Best residential proxy providers in 2026, by price per GB
Six providers, read off their own pricing pages: what one gigabyte costs, what you have to buy first, and whether the gigabytes expire.
In short
For a small purchase without a monthly plan, residential proxies cost between $1 and $8 per GB at the providers below; the median is $6. The big names get cheaper only on monthly plans of hundreds of gigabytes, and those gigabytes expire. If your volume varies, a flat price with no expiry costs less than it looks. We are one of the six providers, so every figure links to its source.
Residential proxies are sold by traffic: you pay for the gigabytes that pass through the exit, in both directions. The number of requests, ports or IPs doesn't matter. A page that weighs 2 MB costs the same whether it comes through one IP or a hundred.
Providers sell that traffic in two ways. Pay as you go means you buy gigabytes when you need them, usually at the highest per-GB price on the page. Monthly plans include a fixed amount for a fixed fee, at a lower per-GB price, but whatever you don't use by the end of the month is gone. The headline "from $2.50/GB" is almost always the largest plan.
Two more things move the real price. Coupons: Bright Data showed a 50% code valid for three months on the day we checked, which halves its list price for a while. And expiry: 50 GB on a plan you only use half of cost twice the per-GB price on the label.
| Provider | Smallest purchase | Best listed rate | Minimum | Unused GB | Crypto |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proxies.VISION | $1/GB · flat, any amount | $1/GB (no tiers) | 1 GB ($1) | never | crypto only |
| DataImpulse | $1/GB · pay as you go | $0.80/GB at 1 TB | $5 for 5 GB | never | listed |
| Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) | $4/GB · pay as you go, 1 GB | $2.75/GB on the 100 GB plan | 1 GB | plan GB are monthly | not listed |
| Oxylabs | $6/GB · smallest tier | $2.50/GB at 1,000 GB+ | plans from $30/month | plan GB are monthly | not listed |
| IPRoyal | $7.35/GB · pay as you go, 1 GB | $1.84/GB from 10 TB | 1 GB | never | listed |
| Bright Data | $8/GB · pay as you go, list price | $5/GB list on the $1,999 plan | none for pay as you go | plan GB are monthly | not listed |
List prices in USD before VAT and coupons, from each provider's pricing page on October 19, 2026: DataImpulse, Decodo, Oxylabs, IPRoyal, Bright Data. Enterprise contracts excluded. Pool sizes are self-reported and can't be checked from outside, so they are left out.
GB for $20, at the price of the smallest purchase
- Proxies.VISION20 GB
- DataImpulse20 GB
- Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)5.0 GB
- Oxylabs3.3 GB
- IPRoyal2.7 GB
- Bright Data2.5 GB
Price per GB is the first filter. These are the differences that show up after the first week:
Session length
Logins and checkouts need the same IP for a while. Ask how long a sticky session can last and how you choose it. On our gateway it's a label and a lifetime in the username, from 3 to 1,440 minutes, on the sticky ports (see sticky sessions).
Targeting you actually get
Every provider lists a country count. What matters is whether the country you need returns exits right now, and whether city or ISP filters work there. We publish what our own test connections returned: exits in 214 countries and territories, with the networks and cities per country on the location pages.
What you have to hand over
Some providers ask for identity checks before residential access, or for a card and billing address. If that matters to you, check the payment methods first: the table above lists who accepts crypto.
Whether the IPs are residential
Look up a handful of exits and read the network name. A consumer ISP and a home-connection hostname mean residential; a hosting company means it isn't. The next section shows how; the difference explained goes into detail.
Buy the smallest amount, then send a few requests to an IP lookup through the proxy, with a country in the username. Each request on a rotating port should come from a different home connection in that country.
curl -x http://via.proxies.vision:9000 --proxy-user "USER-country-de:PASS" https://ipinfo.io/jsonOn our run on October 19, 2026 this answered from AS3209 Vodafone GmbH in Germany with a hostname set, and the same call through SOCKS5 with -country-us from AS7018 AT&T. Repeat it ten times: if org names hosting companies, or the country ignores your filter, you have your answer before spending more. For a whole list at once, paste it into the proxy checker.
| If you… | Look at |
|---|---|
| use a few GB a month, or an unpredictable amount | Pay-as-you-go with no expiry: Proxies.VISION, DataImpulse, IPRoyal |
| want to pay with crypto and skip identity checks | Proxies.VISION (crypto only), or DataImpulse and IPRoyal, which list crypto |
| use hundreds of GB every month, predictably | Monthly plans at Decodo, Oxylabs or Bright Data, and compare them with a flat $1/GB |
| need contracts, invoicing and an account manager | Bright Data or Oxylabs enterprise plans |
We sell residential proxies at $1/GB ourselves, so read the table with that in mind; every price above links to its source.
What is the average price of residential proxies in 2026?
Which residential proxy provider is cheapest?
What is the best pay-as-you-go residential proxy?
Do residential proxy gigabytes expire?
Can I pay for residential proxies with crypto?
Residential proxies, pay per GB
HTTP and SOCKS5. Country, city and sticky sessions in the username. No subscription.