The best cheap proxy providers in 2026, us included

We sell residential proxies, so this is a roundup written by one of the contestants. Read it that way. To make that less of a problem, every price below is taken from each provider’s own public page, checked on 2026-09-30, and linked so you can check it yourself. Where another provider is cheaper than ProxyMonkey, the table says so, and at small sizes most of them are.

What we compared is residential proxies bought the way a small buyer buys them: a gigabyte to test, ten for a side project, a hundred for something that runs every day. Headline “from” prices that need a terabyte order are not in the table, because nobody reading this is placing one.

What is the cheapest residential proxy provider?

At 10 GB, the cheapest per gigabyte is Geonode at $0.88/GB. The cheapest way to start at all is a tie between Webshare and Rayobyte, where the smallest residential order costs $3.50. At 100 GB, the lowest rate is Evomi at $0.49/GB on a monthly plan; with no plan, it is Geonode at $0.72/GB.

ProxyMonkey is not the cheapest at any of those sizes. At 10 GB, 7 of the 9 other providers here charge less per gigabyte than we do, 3 of them only on an order bigger than 10 GB. What we offer instead is further down, and whether it is worth the difference depends on the job.

IPRoyal also sells monthly plans: $7.00/GB at 1 GB, $5.25/GB at 10 GB, $5.25/GB (10 × 10 GB) at 100 GB. Decodo also sells monthly plans: $3.75/GB (buy 3 GB) at 1 GB, $3.50/GB at 10 GB, $2.75/GB at 100 GB. Evomi also sells monthly plans: $0.49/GB (buy 100 GB) at 1 GB, $0.49/GB (buy 100 GB) at 10 GB, $0.49/GB at 100 GB. Geonode also sells monthly plans: $0.792/GB (buy 10 GB) at 1 GB, $0.792/GB at 10 GB, $0.648/GB at 100 GB. The comparisons below count those plans, and Webshare’s, which are the only way it sells residential. Rayobyte’s page says “Get more discounts with monthly payment options” but publishes no monthly price, so only its pay-as-you-go ladder is counted.

Price is only half of it. The same providers on the terms that decide what a gigabyte is worth once you have paid for it:

Where is ProxyMonkey cheaper, and where is it not?

Straight from the same numbers, size by size. A provider counts as cheaper if any way it sells, plans included, costs less per gigabyte than our order of that size. Where that rate needs a bigger order, the order is in brackets, because a lower rate on gigabytes you did not want is not a saving:

• At 1 GB we charge $5.50/GB. Webshare, DataImpulse (buy 50 GB), Decodo, Evomi (buy 15 GB), PacketStream (buy 50 GB), Rayobyte and Geonode (buy 10 GB) charge less per gigabyte. IPRoyal and Bright Data charge more.
• At 10 GB we charge $3.95/GB. Webshare, DataImpulse (buy 50 GB), Decodo, Evomi (buy 15 GB), PacketStream (buy 50 GB), Rayobyte and Geonode charge less per gigabyte. IPRoyal and Bright Data charge more.
• At 100 GB we charge $2.65/GB. Webshare, DataImpulse, Evomi, PacketStream, Rayobyte and Geonode charge less per gigabyte. IPRoyal, Decodo and Bright Data charge more.

Webshare and Rayobyte cost less per gigabyte than we do at every size in the table. DataImpulse, Evomi, PacketStream and Geonode are lower per gigabyte at every size too, but at the small sizes only on a bigger order: DataImpulse from 50 GB, Evomi from 15 GB, PacketStream from 50 GB and Geonode from 10 GB. So a 1 GB test costs more with Evomi, PacketStream and Geonode than with us. DataImpulse sells a first order of 5 GB to new users, then 50 GB at a time. Decodo is lower than us at 1 GB and 10 GB (on its monthly plan), and not at 100 GB. IPRoyal and Bright Data charge more than we do at every size in the table. If price per gigabyte is the only thing you are choosing on, you should probably not buy from us.

Best cheap proxies for each kind of buyer

A single number-one pick would hide the trade-offs, so here are picks by what you need. The price picks are computed from the table above, so they change when the table does.

Cheapest way to start

Webshare and Rayobyte: $3.50 buys the smallest residential order anyone here sells. Check what kind of order it is before you pay: Webshare’s is a monthly plan that renews (expiry: plan renews monthly; rollover not stated); Rayobyte’s is a pay-as-you-go order (expiry: never, on pay as you go).

