Proxy FAQ
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Billing & the meter
Why are you cheaper than the big providers?Home
We do not have a sales team, an enterprise tier, a compliance department, or a conference booth. We have a Discord, a status bot, and a bandwidth bill.
The traffic itself costs what it costs. Most of what you pay elsewhere is the org chart.
Answered on Home
What stops you inflating my usage like the last provider did?Home
Nothing stops us except the fact that you can check. We bill request bytes plus response bytes, headers included, and every request is logged with both counts and exportable as CSV. Run the same job through your own byte counter and compare. If ours is higher by more than protocol overhead explains, that is a bug and we refund the difference.
Answered on Home
Do I need a plan or a subscription?Pricing
Not for residential. You top up, and traffic draws down the balance for as long as it lasts.
ISP and datacenter are rented per IP, so you pick a plan (shared, dedicated or premium) and a term when you order, and the whole term is paid up front from your balance. There is no monthly fee on top of either.
Answered on Pricing
Exactly what bytes do you charge for?Pricing
The bytes that cross our network on your behalf: your request (headers and body) plus the response (headers and body), including TLS overhead on the tunnelled connection.
A connection that fails before it carries data costs nothing. Retries are billed, because they are real traffic, but each one appears as its own line in your log so you can see them.
Answered on Pricing. Also asked on Residential pricing
How do the volume rungs work?Pricing
The size of a single order sets the rate, and that rate applies to the whole order. Cross a rung and every unit reprices, not only the ones above it.
On ISP and datacenter the rung discount comes off the plan price first, then the term discount comes off that. Checkout rounds to the cent after each step, and so does every figure on these pages.
Answered on Pricing
Are there hidden fees?Pricing
No setup fee, no port fee, no monthly minimum. What can cost extra is listed on each pricing page: traffic beyond the allowance on a shared ISP or datacenter IP, and add-ons for more threads or a faster uplink. Checkout shows every one of them before you pay. Payment processors take their own cut on the way in, which is why crypto is marginally better for both of us.
Answered on Pricing
Why should I believe any of this?Honesty
You should not, on the strength of a marketing page. Every claim here is written so that you can check it rather than trust it: export the usage CSV and diff it, whois the IPs we give you, ask for a refund and see what happens.
That is deliberate. A promise you can verify in ten minutes is worth more than a badge.
Answered on Honesty
What happens if I catch you overbilling?Honesty
Send us the two numbers. If ours is higher by more than protocol overhead explains, we refund the difference and post what went wrong in the Discord where everyone can read it. If yours is wrong, we will show you why, and you get to keep being suspicious of us, which is fine.
Answered on Honesty
Are you going to raise prices once I depend on you?Honesty
If our costs move, prices may move — pretending otherwise would be its own small lie. What we will not do is change the rate on a balance you have already paid for. Money already in your account buys traffic at the rate you bought it at.
Answered on Honesty
Does the price change by country?Locations
No. The price list has no country column: an ISP address in Japan costs what one in Canada costs. Plan, term length and how many IPs you order are what move the price, and the pricing pages break those down.
Answered on Locations
What gets metered?Locations
Residential is billed per GB, and we count request bytes plus response bytes, as the terms say. ISP and datacenter are billed per IP for the term. Shared plans on those lines include a small traffic allowance and bill traffic past it per GB.
Answered on Locations
What does the order size change?Residential pricing
The rate for the whole order. One GB costs $5.50. Buy 2 GB in one go and every GB in it costs $5.20; at 1,000 GB it is $1.75. The rung you reach reprices all of it, not only the gigabytes above the line.
Answered on Residential pricing
What does one address cost on the 365-day term?ISP pricing
One dedicated IP on the 365-day term costs $2.56 a month, $30.72 paid up front, which is 20% under the 30-day rate. The address does not change under you at any point in the term.
Answered on ISP pricing
Shared or dedicated for a crawl?Datacenter pricing
Work out the traffic first. Shared includes 1 GB per IP and sells more at $0.35/GB with the order. From 4 extra GB per IP up, a dedicated IP costs less than shared plus traffic, and dedicated has no meter at all.
