What is in a proxy? Come in now to discover all you need to know to buy the best proxies that will work for you. Make a cost-effective decision with our advice and know the types of proxies to avoid.
Are you new to using proxies, and you do not know what and what to look out for in proxies and their provider to make a good buying decision?
Then you are on the right page. This article will be used to discuss things you need to consider when buying proxies. you will also discover the best proxies you should buy and the proxies you should avoid.
- All-rounder Proxy Service – Best Overall: Bright Data
- Has the cleanest IP pool in the world: Soax
- Best Private datacenter proxy provider: MyPrivateProxy
- Authentic residential proxies with non-expiring traffic: IPRoyal
- Cheap GB choice for Residential proxies: Smartproxy
- Unlimited Bandwidth for Residential Proxies: Shifter
Things to Consider Before You Buy Proxies
All proxies are not equal, and you need to know that. Proxies are differentiated by their server location, cost, IP type, IP Protocol, Proxy Protocol and what they are made for.
Each of these will be discussed so that you know what you are buying when making a purchase – take this to be a section you will know all you need to know in other to buy the best proxies.
Proxy Location
One of the most popular reasons why people make use of proxies in the first place is to spoof their location so as to access local content in other areas. Take, for instance, there are some videos on YouTube that only YouTube users from the United States can view.
In such a case, you need proxies from the United States. Aside from this, access to some sites is restricted in certain locations. Because of these, when buying proxies, it is advisable to buy proxies from providers that have proxies in a good number of locations.
Bright Data, Soax, and GeoSurf have proxies in all countries and in major cities. It is better you go for them than providers that have proxies only in a few locations. Even if you do not have a specific location you want to browse from, it is not advisable to surf from just any location you like. Visit from the United States and some European countries are seen as more legitimate than a visit from some other countries that are known as spammers.
Proxy IP Type
Depending on what you want, the type of IP of your proxy will either make or mar what you intend to use the proxies for. There are basically three proxy IP types – datacenter, residential, and mobile.
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Datacenter IP Proxies
The DatacenterIP Address used by datacenter proxies is not assigned by Internet Service Providers (ISP). They are developed and owned by the proxy providers and assigned from their datacenter server. So, they are more susceptible to blocks.
In fact, many for them are already blacklisted on most of the strict websites. However, they are cheaper, so you can get in the market – you can even get them for free. It is important I state here that there are some datacenter proxy providers that have premium proxies and their proxies work. Providers such as Myprivateproxy, Highproxies, Stormproxies, and BuyProxies, and a few others.
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Residential IP Proxies
Residential IP Proxies are some of the best types of proxies. They make use of IP Addresses assigned by ISP to residential devices by routing their clients’ requests through them. They are trusted, and most websites do not have ways to detect them. They are, however, more expensive and slow compared to datacenter IP proxies.
Learn more about What is a Residential Proxy & How it works Here.
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Mobile IP Proxies
Mobile IP Proxies are the types of proxies that route requests through mobile devices. They make use of the IP Addresses assigned by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), the ISP of mobile devices. They are the most expensive. They are used for service that wants to emulate surfing from mobile devices. Mobile proxies are the best types of proxies for Instagram automation.
Learn more about What is a Mobile IP Proxies & How it works Here.
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IPv4 & IPv6 Proxies
Also, About the IP type, you may consider the Internet Protocol Version. IPV4 and IPV6 are different types of Internet Protocol Addresses standing for Internet Protocol Version 4, and Internet Protocol Version 6, learn more from this post.
Proxy Protocol
We have basically 2 types of IP protocols when it comes to proxy protocol – HTTPS and SOCKS and their various variants and versions. This might be a bit technical for non-technical readers, and as such, let do away with explaining the technical aspects of it.
Just know that most automation tools in the market have the type of proxy protocol they require. Before paying for a proxy, find out if the tool makes use of either HTTPS or SOCKS proxies.
HTTP Proxy
HTTP know as HTTP and HTTPS where the “S” means that connection is encrypted with TLS/SSL encryption or not, all of these are very similar except they handle requests a little differently, it's always better to stick with HTTP proxies for internet marketers since SOCKS don't offer any particular advantage for us, and are less common/supported.
SOCKS Proxy
SOCKS Proxy is low-level is not designed for a specific protocol, you can use the SOCKS for more application, Socks proxy gives more ability to bypass the firewall.
