Best Cheap Proxy Services in 2024

Webshare (Best for Comprehensive Features)

Webshare is a comprehensive web proxy service that offers a wide range of proxy solutions, from web browsing to scraping, to meet various online privacy, security, and access needs. It offers various proxy types, such as free, shared, datacenter, anonymous, HTTP, and SOCKS5 proxies, and is used for secure and anonymous web browsing, content scraping, ad verification, and overcoming geo-restrictions for content streaming and gaming, etc.

Webshare is spread across 195 countries and offers 10 free IPs with access to all paid features. While the number of proxies available isn’t specified, upon verifying, I noticed more than 100,000 proxies on offer, with an average uptime of 99.97% and a response time of 1.31s. It complies with GDPR and CCPA and guarantees that daily proxy activity and private information are never shared with third parties.

Regarding support, Webshare covers everything, including an informative blog, a comprehensive help center, and detailed API documentation. The real-time system status monitor is worth mentioning as it provides the flexibility to troubleshoot and optimize the proxy setup.

Webshare Pros

• Offers good global coverage.
• Impressive uptime and response time.
• Affordable rates with a free plan are an added advantage.

Webshare Cons

• Customer support could be improved.
• While it has great coverage, some countries have limited proxy.

Webshare Pricing

The pricing varies according to the proxy and the quantity considered purchasing. Here is the starting price of each. These prices can vary as they are subject to conditions.

• Proxy Servers start at $0.05/Proxy.
• Static Residential Proxy starts at $0.22/Proxy.
• Residential Proxy starts at $4.5/GB.

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IPRoyal (Best for Web Scraping)

IPRoyal offers a wide range of proxy services, including Static Residential, Rotating Residential, Sneaker, Private, Datacenter, and Mobile. All proxy types are tailored to various needs, including scraping, as they support web scraping, SEO and SERP scraping, price monitoring, etc.

While IPRoyal offers reliable performance through its effective proxy services, the Residential Proxy is arguably the best in the segment. It is suitable for safe and efficient web scraping and internet browsing. Some of its best features are the never-expiring traffic, flexible rotation options, SOCKS5 support, city/state targeting, API access, and sticky sessions.

IPRoyal’s proxy network covers 195 countries. Users do not need to worry about limited IPs, as it offers near to unlimited bandwidth with 341,385 IPs for the United States proxy servers alone, which is an impressive proxy pool size. The network has an average uptime of 99.9% and a response time of around 1s.

For privacy, IPRoyal assures all its users of its GDPR and CCPA compliance. The interface is user-friendly, with a comprehensive dashboard. For support, they have provided blogs, a help center, and detailed API documentation.

IPRoyal Pros

• A cheap residential proxy with a good response time.
• Offers good global coverage with impressive uptime.
• Ideal for web scraping and internet browsing.

IPRoyal Cons

• The pricing is expensive, except for the Residential proxy.
• Customer support could be improved.

IPRoyal Pricing

IPRoyal pricing varies according to the proxy, the quantity purchased, and other conditions. Here is each proxy’s starting price.

• Static Residential Proxy starts at $2.40/Proxy.
• Residential Proxy starts at $1.75/GB.
• Datacenter Proxy starts at $1.39/Proxy.
• Mobile Proxy is $117 per month.

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Oxylabs (Best for Compliance)

Unlike other proxies in the segment, Oxylabs focuses on offering top-tier solutions for large-scale public data collection. This approach works well for individuals and businesses looking to protect their brands through monitoring for copyright infringement, counterfeit tracking, and domain squatting detection.

Oxylabs offers various types of proxy, from dedicated datacenter proxies to residential proxy plans, all tailored to meet specific scraping and data collection needs. In addition to the usual proxy services, it also provides unlimited concurrent sessions, exceptional uptime, and response time (0.63 s). It has global coverage with proxies in 188 locations and a massive collection of 2 million dedicated data center IPs and 100K static residential IP addresses.

Regarding privacy, Oxylabs is compliant with GDPR and CCPA, ensuring added privacy and security. Alongside standard customer support, it goes a step further by hosting webinars, publishing articles, and offering extensive documentation to assist its users.