Answered on Datacenter pricing
Is a longer term worth it?Datacenter pricing
Only if the job will still exist. 60 days takes 5% off, 90 days takes 10% off, 365 days takes 20% off. The discount stacks on top of the volume rung, and the whole term is paid up front from your balance.
Answered on Datacenter pricing
Is this cheaper than it should be?Residential proxies
It is cheaper than the big providers because we do not carry their cost structure. It is not cheaper than physically possible: bandwidth from a real home connection has a real cost, and anyone selling residential for pennies a gigabyte is selling you something else.
Answered on Residential proxies
Why can ISP work out cheaper than residential?ISP proxies
Because the bandwidth is ours. Rotating residential runs over other people's home connections, and we pay a share of every gigabyte to the SDK partner whose users provide it. ISP traffic runs on wholesale datacenter bandwidth with a residential ASN on the front, so a dedicated ISP IP has no traffic meter.
Answered on ISP proxies
Why is this so much cheaper than residential for heavy jobs?Datacenter proxies
Because a server in a rack costs a fraction of what a real home connection costs, and on a dedicated IP there is no traffic meter at all. Residential charges for every byte; a dedicated datacenter IP costs the same whether you move one gigabyte or a hundred.
Answered on Datacenter proxies
Do I pay per IP or per GB?Datacenter proxies
Per IP, for the term you pick. On the dedicated and premium plans traffic is not metered at all. The shared plan includes 1 GB per IP and sells more at $0.35/GB with the order.
From 4 extra GB per IP up, a dedicated IP works out cheaper than shared plus traffic.
Answered on Datacenter proxies
How many GB will my scraper use?Proxies for web scraping
Fetch fifty representative pages, read the byte counts in your usage log, and multiply out. We bill request bytes plus response bytes, headers included, so the log will read a little higher than the size of the HTML you saved.
Answered on Proxies for web scraping
How do I keep costs down on a big crawl?Proxies for AI training data
Fetch HTML only, deduplicate URLs before fetching, and cache everything while you develop. Send only the domains that block datacenter through residential. Check the usage log after the first thousand pages and extrapolate before you commit to the rest.
Answered on Proxies for AI training data
Is there anything cheaper than crawling it myself?Proxies for AI training data
Often, yes. If the pages you need are in a public crawl archive such as Common Crawl, downloading that costs less than any proxy. Crawl yourself for the gaps and for fresh pages.
Answered on Proxies for AI training data
Why is there a price gap at all?Us vs Bright Data
Most of it is the company around the product: sales, compliance, support tiers, marketing. Those are real costs and Bright Data serves customers who need them. We do not have them, and we do not serve those customers.
Answered on Us vs Bright Data
How do I test whether a provider is inflating usage?Us vs the $1/GB no-names
Run a fixed job — say, fetch the same 500 URLs — through a local byte counter such as mitmproxy or a wrapper that sums Content-Length plus header size. Then compare with what the provider billed.
A few percent of drift is normal, since TLS and connection overhead are real bytes. Thirty percent is not drift. That is a business model.
Answered on Us vs the $1/GB no-names
Products & choosing
What are you not okay with?Home
Anything aimed at people rather than data: credential stuffing, harassment, CSAM, fraud, and attacks on infrastructure. We will refund you and close the account rather than take that money. Everything else is your call to make.
Answered on Home
Do you log what sites I visit?Honesty
We log the destination host, timestamp, status code and byte counts, because that is what makes the meter auditable and what lets us respond to abuse reports. We do not log request bodies, response bodies, or credentials. Logs are retained for 30 days and then deleted.
If you want the detail, it is written down in the privacy policy rather than implied here.
Answered on Honesty
What do you do about abuse?Honesty
We publish an acceptable use policy, we keep an address that a victim of abuse can actually reach, and we act on reports. Accounts that get used for credential stuffing, harassment, CSAM or fraud get closed and refunded rather than kept.
This is partly ethics and partly self-interest: pools that tolerate that behaviour end up on blocklists, and then nobody’s scraper works.
