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Proxy type · reviewed 2026-09-28

Residential proxies

Metered bandwidth$1.00/GB

Residential proxies exit on IPs the vendor says were assigned to households. You pay for bandwidth. The homepage number is usually a volume floor. The number that matters first is the smallest pack you can buy, and whether those gigabytes expire.

Author Valentin FourierLast modified

UnitPer GB
From$1.00/GB
MeterMetered bandwidth
Cheapest cellDataImpulse

In brief

What to know before you buy

Published rates

Residential pricing

Published entry rates. Quotes stay blank. Confirm the live price before you pay.

ProvidersScopeBillingSessionRateOpen provider
DecodoPay as you go $4/GB plus VAT. Entry subscription is $3.75/GB at 3 GB ($11.25/mo). Volume floor on the same page goes to $2/GB.Country, city, ASNPay as you goRotating or sticky$4.00/GB

OpenRead review

OxylabsSmallest public rung cited at $30/mo for 5 GB ($6/GB). No pay-as-you-go rate on that grid. 1 TB floor cited at $2.50/GB.Country, city, ASNMonthlyRotating or sticky$6.00/GB

OpenRead review

Bright DataList pay-as-you-go is $8/GB. A 50% coupon often displays $4/GB. KYC before residential. Do not file the coupon as the list price.Country, city, ASN, ZIPPay as you goRotating or sticky$8.00/GB

OpenRead review

IPRoyal1 GB pack at $7.35/GB. Traffic does not expire. The 10 GB pack is lower, about $5.51/GB. Bulk floors are marketing until you see the invoice.Country, cityPay as you goRotating or sticky$7.35/GB

OpenRead review

SOAXSandbox pay-as-you-go $5/GB plus VAT. Monthly plans start with a larger commit. Enterprise floors are not the entry rate.Country, city, ASNPay as you goRotating or sticky$5.00/GB

OpenRead review

DataImpulseVendor rate: $1/GB plus VAT, traffic does not expire. A $50 minimum top-up applies after the intro block. This is the vendor’s number, not a lab result.CountryPay as you goRotating or sticky$1.00/GB

OpenRead review

Our reading

Who this type is for

Buy residential when the target treats a hosting ASN as a bot and a household IP as a person, and you are collecting public pages you are allowed to collect. Do not buy it because a landing page said 115 million IPs. Start on a provider you can leave: a trial or a few gigabytes, one country you actually need, then read the invoice.

Buy it if Price monitoring, ad verification, SEO checks you are allowed to run, and market research on public pages. Teams who can name the country and who will test their own URL list.

Skip it if The target is open and a datacenter IP already works. You need one stable login for weeks (look at ISP). The job is account farming, credential abuse, or a paywall bypass. We do not help with those.

How we compare rates

Facts

What you are actually buying

Rotating residential · per GB

How the product is sold

Meter
USD per GBEntry rate, not the 1 TB floor
Session
Rotating or sticky
Targeting
Country, often city or ASN
Entry rate
From $1.00/GBDataImpulse vendor rate in this sample

What changes the bill

Expiry
Pack or neverRead it before you prepay
VAT
Often extraDecodo and SOAX say plus VAT
Coupon
Not the listBright Data list is $8, promo often $4
KYC
Sometimes requiredBright Data residential

Rates are published entry prices cited on this site, reviewed 28 Sep 2026. They are not a live quote and not a success-rate test.

Trade-offs

Pros and cons of Residential proxies

What this type is for, and when it is the wrong bill.

Strengths

  • The meter the search market actually prices: dollars per GB
  • Country and often city or ASN targeting on the major self-serve plans
  • You can start on a few gigabytes instead of a rack of IPs
  • Sticky sessions exist when a flow must stay on one exit for minutes

Limits

  • Failed requests still burn gigabytes. A cheap sticker with retries can lose to a clearer pool
  • Traffic expiry is a product feature. Non-expiring packs are a different bill
  • KYC on some networks delays the first request. A closed door is not a larger pool
  • Success rate is not on this page. Measure it on your targets

Shapes

Ways Residential proxies are sold

Same type, different session or commit. Read the row you will actually buy.