Web-based Proxy
It's a very old technology of proxy, mainly use for Anonymous browsing, Now this type of proxy has replaced by VPN. Now you can also use the Free Residential VPN Services for anonymous surfing.
IP Address Change
There are basically 2 types of proxies based on the subheading. A proxy can either a dedicated or rotating proxy. While each of them seems to be peculiar to a type of proxy, they are interwoven.
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Dedicated Proxies
For dedicated proxies, they make use of the sticky IPs that do not change. That means you have dedicated an IP address that only you use. Dedicated proxies are more common among datacenter proxies, and you can learn more about What is a dedicated proxy Here. And, in recent times, dedicated residential proxies are coming up. I know Bright Data sells them as Static Residential Proxies.
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Rotating Proxies
For rotating proxies, the IP they assign to you changes either after every request or after a defined period of time. Most residential proxies are high-rotating proxies. While paying for a subscription, you are not paying for IP as it is in the case of datacenter proxies, but you’re paying for bandwidth.
With this, you are given access to the whole pool of residential IP addresses until you consume the bandwidth allocated to you. There are a few datacenter proxies that are rotating – Stormproxies is one of the datacenter providers with rotating proxies.
Number of Users
You have to worry about the number of people using the same IP with you because their actions will one way, or the other affect you. Some proxies are shared while others are private.
Private Proxy
Private proxy means that it is private to only you and you get the maximum speeds that you are paying for. This also means that you determine the usage of the proxy and if it gets banned, it is on your own accord.
Shared Proxy
Shared proxies are much cheaper but more than one person making use of them while private proxies are used only by one person. Shared proxies are slower and more susceptible to ban than private proxies.
They are also less secure and the IP sold to you might just be blocked immediately you paid for them if someone you’re using it with spam a website – However, they are cheap while some are cheap. Avoid using shared proxies if you can.
Public Proxy
There are lots of “free proxy list” online, You can easily get thousands of free proxies! You can learn from how to get those types of free public proxies here, but those proxies are not stable but dangerous to use! And lots of proxy providers sold hundreds/thousands of proxies at dozens of dollar, you also need to avoid, obviously it's the public proxies.
Purpose
What do you need proxies for? That will determine the proxies you buy. As I stated from the introductory part of this article, all proxies are not equal – their usage can be too. Some proxies work best when used for web scraping and crawling, others are perfect for copping sneakers, some are favored in the field of social media automation, while some are meant for playing online games, and ticket scalping, among other use cases.
That’s why you’ll see some proxies labeled Sneaker proxies, Ticketing proxies, Youtube proxies, SEO proxies, and even Pokémon Go proxies, among others.
It is best if you look out for proxies specifically engineered to work for your use case than going for general-purpose proxies. However, I have to mention here that the likes of Bright Data, Smartproxy, GeoSurf, Oxylabs, and a few others have general proxies that work for all these use cases.
Cost
After all, is said and done, your budget determines what you can buy. While the most expensive proxies in the market are considered to be the best, the cheaper ones work too if used in the right way. If you have a big budget, you can go for the premium provided that costs way higher.
Generally speaking,
Mobile > Residential > Datacenter
Private > Shared > Public
Rotating > Dedicated
SOCKS > HTTPS > HTTP
IPv4 > IPv6
But if you are on a low budget, you have to settle for the cheaper options. They also work too but you need to take things slowly with them.
Sometimes, you just have to remember that expensive is not always better. And I won’t advise you to buy very expensive proxies such as mobile proxies except you really need to.
Proxies for Sale <Best Picks!>
After going through the things you have to consider before buying proxies, we are moving into making proxy recommendations proper. This section of the article will be used to discuss our best proxy provider picks.
Best Proxy Services – 100% Worth to Buy
Bright Data – Overall Best Proxy Provider
All-rounder! Most most secure & reliable residential proxy service.
Bright Data is our number pick and the recommended proxy provider of choice for most use cases. Bright Data is the largest proxy network in the world, with over 72 million proxies. They have proxies in the datacenter, residential, and mobile proxy categories.
They are the pioneer in the mobile proxy business. Their proxies are some of the most secure, reliable, and high performers in the market. They have proxies in most countries. However, they are expensive.
Soax – Residential Proxies Support Socks5
Has the cleanest IP pool in the world
Soax is a reputable and established provider of residential proxies, catering to a vast and expanding user base. Their proxies are a dependable choice for those requiring efficient multi-threading capabilities. Soax has a global presence in more than 120 countries, and their proxy pool continues to grow and improve regularly.