Answered on Honesty
Can I choose the country when I order?Locations
On ISP and datacenter, yes. You pick the country at checkout and the IP stays in it for the whole term.
On residential, no. Checkout does not offer country selection for residential, so each request exits wherever the next IP in the pool happens to be.
Answered on Locations. Also asked on Residential proxies, Proxies for web scraping
Then why list countries for residential at all?Locations
So you know what the pool is made of. If a target only needs a real home IP from somewhere, residential does the job. If it needs one particular country, buy ISP or datacenter in that country.
Answered on Locations
Is every listed country always in stock?Locations
The ISP and datacenter lists are what the order form offers. Stock in one country can run short for a while, and the order form in the dashboard is the live answer. If a country you need is missing, say so in Discord.
Answered on Locations
Can I test a country before paying for a full term?Locations
Yes. Order one ISP or datacenter IP in that country on the shortest term, point your scraper at it, and only then buy more addresses or a longer term.
Answered on Locations
Can I pay extra to pick the country?Residential pricing
No. Residential is sold as one pool spread over 180+ countries, and the order has no country setting at any price. If a job must come from one named country, ISP and datacenter are ordered per country.
Answered on Residential pricing
Why pay for ISP when datacenter exists?ISP pricing
Here you do not pay more: ISP and datacenter share one price list, plan for plan and rung for rung. The difference is the whois record. An ISP address is registered to a consumer internet provider, a datacenter address to a hosting company. If the site checks the ASN, take ISP. If it does not, datacenter does the same job for the same money.
Answered on ISP pricing
Which plan do logged-in accounts need?ISP pricing
Dedicated. A shared IP is used by up to 3 customers, so whatever they do on it follows your account around. Premium is dedicated plus a fresh IP nobody has used before and the option to swap the IP yourself. That is worth it when an account has to start clean.
Answered on ISP pricing
Will a datacenter IP get blocked?Datacenter pricing
On sites that block hosting ranges, yes, and fast. On most APIs, content sites and price feeds it works fine, and it is the quickest line we sell. Ask in Discord about a specific target before you commit to a long term.
Answered on Datacenter pricing. Also asked on Datacenter proxies
Where do the IPs come from?Residential proxies
A paid, opt-in SDK partner. Real people install an app, are told in plain language that their spare bandwidth is being used, and are paid for it. They can turn it off at any time.
We will name the partner if you ask in Discord. Providers who will not name theirs are usually not the ones you want.
Answered on Residential proxies
What is the difference between this and residential?ISP proxies
Residential rotates: a different real home IP on every request, drawn from millions. ISP does not rotate: you get one address, hosted in our racks, that whois attributes to a consumer ISP.
So residential is for looking like many people, and ISP is for looking like the same person repeatedly.
Answered on ISP proxies
How long do I keep an address?ISP proxies
For the term you buy, from 30 up to 365 days. It does not rotate on a timer and it does not change under you mid-session, which is the whole point. On the premium plan you can also swap it for a fresh one yourself.
Answered on ISP proxies
Will sites treat it as residential?ISP proxies
They will see a consumer ISP on the ASN lookup, which is what most filters check. A determined anti-bot vendor can still tell a static hosted address from a home line by other signals, so ISP is not magic. It is a good middle option.
Answered on ISP proxies
How fast is it?Datacenter proxies
Sub-100 ms in-region on the standard uplink. A faster uplink is a paid add-on on dedicated IPs, if the job needs it.
Answered on Datacenter proxies
Is web scraping legal?Proxies for web scraping
Collecting publicly available data is lawful in many places, but it depends on where you are, what you collect and the site's terms. Our acceptable use policy allows scraping public data at a considerate rate.
Personal data and copyrighted content carry their own rules, and a proxy does not change them.
Answered on Proxies for web scraping
Residential or datacenter for my first scraper?Proxies for web scraping
Try datacenter first. If the target returns 403s through datacenter and 200s through residential, the site blocks hosting ranges and you need residential. The residential vs datacenter guide has a script that tells you in about five minutes.
