Residential proxies route your requests through real residential IP addresses, making them nearly indistinguishable from organic traffic. For scraping sites that block datacenter IPs — which is most of them in 2026 — residential proxies aren't optional, they're essential.
The problem is that residential proxy pricing is opaque, inconsistent, and full of gotchas. Bandwidth-based pricing sounds simple until you realize that bandwidth includes response headers, compressed content, and failed requests. "Unlimited" plans often have hidden rate limits. Rotating vs. sticky sessions behave differently across providers.
This comparison covers the major residential proxy API providers with real pricing and practical guidance for web scraping.
Key Takeaways
- Oxylabs has the largest residential network (100M+ IPs) with the most reliable uptime for enterprise scraping
- Bright Data offers the best geographic coverage (195+ countries) and the most mature API ecosystem
- Smartproxy provides the best value for mid-scale operations with transparent GB-based pricing
- SearchHive ScrapeForge bundles residential proxies into its scraping API, eliminating the need for a separate proxy provider for most use cases
- IPRoyal and NodeMaven lead on raw per-GB price but sacrifice network quality and success rates
- For AI/LLM pipelines, the combined approach (ScrapeForge with built-in proxies) is cheaper and simpler than managing proxies separately
1. Oxylabs Residential Proxies
Best for: Enterprise-scale operations, highest success rates, compliance requirements
Oxylabs operates the largest residential proxy network in the market. Their proxy pool covers 195+ locations with 100M+ residential IPs.
Pricing:
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $75/mo | 5 GB |
| Advanced | $120/mo | 15 GB |
| Advanced+ | $180/mo | 35 GB |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
At scale, Oxylabs charges roughly $4-6 per GB depending on your tier. The quality justifies the premium — success rates on difficult targets (LinkedIn, Amazon, Google) consistently rank highest in third-party benchmarks.
import requests
# Oxylabs residential proxy
proxies = {
"http": "http://customer-username:your_password@pr.oxylabs.io:7777",
"https": "http://customer-username:your_password@pr.oxylabs.io:7777"
}
response = requests.get("https://example.com", proxies=proxies, timeout=30)
print(response.status_code)
Oxylabs also offers a Web Scraper API that combines proxies with scraping infrastructure — no need to manage proxy rotation, retries, or CAPTCHA solving yourself. But this comes at a higher per-request cost.
2. Bright Data
Best for: Geographic targeting, complex scraping needs, full platform ecosystem
Bright Data (formerly Luminati) pioneered the residential proxy market. Their platform extends beyond proxies into scraping APIs, browser automation, and data-as-a-service products.
Pricing:
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | $8.40/GB | No minimum |
| Starter | $75/mo | 5 GB |
| Advanced | $200/mo | 50 GB |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
Bright Data's pay-as-you-go rate of $8.40/GB is higher than most competitors, but the quality and feature set are comprehensive. Their Super Proxy infrastructure handles load balancing, retry logic, and IP rotation automatically.
The platform includes Bright Data Web Unlocker (anti-bot bypass), SERP API, and pre-built scrapers for specific sites. This makes Bright Data a one-stop shop, though the costs add up when you use multiple products.
3. Smartproxy
Best for: Mid-scale scraping, teams wanting transparent pricing
Smartproxy offers straightforward GB-based pricing with a 55M+ IP pool across 195+ locations.
Pricing:
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | $5.50/GB | No minimum |
| Starter | $8.50/mo | 2 GB |
| Advanced | $30/mo | 12 GB |
| Pro | $60/mo | 30 GB |
| Enterprise | $100/mo | 70 GB |
At $5.50/GB pay-as-you-go, Smartproxy is among the cheaper providers. The $30/month Advanced plan gives 12 GB — $2.50/GB, which is competitive for sustained operations.
import requests
# Smartproxy residential proxy
proxies = {
"http": "http://username:password@gate.smartproxy.com:7000",
"https": "http://username:password@gate.smartproxy.com:7000"
}
response = requests.get("https://target-site.com", proxies=proxies, timeout=30)
Success rates are solid for most targets but slightly lower than Oxylabs on heavily protected sites. The dashboard and API are straightforward — less feature-rich than Bright Data but easier to get started.
4. SearchHive ScrapeForge (Integrated Proxies)
Best for: Teams that want proxies bundled with their scraping API, not managed separately
ScrapeForge takes a different approach — residential proxies are included in every plan at no extra cost. You don't manage proxy endpoints, rotation logic, or separate billing.
Pricing (includes proxy rotation):
| Plan | Price | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 1,000 credits |
| Starter | $19/mo | 10,000 credits |
| Pro | $49/mo | 50,000 credits |
| Business | $149/mo | 200,000 credits |
from searchhive import ScrapeForge
client = ScrapeForge(api_key="sh_live_...")
