6 Best Proxy Providers in 2026: Prices and Quality Compared

Most proxy comparisons rank providers by pool size and feature lists, then mention price in a single line near the end. That gets the order wrong for most buyers. If you are scraping product pages, checking search results or testing a site from another country, almost every serious provider will get you through. Where they differ is what that costs you each month, and what you give up for the price.

So this comparison starts with the pricing pages. I read every rate below off the provider's own public pricing page in October 2026, at the self-serve plans a normal buyer can sign up for without talking to sales. Where a provider bills in an unusual way, I spell it out, because the billing model often matters more than the headline per-GB figure.

The six providers are Evomi, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy), SOAX, Oxylabs, IPRoyal and Bright Data.

How I Compared the Providers

Residential proxies are the product most scraping teams buy, so they are the main point of comparison. They are also the hardest to compare, because each provider bills them a little differently. I used one reference volume, 100 GB a month, and looked for the rate a buyer actually pays at that volume, not the rate at 1 TB or the price after a three-month coupon runs out.

For quality, I used what each provider documents about its network: targeting options, protocols, session control, published success rates and response times, plus independent benchmark results where the provider cites them. I also looked at the terms that matter once you have paid: trials, refunds, and whether unused traffic expires.

Four things change the real cost of a proxy plan more than the headline number:

• The tier you will actually use. A provider that is cheap at 1 TB can be expensive at 50 GB.
• Expiry. Monthly allowances usually reset. Some providers sell traffic that never expires, which suits work that comes in bursts.
• Targeting. Country and city targeting is free almost everywhere now. ZIP code and ASN targeting is where surcharges and plan gates appear.
• Refunds and trials. Some providers refund nothing bought through self-service. Know that before you buy a large plan to test.

Best Proxy Providers at a Glance

Residential rates per GB, excluding VAT, from each provider's public pricing page in October 2026.

• Evomi: about 100 GB a month is $0.49/GB ($49/month). No-commitment rate is $0.99/GB from 15 GB. Pay-as-you-go traffic never expires. 1-day trial, 30-day capped refund.
• Decodo: about 100 GB a month is $2.75/GB ($275/month). No-commitment rate is $4/GB. Monthly allowance resets. 3-day trial, 14-day money-back.
• SOAX: about 100 GB a month is $3/GB for US traffic ($300 on Builder). No-commitment rate is $5/GB (Sandbox, US). Credits expire after 60 days. No trial, generally non-refundable.
• Oxylabs: about 100 GB a month is $4/GB (tier up to 125 GB). No-commitment rate is subscription only. Unused traffic is subscription-based. $5 welcome credit, no self-serve refunds.
• IPRoyal: no 100 GB plan; $5.25/GB at 10 GB. No-commitment rate is $7.35/GB for 1 GB. Unused traffic never expires. Trial or refund is not stated on the pricing page.
• Bright Data: $7/GB list on the 141 GB plan. No-commitment rate is $8/GB list. Monthly commitment resets. Free trial; KYC required for residential.

1. Evomi: The Cheapest Residential Proxies on the Market

Evomi is the cheapest residential proxy provider in this comparison, and it is not close. Its Core Residential pool costs $0.49 per GB on the 100 GB monthly plan, which is $49 a month, and extra gigabytes on that plan are billed at the same $0.49. If you would rather not commit, pay as you go is $0.99 per GB from 15 GB and $0.79 per GB from 1,000 GB, and that traffic never expires. At 100 GB a month, the next cheapest self-serve rate in this list is more than five times higher.

The low price does not come from stripping out features. The Core Residential pool has 54M+ ethically sourced IPs reachable in 195+ countries, with rotating and sticky sessions included. Sticky sessions hold an IP for 30 minutes by default and can be extended to a full 24 hours, and a separate "hard session" mode keeps the exact same address for as long as the network can, for logged-in work that breaks the moment an IP changes. Country, region and city targeting are free on every plan. HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5 all run on one endpoint, and concurrent sessions on the rotating pools are unlimited.

On quality, Evomi documents an average response time under 0.5 seconds, a 99.95% connection success rate and 99.9% uptime on a public status page. Proxyway benchmarked the Core Residential pool in July 2026 and recorded a 99.98% success rate in both the US and the UK, and Proxyway also named Evomi its Best Value Provider of 2026.

There are also expert filters you rarely see on a budget plan: you can filter IPs by fraud score, latency, device type, ISP or ASN, and match TCP/IP fingerprints. These cost bandwidth rather than a plan upgrade. Each filter applies a multiplier to the traffic it touches, capped at 15x, and the dashboard shows the exact rate.

