rates read from each provider's official pricing page on July 26, 2026. No coupon codes, no first-month discounts.

Best for the lowest entry commitment: DataImpulse at a $5 top-up. Best flat rate at any volume: Proxidize at $1/GB.

Two of these ladders behave differently from the rest. Proxidize is the only flat one — $1/GB holds from 25GB all the way to 1TB, so there is no volume threshold to reach before the rate improves. SOAX is the only one where the entry rate is gated behind a monthly plan fee rather than a purchase size, which makes its $3.00/GB unavailable to anyone spending under $200 a month.

SOAX also prices by destination. Its published rates group countries into tiers, with markets such as the US, UK, Canada and Germany on the most expensive tier and others costing less per gigabyte. The SOAX figures throughout this guide are Tier 1 rates; if your traffic targets cheaper tiers, your effective rate will be lower than shown.

In short: $1/GB is the residential price floor in 2026, held by Proxidize and DataImpulse. The next cheapest entry is SOAX at $3.00/GB behind a $200 monthly plan, and rates climb to $7/GB at IPRoyal's single-gigabyte tier.

What Does 100GB and 1TB Actually Cost?

A 100GB month ranges from $100 to about $500 across the providers checked, and a 1TB month from roughly $800 to $3,000.

The tables below apply each provider's published ladder to two common workload sizes. Where a provider's public table doesn't reach the volume, that is noted rather than extrapolated.

Best at 100GB: Proxidize or DataImpulse at $100. Best at 1TB: DataImpulse at $800.

Notice that Bright Data's pay-as-you-go rate beats its own cheapest subscription at exactly 100GB — $400 against a $499 plan for 141GB. Buying the plan only makes sense once you'll actually consume more than 125GB. That inversion appears at several vendors and is worth checking against your real volume rather than assuming the subscription is cheaper.

The other pattern is how quickly the field narrows at scale. Seven providers publish an entry rate; only five publish anything at a terabyte, and two of those require a plan costing $2,500 or more per month.

In short: at 100GB, Proxidize and DataImpulse cost $100 while premium vendors run $400–$500. At 1TB, DataImpulse leads at about $800 and Proxidize at $1,000, with Oxylabs and SOAX between $2,500 and $3,000.

Does Unused Residential Bandwidth Expire?

Expiry rules split the field cleanly, and they can change the effective rate more than the headline figure.

A team that buys 200GB and uses 120GB has paid a real rate 67% above the sticker if the remainder disappears at month end. On a $1/GB plan that's $1.67/GB; on a $4/GB plan it's $6.67/GB.

Best for irregular usage: Proxidize or DataImpulse, where nothing is lost between months.

This is one of the few specs where the cheapest providers also hold the strongest position. Proxidize's own documentation draws the distinction explicitly — residential bandwidth carries over indefinitely while its mobile per-GB data expires after a month — so the rollover claim is specific to the residential product rather than a blanket policy.

In short: Proxidize and DataImpulse carry unused residential bandwidth forward; most other providers tie the allowance to the billing month. For workloads that fluctuate, non-expiring traffic can beat a nominally lower expiring rate.

What Makes a Low Rate More Expensive Than It Looks?

Four mechanisms inflate the effective per-GB rate: plan minimums, expiry, pay-as-you-go surcharges, and VAT on quoted fees.

Plan minimums strand allowance. SOAX's $3.00/GB requires the $200/month Builder plan. A workload using 25GB on that plan pays an effective $8/GB — higher than any list rate in this guide.

Pay-as-you-go carries a surcharge. Decodo lists $4/GB pay-as-you-go against $2.75/GB at its 100GB tier, a 45% premium for the same traffic. Bright Data's $4/GB pay-as-you-go compares against $2.50/GB on its largest published plan. Convenience billing is consistently the most expensive way to buy.

Expiry burns the remainder. Covered above, and it compounds with minimums — an oversized plan on an expiring product is the worst combination available.

VAT sits outside the quoted figure. SOAX quotes its plan fees plus VAT, so the headline $200 isn't the invoice total for buyers in VAT jurisdictions. Most competitors quote inclusive or don't specify.

Destination changes the rate at some vendors. SOAX groups countries into pricing tiers, so the same plan bills a different amount per gigabyte depending on where the traffic goes. A rate quoted for US or German traffic is not the rate you'll pay elsewhere, in either direction.

A fifth mechanism deserves separate mention: promotional pricing. Several vendors display a discounted per-GB figure beside a crossed-out regular price. Those discounts are real while they last, but renewals and contract terms are written against list. Every figure in this guide is the regular rate for that reason.

In short: read the ladder, not the banner. Minimums inflate small workloads, pay-as-you-go carries a 45%-plus premium at the same vendor, expiry burns unused gigabytes, and VAT lands on top of quoted plan fees.

Which Pricing Model Should You Choose?

Match the billing model to how predictable your usage is, not to the lowest number on the page.

For most buyers with reasonably steady volume, the flat ladder is the simplest defensible choice: Proxidize's $1/GB holds from 25GB to 1TB and unused data rolls over, which removes both the tier-threshold question and the expiry penalty in one move. Teams running genuinely large or irregular volumes should compare it against DataImpulse, which is cheaper at a terabyte ($0.80/GB) and bills in smaller increments.

If you need ZIP or ASN-level targeting, note that Proxidize publishes city and ISP targeting but not ASN — DataImpulse and Decodo both offer ASN at lower rates than Bright Data.

How We Checked These Prices

Every figure here was read directly from each provider's own pricing or product page on July 26, 2026, not from third-party summaries or cached data. Where a page displayed both a crossed-out regular price and a discounted price, we recorded the regular price.

Our approach:

• Full ladders, not entry rates. A single entry price hides the shape of the curve. We recorded every published tier so the effective rate at your volume is visible.
• Stated volumes. Cost models use 100GB and 1TB, applied to published ladders. Where a provider's public table doesn't reach that volume, we say so rather than extrapolating a rate the vendor hasn't offered.
• Expiry and minimums as first-class factors. Both change effective cost more than a small difference in headline rate, so both are recorded per provider.
• Vendor claims labelled as such. Pool sizes, success rates and targeting depth throughout are the providers' own published figures. We have not independently benchmarked them.
• Independent user reports. Where public G2, Trustpilot, Capterra or Reddit threads document recurring problems, they are noted in the cons.

Prices in this market move. Anything sourced from a pricing page is accurate as of the date above and should be re-checked before purchase.

Getting the Rate You Actually Pay

The honest summary is that half the field clusters between $2.50 and $4 per gigabyte and two providers sit at $1 — a gap large enough that it should be the starting point of any evaluation, not an afterthought. Proxidize and DataImpulse both hold $1/GB, and they differ mainly in shape: Proxidize is flat and rolls bandwidth over, DataImpulse is cheaper at a terabyte and bills in smaller increments.

Before committing, measure one billing cycle of real usage, then apply each provider's published ladder to that number rather than to the headline rate. Check the expiry rule, check whether a plan minimum strands allowance you won't use, and confirm whether the quoted fee includes VAT.

For the wider ranking across features rather than price, see Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026. For scraping-specific economics, see Best Residential Proxies for Web Scraping. For how providers document their IP sourcing, see Ethically Sourced Residential Proxies.