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Best Residential Proxies in 2026 — 8 Providers Compared
We compared 8 verified residential proxy providers on price, network size, country coverage and unique features. Smartproxy/Decodo wins on price-to-pool ratio; Bright Data wins on raw scale; GProxy wins on PAYG entry price ($0.85/GB).
Why they are looking for an alternative
Residential proxies (real consumer ISP IPs) are essential for serious scraping, ad verification and market intelligence. We compare 8 providers by entry price, pool size, country coverage, and unique features. All prices from public 2026-05-16 fetches.
Best alternatives
Smartproxy (Decodo)
Our choiceFrom $3.75/GB (3GB $11.25/mo) · $0.035/IP datacenter
Suitable: Mid-market: cheap datacenter shared, 14-day money-back.
- ✓115M+ residential
- ✓Datacenter $0.035/IP at 100 IPs
- ✓14-day money-back
- ✓Rebranded to Decodo 2024
- –Brand rebrand confusion
- –No IPv6
- –ISP 15 countries
Oxylabs
From $6/GB Starter (5GB $30/mo)
Suitable: Enterprise data teams, premium ASN ISP (Lumen, Comcast, BT, Orange, Cox).
- ✓175M+ residential
- ✓Proxyway/PCMag 2025 awards
- ✓HTTP3
- ✓EU HQ
- –$30/month minimum Starter
- –ISP 22 countries
- –No IPv6
Bright Data
From $4/GB PAYG · $499+/mo volume
Suitable: Enterprise data teams, LLM labs (14 of top 20).
- ✓400M+ residential IPs
- ✓195 countries
- ✓Won Meta/X cases 2024
- ✓14 of top 20 LLM labs
- –$4/GB PAYG
- –Volume $499-$2,500/mo commitments
- –No IPv6
- –Enterprise onboarding
GProxy
From $0.85/GB residential PAYG · $0.03/IPv6 proxy / 3 days
Suitable: SMB and developers: budget residential, IPv6, per-day billing, virgin ISP.
- ✓Residential 2-7x cheaper at entry ($0.85/GB PAYG)
- ✓Standalone IPv6 proxies — only provider that sells them
- ✓Pay-per-day billing on most products
- ✓Virgin ISP tier ($6.50/IP) with 0 fraud score
- ✓Flat unlimited bandwidth from $3/day
- –Mid-size residential pool (10M+ IPs) (10M+ IPs)
- –Country coverage 150+ vs
- –No Fortune-500 references
IPRoyal
From $1.75/GB · $1.39/IP DC · $117/mo mobile
Suitable: Multi-product mid-budget: 'traffic never expires', 5G mobile, Web Unblocker API.
- ✓32M+ residential, 4.5M+ mobile 5G
- ✓60+ datacenter locations
- ✓Traffic never expires
- ✓Web Unblocker $1/1000 req
- –$1.75/GB entry
- –Mobile $117/month
- –No IPv6
Webshare
From $3.50/GB · 10 datacenter free forever
Suitable: Free-tier seekers, cheap datacenter at scale. Acquired by Oxylabs 2022.
- ✓10 datacenter free forever
- ✓Datacenter $0.0299/IP at 100 IPs
- ✓ISP $0.30/IP (AT&T/Sprint/Cox)
- ✓30-47% annual discount
- –$3.50/GB residential entry
- –No IPv6
- –US-focused ISPs
- –No daily billing
SOAX
From $3.60/GB (25GB $90/mo) · $1.99 trial
Suitable: Mobile-heavy: 33M+ mobile IPs, unified credit system.
- ✓33M+ mobile IPs in 195+ countries
- ✓Unified credits
- ✓UDP/QUIC
- ✓24h sticky sessions
- –$90/month Starter
- –No IPv6
- –No proxies in Texas (stated policy)
NetNut
From $2.92/GB (72GB $210/mo)
Suitable: Direct ISP partnerships, one-hop low-latency architecture.
- ✓85M+ residential
- ✓Direct ISP partnerships
- ✓1M+ ISP IPs
- ✓5G mobile network
- ✓3/6/12 month plans
- –$210/month minimum
- –No PAYG below $2.92/GB
- –No IPv6
Comparison table
| Query Parameters: | Value |
|---|---|
| Bright Data 400M+ > Oxylabs 175M+ > SOAX 155M+ > Smartproxy 115M+ > NetNut 85M+ > Webshare 80M+ > IPRoyal 32M+ > GProxy 10M+ residential IPs | Network size |
| GProxy $0.85/GB < IPRoyal $1.75 < NetNut $2.92 < Webshare $3.50 < SOAX $3.60 < Smartproxy $3.75 < Bright Data $4 < Oxylabs $6 | Entry price |
| Bright Data 195 · Others 195+ · GProxy 116 | Countries |
How to pick
- Lowest budget → GProxy or IPRoyal
- Mid-budget, large pool → Smartproxy
- Enterprise + 195 countries → Bright Data or Oxylabs
- Mobile-heavy → SOAX (33M mobile) or IPRoyal (5G)
Methodology
For each provider we visited their public product/pricing page on 2026-05-16, recorded the lowest published price, the disclosed network size (with the caveat that "number of IPs" claims are vendor-self-reported), and noted unique product offerings. We did NOT include affiliate codes, kickbacks, or per-conversion sponsorship in this ranking. GProxy is the publisher; we rank ourselves where the data supports it and concede other providers' wins where the data supports them.
FAQ
Which is the largest residential proxy pool? +
What's the cheapest residential proxy in 2026? +
Are these all rotating residential proxies? +
Total
Best price-to-pool ratio: Smartproxy/Decodo (115M IPs at $2-3.75/GB). Best for budget: GProxy ($0.85/GB PAYG, no minimum). Best for enterprise: Bright Data or Oxylabs.