Answered on Proxies for web scraping
Can I see the price a shopper in another country sees?Proxies for price monitoring
Yes, on datacenter or ISP: choose the country at checkout and the IP is in that country. Residential has no country selector here. The pool covers 180+ countries and you get whichever one the rotation hands you. That makes it the wrong line for country-specific prices.
Answered on Proxies for price monitoring
Can I use this for a restock or release bot?Proxies for price monitoring
Yes. Our acceptable use policy lists sneaker, ticket and release bots as fine. The shop's own rules still apply, and a store that limits one item per customer can cancel your order.
Answered on Proxies for price monitoring
Shared or dedicated plan?Proxies for price monitoring
Shared is cheaper per IP, but other customers use the same address and it comes with a small traffic allowance before extra traffic is charged. For a monitor you want to trust, dedicated means you never inherit somebody else's ban.
Answered on Proxies for price monitoring
Do search engines allow this?Proxies for SERP tracking
Their terms generally prohibit automated queries, and they enforce that by blocking. Our acceptable use policy allows SEO and SERP monitoring. Whether a given engine tolerates it is between you and the engine.
Answered on Proxies for SERP tracking
Is this allowed for a university project?Proxies for AI training data
Yes. Academic research is on the fine list in our acceptable use policy. Your university may have its own ethics rules for collected data, and those are yours to follow.
Answered on Proxies for AI training data
Why ISP and not residential?Proxies for ad verification
Ad verification usually means checking one market repeatedly. ISP lets you pick the country at checkout and keeps the same address. Residential has no country selector here. The pool covers 180+ countries and you get whichever one the rotation hands you.
Answered on Proxies for ad verification
Can I check mobile ads?Proxies for ad verification
We do not sell mobile proxies. Setting a mobile user agent and viewport in the browser covers layout, but a network that targets by mobile carrier will see a home ISP.
Answered on Proxies for ad verification
Will the ad network see what a real visitor would?Proxies for ad verification
It will see a consumer ISP address in the right country, which is what most geo and bot checks look at. Anything tied to a signed-in profile or a device fingerprint is outside what an IP can change.
Answered on Proxies for ad verification
Is ad verification allowed?Proxies for ad verification
Yes. Ad verification and brand protection are on the fine list in our acceptable use policy. Clicking the ads is not.
Answered on Proxies for ad verification
Which countries can I test from?Proxies for geo testing
Datacenter covers 70+ countries and ISP 70+. You pick the country when you order, and checkout shows the full list.
Answered on Proxies for geo testing
Is ProxyMonkey a Bright Data reseller?Us vs Bright Data
No. Different pools, different infrastructure, no commercial relationship.
Answered on Us vs Bright Data
Are your residential IPs the same quality?Us vs Bright Data
On the sites most people are scraping, you will not notice a difference. On the hardest targets, a bigger pool wins more often, and theirs is bigger. We would rather say that than pretend.
Start with $5 and find out on your own targets. That is cheaper than either of us arguing about it.
Answered on Us vs Bright Data
How do I check whether an IP is really residential?Us vs the $1/GB no-names
Take the IP, look up the ASN, and see who owns it. If it belongs to a hosting company, a cloud provider, or a VPS reseller, it is a datacenter IP no matter what the label says. Free ASN lookups will tell you in seconds.
Answered on Us vs the $1/GB no-names
Are you not just another one of these?Us vs the $1/GB no-names
By appearance, yes — same price bracket, same kind of landing page. The difference is that everything we claim above is checkable, and the checking does not depend on trusting us.
That is the whole bet: publish the numbers, make them auditable, and be the cheap option that survives being audited.
Answered on Us vs the $1/GB no-names
Payments & refunds
What does the smallest order cost?Home
Top-ups start at $5 and the balance never expires. The smallest residential order is 1 GB for $5.50, pay as you go with nothing to cancel. The smallest ISP or datacenter order is one IP for the shortest term, and its price depends on the plan you pick. Checkout shows the plan, the term and any add-ons before you pay.
Answered on Home
Does my balance expire?Pricing
No. Come back in a year and it will still be there. Expiring balances are a way of billing you for nothing, and we are not going to do that.