The high-performance proxies offered by Soax are one of their core strengths, delivering exceptional results consistently. Their proxies are renowned for their speed, stability, and reliability, making them a preferred option for various use cases. In addition, Soax ensures that their IP pool remains clean, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their proxies.
All in all, Soax's comprehensive coverage, high-performing proxies, and focus on a clean IP pool make them an outstanding choice for individuals seeking a reliable and effective residential proxy provider.
Proxy-IPv4
Best IPv4 proxy provider with mobile IPs
Proxy-IPv4 provides unparalleled privacy protection as well as an extensive selection of proxy types, such as IPv4, IPv6, and Mobile LTE. The provider has over 20 countries to choose an IP from for IPv4 and IPv6 options, and 14 countries for Mobile LTE ones.
A great range of networks which are over 150 networks and 200 subnets allows the service to issue orders with randomized subnets, which is followed by additional protection against subnet bans. You can use their proxies for social media, web scraping tools, gaming apps, and more.
Mobile proxies obviously priced higher than data center ones, but Proxy-IPv4 offers quite competitive rates for their services and rental terms are out of the competition, you can rent a proxy just for 3 days.
Nimbleway – First Choice for Big Marketer
Best Choice for Big Businesses
Nimbleway is a new provider when compared to the other providers on this list. However, it has proven to be a strong contender in the proxy market, having the likes of Pinterest and Uber on its customer list. This provider over you diverse proxy options — rotating residential proxies, and datacenter proxies. It is what you will call a modern proxy network, integrating AI into its workflow which helps choose the best IP address to assign to your request based on your use case and target.
This helps reduce failure and detection, which could earn you a block. It has millions of IP addresses in its pool, with support for a good number of countries, too. The provider offers an easy-to-use developer API with a ready-to-assist customer support team. While it works well, it does have its cons, especially in the area of pricing. You need a minimum of $600 to get started with this — and there is the need for a KYC too.
MyPrivateProxy – Best Datacenter Proxies
#1 choice for priavte datacenter IP proxy service!
Their proxies are especially useful when it comes to SEO. They have proxies in the United States and some locations in the EU regions. We recommend them as the best datacenter proxy provider.
Other alternatives to MyPrivateProxy includes Highproxies, Squidproxies, YourPrivateProxy, and Buyproxies.org.
Proxy-Seller – Best Alternative to MyPrivateProxy
Extensive location support
We would recommend this proxy provider if you need proxies that give you maximum privacy. Proxy-Seller is a private proxy provider with IPv4, IPv6, ISP, and mobile LTE proxies from many countries all over the globe. One interesting thing about Proxy-Seller is that it has over 400 networks and 800 subnets in its private proxy network. This is quite interesting as it helps protect you against a subnet ban.
Their proxies are highly compatible not just with social media platforms but also with web scraping, online gaming, and so much more. Although mobile LTE proxies from Proxy-Seller might be a little on the pricey side, the other proxy services are pocket-friendly. For their other proxy offering, you get some of the cheapest proxies that work from this provider.
Smartproxy – Residential with Cheap Bandwidth
Proxies are charging by Bandwidth monthly
Smartproxy is a residential proxy provider with over 40 million residential IP addresses in its pool. It has proxies in over 195 countries. While other residential providers crush it in some aspects, when it comes to using bandwidth as criteria, it leads.
This is because unlike others that their smallest package will come bundled with big bandwidth you might not use, Smartproxy smallest package is priced at just $22 and comes with 2GB.
IPRoyal – Static Residential Proxies
Authentic residential proxies with non-expiring traffic
IPRoyal is a premium proxy provider known for its ethically-sourced residential proxies. The service makes use of IPs assigned by real ISP to residential devices, making them highly trustworthy and almost impossible to ban. Currently, the provider offers over 2 million IPs from over 195 countries worldwide, along with city and state-level targeting.
The proxies come with HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 support and dual authentication, guaranteeing optimal flexibility and security. With one of the most flexible rotation options on the market, 99.9% uptime, and unlimited concurrent connections, these proxies are ideal for high-volume scraping and anything else that requires high speeds and anonymity online. The best part is that you can pay as you go for proxy traffic that never expires, starting from $7 for one GB.
The Social Proxy – Best 4G proxies for Social Account Management
If you are looking for high-quality mobile proxies, The Social Proxy is definitely an ideal provider you can count on. With its right combination of top-rated speed, unlimited bandwidth, and unblockable IPs, it can be considered as most suitable especially in the niches of scraping and social media.