Evomi is Swiss-operated, ISO 27001 certified, has completed a SOC 2 Type II audit and is a member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. Its residential IPs come from volunteer nodes that opt in to share their connection. Support runs seven days a week.

Beyond Core Residential, the range covers most scraping setups:

• Premium Residential: from $2.20/GB at volume, $3.98/GB pay as you go, with ISP-level targeting for targets the core pool cannot reach.
• Mobile (3G/4G/5G): from $2.20/GB at volume, $3.98/GB pay as you go.
• Static Residential (ISP): from $1.00 per IP per month, with no data meter.
• Datacenter: from $0.30/GB on the 1,000 GB plan, $0.45/GB pay as you go.
• Scraper API: from $0.13 per 1,000 results, and failed requests are not charged.
• Scraping Browser: from $24.99 a month for a managed cloud browser with the proxy network built in.

Where it falls short: the refund is real but capped: 30 days, limited to 10% of your data allowance or 1 GB, whichever is smaller. Use the one-day trial to test on your own targets rather than buying a large plan up front. ZIP-level targeting is an expert filter on Evomi, so it costs extra bandwidth rather than being free as it is at Decodo and Bright Data.

Best for: almost anyone buying between 15 GB and a few terabytes a month who wants residential proxies at a rate that stays the same after the first month.

2. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy): The Polished Mid-Market Option

Decodo's residential pricing is easy to read. Monthly plans run from $3.75 per GB on 3 GB down to $2.75 per GB on 100 GB, which is $275 a month. Enterprise plans go from $2.50 per GB at 250 GB to $2 per GB at 1 TB, and pay as you go costs $4 per GB, bought one GB at a time from a prepaid wallet.

Every plan gets the full pool, with targeting by continent, country, state, city, ZIP code and ASN at no extra cost. Decodo publishes a 99.92% success rate, sub-0.5-second average response time and 99.99% uptime, citing Proxyway's research for the performance figures. It ships Chrome and Firefox extensions and has a mature self-service dashboard.

Key features

• ZIP and ASN targeting included on every residential plan
• HTTP(S) and SOCKS5, rotating and sticky sessions
• 3-day free trial with 100 MB
• 14-day money-back on the first purchase, if you have used less than 20% of the plan's traffic (and not taken the trial)

Where it falls short: at 100 GB you pay more than five times Evomi's rate, and the monthly allowance resets. You cannot run a monthly plan and pay as you go on the same account at the same time.

Best for: teams that need free ZIP and ASN targeting and a longer refund window, and have the budget for it.

3. SOAX: Credit-Based Billing With Regional Pricing

SOAX now sells monthly credit plans, where one credit is roughly $1 of usage. Plans run from $200 a month (Builder) to $3,000 (Enterprise), plus a free Sandbox tier with no subscription and pay-per-use top-ups. Residential and mobile traffic share one rate, and that rate depends on both your plan and the country of the exit IP.

For tier-one countries such as the US, rates run from $5 per GB on Sandbox to $3 on Builder, $2.20 on Team and $1.50 on Scale. Cheaper regions cost less. SOAX's own calculator puts 100 GB of US traffic at $300 on the Builder plan, an effective $3 per GB.

Key features

• Country, region, city and ISP targeting on all plans; ASN and ZIP from the Scale plan ($1,500/month)
• Proxy packages to split access by team or project
• 24/7 support from the Builder plan up

Where it falls short: there is no free trial, payments are generally non-refundable, and credits on monthly plans expire 60 days after they are added. Working out your real cost means knowing in advance which countries you will hit.

Best for: teams with steady, high volume spread across many regions, who can use regional pricing to their advantage.

4. Oxylabs: Enterprise Scale, Enterprise Terms

Oxylabs sells one subscription that unlocks all of its products, from residential and mobile proxies to its scraping tools. Plans start at $30 a month. Residential traffic is priced by tier: $6 per GB at the smallest volumes, $5 up to 20 GB, $4 up to 125 GB and $2.50 past 1,000 GB.

The network side is strong. Oxylabs includes unlimited concurrent sessions, free geo-targeting, sticky sessions and HTTP(S), HTTP3 and SOCKS5 protocols, and publishes a 0.6-second average response time with a 99.95% average success rate.

Key features

• One subscription across every Oxylabs product
• Free geo-targeting and flexible rotation
• $5 welcome credit to test before buying

Where it falls short: all self-service purchases are non-refundable. Oxylabs also restricts a long list of targets on its residential network, including all Apple domains, some Google domains, banking, government, streaming and ticketing sites. At 100 GB you pay $4 per GB, eight times Evomi's rate.