Answered on Pricing. Also asked on Residential pricing
Can I pay in crypto?Pricing
What if I want my money back?Pricing
Ask within 7 days of the top-up and the unused portion goes back the way it came. One message in Discord or an email is enough. We do not require a reason and we do not void the refund because you used some of it.
Answered on Pricing
Setup & errors
How often do the IPs rotate?Residential proxies
Every request by default. If you need the same IP for a multi-step flow such as a login and a checkout, use a sticky session and keep it for up to 30 minutes.
Answered on Residential proxies
Do I need a new IP for every request?Proxies for web scraping
For one-off page fetches, rotation per request is the default and usually what you want. Paginating a search or holding a cart needs one address for a while; residential supports sticky sessions for that.
Answered on Proxies for web scraping
How often should I check prices?Proxies for price monitoring
As rarely as the data allows. Most shop prices change a few times a day at most. Hourly checks catch nearly everything and look much less like a bot than a check every minute.
Answered on Proxies for price monitoring
How many queries per IP is safe?Proxies for SERP tracking
Nobody publishes a number and it changes. With rotation, every query comes from a new address, which sidesteps the question. On a static ISP IP, keep it to a slow trickle with random gaps between queries.
Answered on Proxies for SERP tracking
Why do my rankings differ from what I see in my browser?Proxies for SERP tracking
Your browser results are personalised by history, login and exact location. Proxy results reflect the IP's location with no history. Track the trend over weeks and ignore single-day jumps.
Answered on Proxies for SERP tracking
Headless browser or plain HTTP?Proxies for SERP tracking
Plain HTTP when the result page works without JavaScript: fewer bytes, no images. We meter request plus response bytes, so a full browser load can cost several times what the HTML alone does. Block images if you do use a browser.
Answered on Proxies for SERP tracking
Should I respect robots.txt?Proxies for AI training data
We would. It is the cheapest way to learn what a site's owner is fine with, and it keeps your crawl at the considerate rate our acceptable use policy asks for. Crawlers that ignore it are how ranges end up on blocklists for everyone.
Answered on Proxies for AI training data
Can I use this in CI?Proxies for geo testing
Yes. Store the credentials as CI secrets and pass them through the HTTPS_PROXY variable, which most HTTP clients read. A rented IP costs the same whether the test runs once a day or on every commit, unless you are on the shared plan with its traffic allowance.
Answered on Proxies for geo testing
Why does a GeoIP lookup disagree with the country I ordered?Proxies for geo testing
GeoIP databases update on their own schedules and sometimes lag behind when an address moves. Post the IP and the database you checked in Discord and we will look into it.
Answered on Proxies for geo testing
Do I need a browser for this?Proxies for geo testing
Only if the geo logic runs in client-side JavaScript. Redirects, headers and server-rendered prices all show up with curl.
Answered on Proxies for geo testing
Community & support
Do I have to be a customer to join?Community
No. Lurking is free and quite a lot of the channel has never bought anything. If you are trying to work out whether we are worth $5, reading how we handle other people is a reasonable way to decide.
Answered on Community
Is Discord the only support channel?Community
No. [email protected] reaches us and gets answered. Discord is just faster, and it has the side effect of letting you see the answers we gave other people.
Answered on Community
Why run support in public at all?Community
Because it is the strongest honesty signal we have. A private ticket queue lets a provider be pleasant to you and useless to everyone else. In a public room, our worst support interaction is visible to every prospective customer.
That is uncomfortable in exactly the way it should be.
Answered on Community
What does the status bot actually post?Community
Pool availability by product and region, incident start and resolution, and planned maintenance. It posts automatically, so it is not filtered through anyone deciding whether the news is convenient.
Answered on Community
Question not on the list?
Ask it in Discord. The people who run the network read the channel, and a good question tends to end up answered on the page it belongs to.
Join the Discord4,200+monkeys in the Discord
Help from humans
Post your error, get an answer. Usually in minutes, usually from someone who has hit the same wall.
A status bot that tells on us
Pool health, incidents and maintenance posted automatically. Including the bad days.
Deals and free traffic
Bonus GB drops, early access to new pools, and the occasional giveaway for a good bug report.