What sets apart The Social Proxy’s mobile proxies from competitors? It’s its one-of-a-kind speed of their mobile proxies that goes up to 400mbps. This is, by far, the fastest speed available in the market for a mobile proxy today and you might want to leverage on that as while mobile proxies are considered to have the highest trust scores among all types of proxies, pairing that up with excellent proxy speed is a record which is hard to break.
Apart from The Social Proxy mobile proxies’ exceptional speed and IPs, their dashboard is what makes their services appealing to people. Their dashboard has a user-friendly interface which makes it simple for both experienced and novice users to view proxy details, do tagging to identify their usages, generate API keys, do proxy rotation and more.
If you are someone who is new to the proxy industry, you need not to worry about it as they also have available how-to guides and helpful customer service representatives who can assist you with your questions and/or concerns.
Shifter – Residential with Unlimited Bandwidth
Proxies are charging by Ports
Microleaves is one of the residential proxy providers that provides unlimited bandwidth. Unlike other residential proxy providers, its own plans aren’t priced based on bandwidth but based on ports. It is perfect for accessing services that consume a lot of bandwidth such as viewing YouTube videos. They have one of the largest proxy networks and their service is quite functional with a lot of customers singing their praise.
Stormproxies is the best alternatives to Microleaves in the market.
NetNut — Fastest Static Residential Proxy
Reliable Static Residential Proxy: Keep Residential IPs for as long as you Need
NetNut is a prominent proxy service from Israel and one of the fastest-growing in the world today. One of their standout offerings is the static residential proxies, which cater to the needs of marketing and advertising agencies, executives, and internet companies alike. NetNut ensures seamless web data gathering, unrestricted access, and unparalleled anonymity for its users.
NetNut's static residential proxies’ users gain access to an extensive pool of over 1 million IPs spread across the globe. The ISP-assigned residential IPs guarantee credibility and make it nearly impossible for websites to detect and ban user addresses. For IT companies and market agencies who require data from diverse locations, NetNut's global proxy pool becomes a valuable asset that will be hard to pass up.
For enterprises, information, and internet companies relying on continuous data gathering, uninterrupted connectivity is paramount. NetNut addresses this need with a remarkable 99.9% uptime guarantee, ensuring seamless data collection without disruptions.
Finally, NetNut understands that its diverse selection of users has unique requirements and challenges. To provide tailored assistance, the service offers dedicated support from account managers. Whether it's integration support or remote sessions, NetNut ensures that clients get the most out of their static residential proxy network.
NetNut offers a convenient pay-as-you-go model for their Static Residential proxy traffic, with no expiration date. Companies, businesses, and professionals can pay for only the data they consume without any time constraints. The pricing starts at $350 per month for 20GB of bandwidth, providing cost-effective solutions for diverse data needs. If you need more data, higher packages are available.
Bad Proxy providers that you Should Avoid Buying!
There are some proxies I wouldn’t advise you to pay for except you really know what you are doing. Let take a look at them.
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Mobile/4G Proxies
I do not recommend you to buy mobile proxies except you know what you are doing because, in many cases, what you can do with them, you can either use residential proxies or their datacenter counterparts.
They are very expensive, and using them will translate to not using money in the right way. Mobile proxies from AirProxy, ProxyGuys, and many others, are overpriced. They make use of a similar subnet, which makes it easy to get blocked.
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Proxies Sold on Twitter
If a proxy provider cannot invest in getting a website developed that could handle not just accepting payment but also allow you to manage your proxies through a dashboard on their website, you have to be wary of such provider – they are usually either up to no good or aren’t serious and either way, avoid using them.
There are many proxy providers that sell their proxies on Twitter or on Internet marketing forums, avoid them. While some of the work, the lack of seriousness is enough to get you to run away from them. I have seen it first hand on Black Hat World; you’ll see a proxy provider came around to sell their proxies. All will go well for a while, then problems start to creep in, and the owner will run and stop responding to queries. Such has also happened a lot on Twitter.
Avoid providers like Oculus Proxies, Cookies Proxies, and other proxies. Many of them are sneaker proxies and cannot be trusted.
Conclusion
Buying the best proxies for your use case does not have to be difficult, especially if you know what you are doing and buy proxies strictly base on requirements. With this article, you should be able to make a good buying choice while avoiding wasting money.
