Alright so I posted about residential proxy pricing a while back and my numbers were a bit off I tested a few more providers after my main one had some weird speed drops lately and I think I finally have a solid breakdown for cost per GB that actually reflects what you get when you're hammering the traffic For scraping the usual suspects BrightData is still the king but the price is brutal like 30 bucks per GB if you're on pay as you go which is insane unless you're rolling in cash for my new setup I went with NetNut and their rates dropped to about $12 per GB on a decent sized plan which is way more manageable and the success rates were nearly identical for PPC landing page scraping I also tested SOAX and the speed was good but they have some aggressive session limits that killed my CR on longer scrapes honestly the best value I found for pure data volume is still Smartproxy at around $15 per GB they don't have as many GEOs but for US and Tier 1 stuff it's fine you want the raw logs I can share the actual request times and ban rates cuz a lot of these providers give you cheap bandwidth but then you get blocked after 100 requests which makes the cost per successful GB skyrocket show me your numbers if you've tested lately
Updated residential proxy costs after my last data test went sideways
- Thread starter Tactic
- Start date
Updated residential proxy costs after my last data test went sideways
Stoke
New member
Ah the price talk. I remember the days when I thought a proxy was just a proxy. Turns out, it's all about the success rate and staying under the radar. The math never lies. When I first started, I was all about cheap proxies, then realized I was wasting money on bans and retries.
Texture
New member
Price ain't everything, Stoke. Success rate and avoiding bans matter way more than a few bucks per GB. You can pay less but end up wasting more on failed scrapes and lost data.
Prove me wrong but I still think Stoke is missing the real point here. Proxy is just a proxy until it starts costing you actual ROI. I've tested dozens of providers, and I can tell you that cheap proxies often turn into big money pits when your success rate drops or you get blocked after a handful of requests. I've seen providers charging 8-10 bucks per GB but giving you a 50% success rate, which is basically throwing half your traffic into the spam filter.
Then you got providers like BrightData charging 30 bucks per GB but nearly never getting blocked. For me, the real cost is not just the sticker price but what it costs to actually get usable data. If your proxies are garbage and you have to run 3x the volume just to get the same results, that's a no-go. I'd rather pay a premium and get consistent results, otherwise you're just squeezing juice out of a lemon that's already dead.
Nexus
New member
Yeah success rate and avoiding bans are but let's not pretend like price doesn't matter cuz in the end if your proxies are burning through your budget faster than they keep your CR high what's the point right? you can get all the success rate in the world but if you're paying 30 bucks per GB and only getting 2 GB of usable data before a ban it's just bad business and a total money pit no matter how shiny the success rate looks. cheap proxies with bad IP pools or low success rates are just a false economy and I see way too many guys chasing the shiny penny instead of investing in real reliable infrastructure server side tracking is non-negotiable for any serious campaign in 2024 so why cut corners on proxies that could cost you more in the long run? and let's be honest sometimes the "cheap" options are just a ticking time bomb waiting to blow your campaign up because of bans or throttling or session limits which is more expensive than paying a little more for quality. success rate is important sure but it has to be balanced with actual cost efficiency otherwise you just chasing ghosts and losing money. so yeah, don't get blinded by the low price tag and think that success rate alone will
Raid
New member
Look, all these guys talking about success rate and bans and cost per GB are missing the biggest point which is scale and ROI and trust but verify if you're not measuring request times, ban rates, and actual success per dollar you're just guessing and wasting money because proxies are a tool not a magic bullet if your proxy quality is garbage your whole operation turns into a PITA fast and no amount of cheap bandwidth is gonna fix that you want to talk real numbers then show me the data on how many requests you get before a ban, how long the request times stay consistent and how that relates to your actual ROI because in the end if you don't have that data you're just chasing shadows and wasting cash while the real players keep scaling and crushing it with better data understanding this whole proxy pricing discussion is garbage if you don't prioritize quality and data-driven decision making.
Cyclone
New member
show me the data Raid, cuz all this talk about ROI and scale is just noise unless you back it up with numbers. proxies are just pipes, if your traffic is all garbage or your request times are spiking, no amount of fancy metrics or ban rate chit-chat will save you. wanna scale? show me the request logs, ban thresholds, and actual success per dollar. otherwise you're just guessing and throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Spice
New member
lol not sure why everyone's acting like proxy costs are the be all end all here, it's just one part of the puzzle if your success rate is trash or your request times are slow you're gonna burn through more proxies anyway so imo focus on overall setup not just price per GB, yeah brightdata is expensive but if you get banned every 200 requests you're just wasting money no matter how cheap the proxies are, and smartproxy's okay for some stuff but if you want serious scale you need better infrastructure not just cheaper proxies, smh
Parser
New member
Prices are just one piece of the puzzle, but man they can kill your margins quick if you're not careful. Been there, burned that budget chasing the cheapest or fastest proxies without watching the actual success metrics. Speed and success rate matter more than sticker shock but without tracking request times, ban rates and real conversions you just guessed your way into a shitshow. Pick a provider that balances cost with reliability or you'll end up spaghettifying your data flows chasing cheap bandwidth
Yeah, proxies are just one piece of the puzzle no doubt but damn the costs can add up quick if you don't watch those success metrics closely I tried going cheap last year with some smaller providers and the speed and ban rates killed my ROI so I ended up spending more just to get reliable data and decent request times I think the key is balancing price with the actual success rate and speed if you're hammering traffic you need to keep your costs predictable otherwise it's just chasing shadows plus those session limits from some providers are a nightmare for longer scrapes
man, proxies are just like dating apps, you get what you pay for and sometimes you get ghosted fast. everyone always chases the cheap route and then wonders why their scrapes turn into ghost towns. speed, success rate, and ban resistance are the real MVPs but no one wants to pay for them until their ROI looks like a bad joke. i swear, back in the day i just bought a cheap VPS and hoped for the best. now i got a small mortgage just to scrape reliably. btw, raid, your numbers are only as good as your setup. proxies are the pipes but if your request times are slow or your request quality is trash, even the best proxy can't save your CVR. and yeah, my traffic is allergic to money but only when i'm trying to do a magic trick with dirt cheap proxies and a broken landing page
Whet
New member
hard disagree, proxy cost is the biggest lever, always start with the offer and optimize from there. if your proxies are cheap but you get blocked after 50 requests, your costs are actually sky high. show me data where switching providers made a real difference in ROI, not just a shiny new number.
Keystone
New member
Proxy costs are just a small piece of the puzzle. If you're burning through proxies without tracking ban rates, request times, success metrics, you're throwing money in the trash. It's not about the cheapest or even the fastest. It's about the right balance. Show me data where switching providers cut your costs long term
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