Oxylabs Pros

• Ideal for business needs.
• Impressive global coverage with 188 locations.
• Reliable uptime and response time.

Oxylabs Cons

• Most plans aren’t curated for individual users.
• A more intuitive interface would improve user experience.

Oxylabs Pricing

Oxylabs offers multiple plans, and almost all of them are tailored for business purposes. The cheapest plan is the Residential Proxies, which starts at $10 per proxy and is offered at $7 per proxy by its competitors. 

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Bright Data (Best for Performance)

Bright Data proxy is a prominent proxy with a wide collection of proxy types on offer like residential, datacenter and ISP proxies. It stands out with its web data services, and is ideal when trying to collect public data for data security, market research, and SERP & SEO activities​.

Bright Data offers AI-powered web scrapers and tools curated for proxy solutions that make ad verification, SEO monitoring, and bypassing geo-restrictions easy. Its global coverage is impressive, with 195 countries, 72 million+ IP availability, and an average response time of 1.02 seconds.

In terms of privacy, Bright Data proxy is GDPR and CCPA-compliant and offers its users industry-leading security protocols. While many proxy services fail to provide human customer support, Bright Data offers it 24/7. For further support, there are dedicated blogs, a help center, and detailed API documentation.

Bright Data Pros

• Impressive global coverage with 195 locations.
• Easy-to-use proxy solutions and reliable performance.
• Offers 24/7 human customer support and a free trial.

Bright Data Cons

• The pricing could be affordable.
• Some features are complicated for new users.

Bright Data Pricing

Each proxy solution is offered with plans curated according to user requirements. While most proxy services get you into a monthly commitment, the no-commitment offer makes it a great choice for those who want to test and don’t want to purchase a hefty plan.

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Smartproxy (Best for Global Coverage)

Smartproxy offers comprehensive proxy solutions, but it excels in data collection solutions for web scraping, multi-accounting, ad verification, SEO, and price aggregation. It also provides free tools like browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, proxy checkers, address generators, and a no-code scraper extension.

In terms of network, Smartproxy includes over 65 million IPs and is spread across more than 195 locations worldwide. This massive network, in turn, boosts its performance. Within the US, Smartproxy’s residential proxies are reported to have a 99.47% success rate and excellent response times of less than 0.6 seconds.

When it comes to privacy, Smartproxy ensures that all its users’ activities align with GDPR and CCPA standards. Customer support is available 24/7, along with a help center, public API documentation, and integration guides for all its users.

Smartproxy Pros

• It comes with multiple free tools.
• Massive network spread across 195 locations.
• Reliable performance and customer support.

Smartproxy Cons

• The plans are more suited for businesses.

Smartproxy Pricing

The pricing varies according to the proxy, quantity, and conditions. Here is the pricing model.

• Residential Proxies start at $2.2/GB.
• ISP Proxies start from $2.67/IP.
• Mobile Proxies start from $6/GB.
• Datacenter Proxies start from $0.09/IP.
• Site Unblocker starts from $6/GB.

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Proxy-Cheap (Best for Uptime Performance)

Proxy-Cheap focuses on providing affordable proxy solutions to meet the needs of varying user bases. Companies can use it to create multiple accounts, aggregate travel fares, create SEO proxies, conduct market research, and protect their brands.

With affordable pricing, Proxy-Cheap offers decent uptime and success rates. It spans 150 countries and has a pool of around 7 million real IPs.

Regarding privacy, Proxy-Cheap has used industry-standard solutions. However, the lack of GDPR and CCPA can be concerning. The blogs, video tutorials, and a dedicated knowledge base enhance the support, but the lack of human-based customer support makes it unreliable.

Proxy-Cheap Pros

• Comes with one-day plans.
• Decent global coverage spread across 150 locations.
• Reliable performance and affordable pricing.

Proxy-Cheap Cons

• Lacks GDPR and CCPA compliance.
• The support isn’t the best, and you can notice instability.

Proxy-Cheap Pricing

The pricing varies according to the proxy and the quantity you purchase. Here is the starting price of each, subject to change depending on conditions.

