7 Best Residential Proxy Providers 2026: What Each Brand Offers

ProxyEmpire leads this list because the residential bandwidth it sells does not expire. Webshare earns second place as the easiest low-cost entry point, and Bright Data takes third for sheer scale and compliance depth.

Those three cover most buyers, from first-time users to procurement teams. The remaining four each answer a narrower brief: DataImpulse for prepaid volume at a low rate, Oxylabs for proxies bundled with scraping tools, IPRoyal for long sticky sessions and SOAX for budget guardrails.

Every entry below states what the provider actually sells, what it costs and where it falls short. A free vs paid primer comes first, and a comparison table follows the list.

Free vs Paid Residential Access

Free residential traffic barely exists in this market. What exists instead is a mix of free accounts, starter credits and paid trials.

Webshare's permanent free plan is the best known, but its 10 proxies are datacenter, not residential. Bright Data offers a free trial with no credit card and matches a first deposit up to $500. SOAX gives a free Sandbox account, though proxy traffic needs credits. Oxylabs adds a $5 welcome credit to any product.

Paid entry points start small. DataImpulse sells new customers 5 GB for $5 once, and ProxyEmpire's $1.97 activation gives 100 MB of residential and 50 MB of mobile traffic with no automatic conversion.

The real gap between free and paid is scale. Free options prove a setup works; paid plans deliver the pool size, targeting and session control that production scraping needs. Expiry rules matter here too, because a paid plan that keeps unused traffic behaves more like a long trial than a monthly bet.

The Lineup, Entry by Entry

1. ProxyEmpire

ProxyEmpire treats residential bandwidth like a balance, not a monthly allowance. Whatever you buy on a GB plan stays in the account until it is used, with no contracts attached. That changes how large purchases work: a company ordering a custom volume above 1 TB, which starts at 75 cents a gigabyte, can draw it down across many months instead of racing a renewal date.

Smaller buyers get the same rule. Rotating residential without commitment is $3.50 a gigabyte; the monthly ladder starts with a $20 plan for 7 GB and tops out at $1,500 for 1,000 GB. In the company's figures, the pool exceeds 30 million residential addresses spread over more than 170 countries, and filters for city, postcode, ISP and ASN come at no added cost. One login also reaches mobile, ISP and datacenter, and parallel sessions are uncapped for approved use cases.

The trade: every sale is final, with refunds considered case by case. The $1.97 trial is the intended way to judge fit before a larger buy.

2. Webshare

Webshare built its name on ten datacenter proxies that never cost anything, and its residential product follows the same self-service logic. One gigabyte of rotating residential is priced at $3.50, and the rate falls to $1.40 a gigabyte once an order reaches 250 GB. Filters run down to ZIP code and ASN.

Plans are built to order around exact bandwidth, proxy count and locations. Static residential addresses sourced from providers such as Comcast and AT&T begin at $6 monthly for a block of 20. There is no mobile product, and the site does not mention a residential trial.

Teams get round-the-clock support, dedicated account managers, a full API and a system status page. Webshare states 90K+ paying customers and puts its network at 80M+ IPs across 195 countries, a credible step up for buyers who began on the free tier.

3. Bright Data

Bright Data is the enterprise heavyweight. Its residential network counts more than 400 million IPs a month across 195 countries, and its compliance page names ISO 27001, SOC 2, SOC 3 and CSA STAR Level 1.

Using the RESIGB50 code, residential traffic costs $4 a gigabyte without commitment; the smallest monthly bundle is $499 for 141 GB. Location filters down to postcode and ASN carry no charge, and invoices can run through AWS Marketplace or Azure.

Two conditions matter. Residential access follows a KYC process that can include a video call, and committed monthly spend that goes unused is not carried forward. In return come an open-source Proxy Manager, sub users, per-zone daily spend caps and account managers available around the clock.

4. DataImpulse

DataImpulse sells prepaid residential traffic with no expiry date, without a subscription or a minimum. Fifty dollars buys 50 GB on the Basic tier, and $800 buys a terabyte on Advanced.

Its roughly 90 million residential IPs are described by the company as its own rather than resold, and public analytics show counts by country. Anything narrower than country targeting is charged separately, which raises the cost of local work. Buyers have seven days to request a refund.

SOCKS5 and HTTP(S) both work, and help is available at any hour by chat, email or Telegram. For high-volume scraping at country level, the arithmetic could hardly be simpler; costs only climb when a project needs city or postcode precision.

5. Oxylabs

Oxylabs folds proxies into a single subscription that also pays for scraping APIs, an unblocker and an agent browser. Thirty dollars a month is the floor.

Residential gigabytes cost $6 on the smallest tier and $2.50 beyond 1K GB, and plans include uncapped parallel sessions, free location filters and three proxy logins. The company cites a 0.6-second average response and a 99.95% success rate. New accounts receive a $5 credit.

Mobile IPs are drawn from real handsets in more than 140 countries, hold for 24 hours and cost between $7.50 and $3.50 a gigabyte depending on volume. Because the pricing pages show no flexible tier, a subscription is the only route in, which suits teams already planning steady monthly use.

6. IPRoyal

IPRoyal pairs residential traffic that never lapses with IPs that can stay put for a week. Country, state and city filters are included, and more than 650 tools are supported.

Small orders pay a premium: a single gigabyte on subscription costs $7, while 10 TB custom orders fall to $1.75 a gigabyte. Postcode and ASN filters are not listed.

The account side is mature, with workspace roles, 2FA, user logins and API ordering, plus support its docs say answers in under a minute on average. Registration skips the credit card, and with no minimum spend, occasional buyers lose nothing between projects.

7. SOAX

SOAX charges one rate for residential and mobile, paid in credits and set by country tier. In its plan builder, 100 GB aimed at the US comes to $3 a gigabyte.

Administrators can give each package its own limits on traffic, protocols and permitted domains, and reports separate delivered requests from blocked ones. SOCKS5 runs over both TCP and UDP.

Based in London, SOAX publishes an SLA, a DPA and a KYC and KYB policy, alongside GDPR and CCPA badges. A Sandbox account costs nothing, though traffic needs a plan, and crypto buyers go through KYC first.

How They Compare

Frequently Asked Questions

Do residential proxy GB expire?

At some providers, yes. ProxyEmpire, DataImpulse and IPRoyal state that residential traffic never expires, while Bright Data says unused monthly commitments do not roll over. For irregular projects, that difference can outweigh a lower list price.

How can I try residential proxies without a big commitment?

ProxyEmpire's $1.97 trial covers residential and mobile, DataImpulse sells a one-time 5 GB pack for $5, and Bright Data offers a free trial with no credit card.

Which residential proxy provider has the most IPs?

Among these seven, Bright Data reports the largest residential pool at 400M+ monthly IPs. DataImpulse reports 90M+, Webshare 80M+ across its network, and ProxyEmpire 30M+ residential plus 4M+ mobile. Pool size matters less than coverage in the locations a project needs.

Conclusion

ProxyEmpire is the strongest fit for buyers whose usage varies, since its residential GB roll over without expiring, targeting is free down to ZIP and ASN, and residential and mobile share one account. Webshare suits low-cost starts, Bright Data suits enterprises, DataImpulse suits prepaid volume, Oxylabs suits teams that want scraping APIs, IPRoyal suits long sessions, and SOAX suits shared budgets.