Cheapest per GB at small volume

Geonode, at $0.88/GB. Read the refund terms before the rate: Geonode’s say only for a billing error or a failure to deliver, within 7 days; never for crypto. Next cheapest is Evomi at $0.99/GB on a 15 GB order, where refunds are: pay-as-you-go purchases are not refundable.

Cheapest at 100 GB

Evomi on a monthly plan, at $0.49/GB. If you do not want anything that renews, the cheapest pay-as-you-go rate at that size is Geonode at $0.72/GB. A plan only saves money if you use it every month, so compare what you would spend over a quarter, not the rate on one invoice.

Best if you need to pick a country or a city

Every other provider here lets you choose a country, and six say they go down to a city at no extra charge. Among those, the lowest rate at 10 GB is Evomi, at $0.99/GB on a 15 GB order. This is our weakest line: our residential proxies cannot be pinned to a country at all. If your job has to come from one named place, buy from someone else, or use our ISP and datacenter addresses, where you pick the country at checkout.

Best free trial or free tier

Decodo and Geonode publish the size of their residential trial: Decodo, 3 days, 100 MB of residential; the plan starts unless cancelled; Geonode, $5 for 10 GB over 3 days; not refundable. Evomi: free trial; continues at the plan price unless cancelled. PacketStream: trial credits on request, at their discretion. Rayobyte: free trial; billing starts unless cancelled. Webshare has a free tier that needs no card, but its free IPs are proxy servers, not residential: useful for trying proxies in general, not for testing a residential pool. We have neither. The nearest thing is a small first order. Our minimum top-up is $5 and the smallest residential order is 1 GB at $5.50, so a residential test needs a top-up of at least that. Whatever you do not use comes back if you ask within seven days of the top-up.

Best if you want to verify the meter

ProxyMonkey. Of the pricing and terms pages we read for this roundup, ours are the only ones that describe a log of every request with its byte count and cost, exportable so you can check it against your own. Others may have one inside their dashboard; we could not see it from outside. That is the thing we are selling instead of the lowest rate. The honesty page lists what we promise, and auditing your proxy bill walks through reconciling our log against yours, step by step.

Best for enterprise needs

Bright Data. At $8.00/GB list pay as you go, it is not a budget provider, and it does not pretend to be; they also advertise a coupon code that halves it. It is in this list as the reference point. Their pricing page claims “400M+ rotating residential IPs in 195 countries”, and says that “prior to using Bright Data’s Residential or Mobile IP network, a Bright Data representative will ask you to go through a short compliance process also known as a KYC”. If someone in procurement is involved, start there.

The cheap residential proxy providers, one by one

Short and fair. Each has its own page linked in the Sources list at the end, and each links to our side-by-side comparison.

• Webshare sells residential as monthly plans that cost less per gigabyte than our order of the same size at every size they publish, with location choice down to ZIP and ASN. No crypto, and refunds are at their discretion within two days. On this list it has the joint cheapest first order. Webshare compared with us.
• DataImpulse sells pay-as-you-go packages that cost less per gigabyte than our order of the same size at every size they publish, with traffic that never expires, country choice included and city for a fee. The first purchase is a small intro package; after that, 50 GB at a time. DataImpulse compared with us.
• Evomi sells pay as you go from 15 GB, and a 100 GB monthly plan, with city and ISP choice included. On this list it has the lowest rate at 100 GB, on its monthly plan. The catch is the refund policy: pay-as-you-go traffic is not refundable at all. Evomi compared with us.
• Geonode sells pay-as-you-go packages from 10 GB and monthly plans from 10 GB, with bandwidth that rolls over until you cancel, targeting down to city and ASN, and crypto accepted. On this list it has the lowest rate at 10 GB and the lowest pay-as-you-go rate at 100 GB. Refunds come only for a billing error or a failure to deliver, and never for crypto. Geonode compared with us.
• PacketStream is one flat rate, no plans, a balance that does not expire and country choice. You have to buy 50 GB worth to start, and you have 24 hours to ask for the remainder back. Card or PayPal only. PacketStream compared with us.
• Rayobyte publishes a pay-as-you-go ladder from 1 GB, with city and ASN choice at no extra cost and bandwidth that does not expire. Their terms leave refunds to their discretion, and they list no crypto option. On this list it has the joint cheapest first order. Rayobyte compared with us.
• Decodo, formerly Smartproxy, sells pay as you go one gigabyte at a time and cheaper monthly plans from 3 GB, with a published trial and targeting down to ZIP and ASN. Decodo compared with us.
• IPRoyal works much like us: traffic never expires, no plan needed, crypto accepted. Their pay-as-you-go rates cost more per gigabyte than our order of the same size at every size they publish, and they offer city choice, which we do not. IPRoyal compared with us.
• Bright Data is the premium reference, not a budget option. Bright Data compared with us.