ShapeMeterSessionTypical buy
RotatingPer GBNew IP per requestPublic pages, many targets
StickyPer GBHold one IP for minutesA flow that must stay on one exit
Pay as you goPer GB, no commitEitherYou do not know the month yet
Monthly packPer GB, prepaidEitherYou can name the gigabytes

Read the gigabyte, not the pool

A residential plan is a bandwidth meter wearing a geo costume. The vendor claims the exit sits on an ISP that serves homes. You cannot verify the hundred-million pool from a homepage. You can verify the price, the VAT line, the expiry, and whether city targeting is on the plan you are about to buy.

In this sample the published entry rates run from DataImpulse at $1/GB to Bright Data’s $8 list. Decodo’s pay-as-you-go is $4/GB plus VAT, with a 3 GB subscription at $3.75. Oxylabs’ smallest cited rung is $6/GB on 5 GB. IPRoyal’s 1 GB pack is $7.35 and does not expire. SOAX sandbox is $5/GB plus VAT. Those sentences are the comparison. A star score would throw them away.

Rotating, sticky, and the visit that is not a price

Rotating residential proxies can change the exit on each request. Sticky mode keeps that exit for a timer, often minutes, so a flow can finish. Both are the same per-GB meter. A sticky session is not a visit you bought, and it is not a static residential IP. The lease that is still there tomorrow is an ISP proxy, billed per IP.

A visit is arithmetic you run yourself: one gigabyte is 1,048,576 kilobytes, divided by the page you actually download. At 500 KB that is about 2,097 page loads before retries. Images and failed attempts lower it. This page does not print a per-visit rate, and it does not print a success rate.

When residential is the wrong first buy

If the site does not care that you are a datacenter, you are paying household prices for a job a $0.03 shared IP can do. If you need the same address tomorrow for an account you own, a static ISP is the honest product. Residential sticky sessions are minutes, not a lease.

The legitimate use is public web data, ads, and measurement you are allowed to run. Retrying a blocked login, sharing accounts, or walking through a paywall is not a pricing problem. This catalog does not cover it.

How I would buy it

  1. 01

    Name the country

    One country you will actually request. City and ASN are filters, not a personality.

  2. 02

    Match the meter

    Pay-as-you-go if the month is unknown. A pack only if you know it will be used before it expires.

  3. 03

    Ignore the floor

    The $2/GB enterprise line is not your first invoice. Write down the smallest public rung.

  4. 04

    Test your URLs

    A cheap gigabyte that retries is not cheap. Your target list outranks this page.

FAQ

Residential questions

How much do residential proxies cost?+

Published entry rates in this sample span about $1/GB (DataImpulse, vendor rate) to $8/GB list (Bright Data). Decodo pay-as-you-go is $4/GB plus VAT. Volume commits go lower. Confirm the live page.

Are residential proxies better than datacenter proxies?+

They are a different product. Residential is for targets that reject hosting ASNs. Datacenter is cheaper and faster when the target does not care. Better is the one that returns the page you are allowed to fetch.

Do pool-size claims belong in a comparison?+

Only as vendor claims. ProxyTopSite does not audit 100 million IPs. We print the rate, the unit, expiry, and the door.

What are rotating residential proxies?+

Residential exits that can change on each request, billed per GB. Sticky keeps one exit for a timer and is still that meter. Static residential, on this site, is the ISP page.

How many visits does a residential gigabyte include?+

None as a line item. Divide 1,048,576 kilobytes by your page weight. A 500 KB page is about 2,097 loads per GB before retries. Use the visit calculator. The inputs are yours.

What is the cheapest published residential rate in this catalog?+

The cheapest published cell in this sample is $1.00/GB on DataImpulse. Vendor rate: $1/GB plus VAT, traffic does not expire. A $50 minimum top-up applies after the intro block. This is the vendor’s number, not a lab result. Cheapest is not the default rank. Read the methodology.

When was this residential page reviewed?+

Editorial review 2026-09-28. Rates are public list or cited entry prices, not a live feed. Confirm the vendor page before you pay.

Keep comparing

Alternatives to Residential proxies

A different type, not a cheaper logo. Match the job before you match the rate.

Datacenter proxies

Different unit. Do not divide one price by the other.

From$0.03/IP/mo

Read the verdict

ISP proxies

Different unit. Do not divide one price by the other.

From$0.30/IP/mo

Read the verdict

Mobile proxies

Same unit. Compare the entry cell, not the floor.

From$2.00/GB

Read the verdict

All types

Sources

Where these numbers come from

Vendor pricing pages and cited public grids. Open them. Then confirm the live rate.