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✓ last verified 2026-10-02 · every rate linked from this page was read from the provider’s live pricing page on that date · how we verify
Proxy infrastructure explained with verified market data instead of vendor copy. Each guide answers the question directly in its first paragraph, then shows what every provider actually charges for the thing being discussed.
All guides
- What are backconnect proxies? — gateway rotation, sticky sessions, and who sells them
- Best proxies for web scraping — matching proxy type to target difficulty, with costs
- Mobile vs residential proxies — when carrier IPs are worth the premium
- ISP vs residential proxies — static identity versus rotating volume
- Static vs rotating proxies — the decision table, with verified entry prices
The short version of all of them
There are four proxy types and one rule for choosing between them: buy the cheapest type your target will tolerate. Datacenter is cheapest and most detectable. Residential costs three to ten times more and defeats ASN checks. ISP/static gives you one persistent trusted identity, billed per IP rather than per gigabyte. Mobile is the most expensive and the hardest to block, because carrier-grade NAT puts thousands of real users behind each address.
Everything else — pool size claims, dashboard features, marketing about ethical sourcing — matters less than that single decision, and getting it wrong is the most common way to overspend by an order of magnitude.
Where to go next
- Pricing matrix — what each type costs, by provider
- Category rankings
- Head-to-head comparisons
- The Price of a Gigabyte — residential proxy prices from 2019 to today
- AI-crawler census — who blocks AI bots in robots.txt
FAQ
Which proxy type do I actually need?
Test datacenter first — if the target does not block it, anything else is overspend. Escalate to rotating residential on block evidence, ISP/static if you need one persistent identity for logins, and mobile only for targets that treat carrier IPs differently, principally social platforms.
Are proxies legal to use?
Yes, in the US and EU. Liability comes from what you do through them — bypassing authentication, breaching site terms, or handling personal data unlawfully — not from the proxy itself.