What you get from ProxyMonkey, and what you give up

Our residential rate is $5.50/GB for the first gigabyte, $3.95/GB on a 10 GB order and $2.65/GB on 100 GB. At 10 GB that is somewhere in the middle of this table, not the lowest. What the money buys, all of it stated in our terms and refund policy:

• A log of every request, with the bytes in and out and what each one cost, that you can export and check against your own numbers.
• A balance that does not expire, and no plan to cancel.
• A refund of the unused part of any top-up if you ask within seven days. Using some of it does not void the rest.
• A $5 minimum top-up, and crypto at checkout.

And what you give up: residential proxies you cannot pin to a country, a pool smaller than the enterprise providers’, and no free trial.

Is the cheapest proxy the best budget proxy provider?

Not always, because the rate on the pricing page is not the cost of the job. Two providers at the same rate can bill different amounts for the same pages, depending on what their meter counts, and a lower rate on traffic that expires, or on a plan you stop using, can cost more than a higher one you keep. The number that matters is what you paid divided by the pages you actually got. Proxy pricing explained shows how to work that out for per-GB and per-IP offers alike.

The checklist for cheap residential proxies has the eight questions behind the columns in this roundup, and how providers inflate a meter has a test that works against any of them, us included. Spend the minimum with two or three from this list, run the same job through each, and let your own numbers pick.

How we built this roundup

Who wrote it. ProxyMonkey, which is one of the providers in the table. We have a reason to make ourselves look good, which is why every figure has a source you can open.

What we measured. The residential price per gigabyte each provider publishes for an order of 1, 10 and 100 GB, read from their own pricing page on 2026-09-30. Where a size falls between two published tiers, we used the tier at or below it; where the smallest order is bigger than the size, we priced the smallest order and said so. Where a provider sells fixed packages, the note shows how many. Monthly plans are shown as plans. Nothing is estimated, and nothing comes from a third-party review site.

Terms. Expiry, refunds, crypto, country choice and usage logs are quoted from each provider’s product, pricing, payment or terms pages. Where we could not find something, the table says “not published” rather than guessing.

What we left out. Providers that sell only through a sales call, with no public price, since there is nothing to check. Mobile and datacenter lines are out of scope; this is about residential.

Compared on their own pages instead. Oxylabs, SOAX and ProxyEmpire have a comparison page with us but no row in the table. Oxylabs: It sells monthly plans at the enterprise end, and Bright Data is already in the table as the premium reference. SOAX: Its rate depends on the country of the exit IP and it sells prepaid credits rather than gigabytes, so one price per size would misstate it. ProxyEmpire: It publishes list prices and, with a limited-time code, prices about half as high, so one price per size would be wrong for one reader or the other.

How to re-check. Every provider name in the source list below links to the page we read. Prices change often. If one of ours is out of date, say so in Discord and we will correct it and date the correction.

Sources

• ProxyMonkey (us): /pricing/residential/, /legal/terms/, /legal/refunds/, /products/residential/, /honesty/
• Webshare: webshare.io/residential-proxy, webshare.io/terms, help.webshare.io/en/articles/8370525-which-payment-methods-can-i-use, webshare.io/pricing
• IPRoyal: iproyal.com/residential-proxies/, iproyal.com/terms-of-service/
• DataImpulse: dataimpulse.com/, dataimpulse.com/terms-of-services/
• Decodo: decodo.com/proxies/residential-proxies/pricing, decodo.com/faq/billing/can-i-get-a-refund
• Evomi: evomi.com/pricing, evomi.com/legal/refund-policy, evomi.com/payment-methods/cryptocurrency
• PacketStream: packetstream.io/pricing/, packetstream.io/terms-of-service/
• Rayobyte: rayobyte.com/products/residential-proxies/, rayobyte.com/tos-and-aup/
• Geonode: geonode.com/products/residential-proxies, geonode.com/refund-policy, geonode.com/pricing/residential-proxies
• Bright Data: brightdata.com/pricing/proxy-network/residential-proxies, brightdata.com/license