# Proxies are automatic — no configuration needed
result = client.scrape("https://protected-site.com")
print(result.markdown)
# Crawl with automatic proxy rotation per request
pages = client.crawl("https://protected-site.com", max_pages=100)
for page in pages:
# Each request uses a different residential IP
print(page.url, page.status_code)
This integrated approach eliminates several costs and complexities:
- No separate proxy subscription to manage
- No proxy rotation logic to write and maintain
- No bandwidth billing surprises (per-credit, not per-GB)
- No compatibility issues between proxy provider and scraping tool
At $49/month for 50,000 credits, ScrapeForge with built-in proxies is significantly cheaper than buying a proxy service ($30-75/month) plus a scraping API ($20-50/month) separately.
The tradeoff is less granular control. You can't specify a country or city for your proxy, set session durations, or manage a custom IP rotation strategy. For advanced proxy use cases, a dedicated provider like Oxylabs is better. For most scraping workflows, ScrapeForge's built-in rotation is sufficient.
5. IPRoyal
Best for: Budget-conscious scraping, high-volume operations where IP quality matters less
IPRoyal offers residential proxies at aggressive prices, with a pool of 8M+ IPs across 180+ countries.
Pricing:
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | $1.75/GB | No minimum |
| Residential | $1.75/GB | No minimum (all pay-as-you-go) |
At $1.75/GB, IPRoyal is among the cheapest residential proxy providers. The per-GB price is a fraction of Oxylabs ($4-6/GB) or Bright Data ($8.40/GB).
The catch is network quality. Smaller IP pools mean more recycled IPs, higher chances of hitting rate limits on popular targets, and lower success rates on protected sites. For scraping public data from less protected targets, IPRoyal works. For scraping Google, Amazon, or LinkedIn, expect more retries and failed requests.
6. SOAX
Best for: Teams wanting city-level targeting with reasonable pricing
SOAX provides residential proxies with detailed geo-targeting capabilities, including city-level targeting in major markets.
Pricing:
| Plan | Price | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | $6.60/GB | No minimum |
| Starter | $49/mo | 5 GB |
| Advanced | $99/mo | 15 GB |
| Pro | $199/mo | 40 GB |
SOAX's differentiator is geo-targeting precision. You can target specific cities, ISPs, or even ASN-level targeting. This matters for scraping localized content — prices, availability, search results that vary by location.
The proxy pool is smaller than the leaders (~5M IPs), but the targeting granularity compensates for specific use cases.
Comparison Table
| Provider | IP Pool | Starting Price | Per GB Cost | Geo-Targeting | Best Success Rate | API Integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxylabs | 100M+ | $75/mo (5 GB) | $4-6 | 195+ countries | Highest | Web Scraper API |
| Bright Data | 72M+ | $75/mo (5 GB) | $5-8.40 | 195+ countries | Very High | Full platform |
| Smartproxy | 55M+ | $8.50/mo (2 GB) | $2.50-5.50 | 195+ countries | High | Proxy + scraping |
| ScrapeForge | Bundled | $19/mo | N/A (per-credit) | Auto | High | Integrated |
| IPRoyal | 8M+ | $1.75/GB | $1.75 | 180+ countries | Moderate | Proxy only |
| SOAX | 5M+ | $49/mo (5 GB) | $3.30-6.60 | City-level | Moderate-High | Proxy + scraping |
When You Need Standalone Proxies
ScrapeForge's integrated proxies work well for most scraping workflows, but there are cases where a dedicated residential proxy provider is necessary:
- City-level or ISP-level targeting — SOAX or Bright Data for geo-specific content
- Custom rotation strategies — controlling which IPs to use, session duration, sticky vs. rotating
- Non-HTTP protocols — SOCKS5 support, custom connection pooling
- Compliance requirements — enterprise audit trails, opt-in only networks
- Massive scale — 10TB+ monthly bandwidth where per-GB pricing from a dedicated provider becomes economical
Recommendation
For most developer teams scraping at small to medium scale (under 200K pages/month), SearchHive ScrapeForge with built-in proxy rotation is the best value. You get residential proxies, JS rendering, and LLM-ready markdown output for $19-149/month — far less than buying proxies and scraping infrastructure separately.
For large-scale enterprise operations, Oxylabs or Bright Data justify their premium with superior network quality and compliance features. For budget scraping of less protected targets, IPRoyal's $1.75/GB rate is hard to beat.
Tired of managing proxies separately from your scraping tool? SearchHive ScrapeForge includes residential proxy rotation in every plan. Start with 1,000 free credits at docs.searchhive.dev.