• Static Residential Proxies: Starts at $0.99/Proxy
• Rotating Residential Proxies: Starts at $2.99/GB
• Mobile Proxies: Starts from $15/Proxy
• Datacenter Proxies: Starts from $0.30/Proxy

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ProxyEmpire (Best for Dedicated Support)

ProxyEmpire offers proxy solutions ranging from rotating mobile proxies to dedicated mobile proxies and rotating datacenter proxies. For residential proxies, it provides both static and rotating. For users who require residential proxies, this is a good fit as they can do online tasks such as web scraping, price monitoring, ad verification, SEO monitoring, etc., more effectively.

ProxyEmpire’s network spans over 170 countries and offers well over 9 million premium residential IPs. It comes with 99.9% uptime and a 99.95% success rate. It allows users to customize their proxy control experience

While ProxyEmpire offers basic proxy features, it does not provide anything additional. Though it has a strict privacy policy, it lacks GDPR and CCPA, which is concerning from a business perspective. It does not give users the option of a human point of contact for support, replying instead to guidelines and blogs for assistance.

While it isn’t the best in terms of privacy, in terms of support, it is decent as it offers a blog and guides. However, the lack of human assistance is a downside.

 ProxyEmpire Pros

• It comes with Pay-as-you-go support.
• Impressive global coverage spread across 170 locations.
• Transparent Subscription and pricing.

ProxyEmpire Cons

• Lacks GDPR and CCPA compliance.
• The support isn’t the best, and the plans are expensive.

ProxyEmpire Pricing

The pricing varies according to the proxy and the quantity you consider purchasing. Here is the Pay-as-you-go price for each.

• Static Residential Proxies start at $2/Proxy.
• Rotating Residential Proxies start at $9/GB.
• Rotating Mobile Proxies start from $20/GB.
• Rotating Datacenter Proxies start from $0.625/GB.

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Soax (Best for Response Time)

Soax is a proxy service provider that is useful for data extraction and internet browsing. It supports protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5, which allows for flexibility and efficiency in accessing content web scraping and data collection operations.

While Soax is an emerging proxy service, it hasn’t stopped and is going strong, providing proxies in 195 locations worldwide. Its success rate is 99.5%, and its response time with specific proxies is impressive at 0.55 s.

Regarding privacy, Soax is GDPR-compliant but not CCPA-compliant. It has provided dedicated customer service, with assistance available via chat, email, or phone.

Soax Pros

• Reliable customer support and transparent pricing.
• Impressive global coverage, spread across 195 locations.
• Decent overall performance.

Soax Cons

• Lacks CCPA compliance.
• The support isn’t the best, and the plans are expensive.

Soax Pricing

The pricing varies according to the proxy and the quantity you consider purchasing. Here is the Pay as you go of each, which varies based on conditions like 150GB traffic and 75GB traffic.

• Residential Proxies start at $4.9/GB.
• Mobile Proxies start at $4.9/GB.
• US ISP Proxy starts at $4.9/GB.
• Datacenter Proxies start from $0.65/GB.

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Best Cheap Proxy Service Comparison

What is a Premium Proxy Service?

A premium proxy service provides users with additional features like proxy pool IP size, usability, reliability (ease of use and customization), speed, performance (uptime, success rate, and response time), security, customer support, and cost. Reputable providers like Webshare, IPRoyal, Oxylabs, and Birghtdata cover most of these bases.

Benefits of Using a Proxy Service

A proxy service offers enhanced anonymity and security on the web at its most basic without demanding advanced technical knowledge. A proxy service is beneficial for individual users as well as corporate users as it is useful for web scraping, data collection, and competitive intelligence, allowing them to gather data without being blocked or detected. Due to these features, when it comes to proxy vs. VPN, users often choose the former.

Who Should Use a Proxy Service?

A proxy service enhances online privacy and security for individual users and businesses. It also has additional uses, like accessing geo-restricted content, conducting web scraping and data collection, managing social media accounts, and performing market research and competitive analysis.

Ethical and Legal Use of a Proxy Service

It is essential to be responsible while using a proxy server to prevent its misuse in illegal online activities. Illegal activities done by proxy users are liable to legal repercussions, which is why it is important to follow the terms and conditions of the proxy server being used. While using a proxy service, both the user and the proxy provider are expected to behave ethically and in compliance with the law.