Best for: large data teams that will use several Oxylabs products under one contract.

5. IPRoyal: Non-Expiring Traffic for Irregular Workloads

IPRoyal's main selling point is that residential traffic never expires. You buy gigabytes and draw them down whenever you need them, which suits work that comes in bursts. Sticky sessions can hold the same IP for up to seven days, which is longer than most providers allow, and concurrent sessions are unlimited.

The per-GB price is high at small volumes, though. On a subscription it is $7.00 per GB for 1 GB, $5.95 for 2 GB and $5.25 for 10 GB, and pay as you go is slightly higher at $7.35 per GB for 1 GB. The rate only reaches $1.75 per GB on custom plans from 10 TB.

Key features

• Traffic that never expires
• Sticky sessions up to 7 days, plus timed auto-rotation
• City-level targeting and IP whitelisting

Where it falls short: for small and mid-sized buyers the rate is among the highest here, and there is no published 100 GB plan to compare against. Evomi's pay-as-you-go traffic also never expires, at $0.99 per GB from 15 GB.

Best for: occasional users who buy a few gigabytes at a time and want long sticky sessions.

6. Bright Data: The Full Data Platform, at a Premium

Bright Data is the most complete platform in this list. Alongside residential, ISP, datacenter and mobile proxies, it sells an Unlocker API, a SERP API, a Browser API, ready-made scraper APIs and datasets. Its residential network covers 195 countries, with free targeting down to ZIP code and ASN.

List prices are $8 per GB pay as you go and $7 per GB on the entry monthly plan, which includes 141 GB. Larger plans bring the list rate down to $5 per GB. At the time of writing, a coupon takes 50% off residential prices for the first three months, which brings the entry plan to $499 a month, and new accounts get their first deposit matched up to $500.

Key features

• The widest product range of any provider here
• Free country, state, city, ZIP and ASN targeting
• Free Proxy Manager and pay-as-you-go on every proxy type

Where it falls short: plan your budget on the list price, because that is what you pay from month four. Residential and mobile access also requires a short KYC process, which may include a video call, before you can use the network.

Best for: enterprises that want proxies, unblocking and datasets from a single vendor.

Which Proxy Provider Should You Choose?

If cost per GB matters most, start with Evomi. At $0.49 per GB on the 100 GB plan, or $0.99 per GB pay as you go with no expiry, it is the cheapest residential proxy option here at every volume a small or mid-sized team is likely to buy, and the documented quality figures hold up against the premium providers.

If you scrape in bursts, look for traffic that does not expire. Evomi's pay-as-you-go traffic and IPRoyal's traffic both carry over indefinitely, and Evomi's is cheaper per GB.

If you need free ZIP or ASN targeting, Decodo and Bright Data both include it in their standard residential plans.

If you are an enterprise buying several data products, Oxylabs' single subscription and Bright Data's platform cost more per GB, but they may save time on procurement and integration.

Whatever you pick, test it on your own targets first. Proxies behave differently from site to site, and a provider that works well on one ecommerce platform can struggle on another. Run the same few hundred requests through two or three providers on a trial, compare success rates and response times, then commit.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the cheapest residential proxy provider in 2026? Of the six providers compared here, Evomi has the lowest published residential rate: $0.49 per GB on its 100 GB monthly plan ($49 a month), or $0.99 per GB pay as you go from 15 GB.

How much should 100 GB of residential proxy traffic cost? On self-serve plans in October 2026, it ranges from $49 a month at Evomi to $275 at Decodo, around $300 for US traffic at SOAX and about $400 at Oxylabs' $4 tier. Bright Data's entry plan lists at $7 per GB with 141 GB included, close to $1,000 a month once the introductory coupon ends.

Are cheap residential proxies reliable? Price and quality are separate questions. Check the provider's published success rate and response time, look for independent benchmarks, and run your own test on a trial. A low price is only a problem if the network cannot reach your targets.

Should I choose residential or datacenter proxies? Datacenter proxies are faster and cheaper, and they are fine wherever the target does not check who owns the IP address. Residential proxies cost more because the addresses belong to real ISP subscribers, which gets you past the checks that block datacenter ranges. Try the cheap option first and move up only on the targets that block it.

Do unused proxy gigabytes roll over? It depends on the provider. Monthly allowances at Decodo and Bright Data reset each month, and SOAX credits expire after 60 days. Evomi's pay-as-you-go traffic and IPRoyal's traffic never expire.