Quick picks
- Cheapest per GB: Decodo — $6.50/GB with 65M+ IP pool (lowest in review)
- Cheapest entry (no CC): IPRoyal — 100 MB free residential trial
- Best value overall: Smartproxy — $7.00/GB with SERP API and largest pool depth in the budget tier
Important caveat: cheap ≠ good enough
Minimum price for residential proxies correlates loosely with IP pool size, rotation quality, and success rate on protected targets. The cheapest option that doesn’t achieve your target success rate costs more in engineering time than a more expensive provider. Use our benchmark data to find the break-even point.
Ranked by price (residential, per GB)
| Rank | Provider | Price/GB | Pool size | Success rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Decodo | $6.50 | 65M+ | measuring | Smartproxy infrastructure at lower price |
| 2 | IPRoyal | $7.00 | 32M+ | measuring | 100 MB free trial |
| 3 | Smartproxy | $7.00 | 65M+ | measuring | SERP API included |
| 4 | NetNut | $7.00 | 85M+ | measuring | ISP specialist |
| 5 | Bright Data | $8.40 | 72M+ | measuring | Enterprise, compliance |
Prices are PAYG. Volume discounts available at 50GB+/month.
How to evaluate “cheapest” correctly
Price per GB is the most commonly cited metric but ignores two key multipliers:
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Success rate — if Provider A at $7/GB has 85% success rate and Provider B at $6/GB has 70%, Provider B effectively costs more per successful request.
-
Engineering overhead — a cheaper provider with higher block rates requires more retry logic, IP rotation code, and debugging time.
Our benchmark page shows success rate per provider — use it to calculate effective cost per successful request, not just sticker price.
Provider notes
Decodo is the cheapest per-GB option we’ve found with an established pool. At $6.50/GB it undercuts Smartproxy (same infrastructure) by 7%. The limitation is fewer enterprise features (no SERP API, no Scraping Browser). For raw residential bandwidth, Decodo is the price leader.
IPRoyal matches Smartproxy at $7/GB with a smaller pool (32M+). The free 100 MB trial with no credit card makes it the lowest-friction entry point to paid residential proxies.
Smartproxy at $7/GB matches IPRoyal but adds a 2x larger pool, SERP API, and enterprise-grade reliability. If you’re going to pay $7/GB anyway, Smartproxy’s pool depth is worth the same price.
FAQ
What is the minimum quality threshold for residential proxies? We suggest a success rate floor of 80% on your primary target site. Below that, retry overhead typically costs more than the per-GB saving. Check your target’s success rate in our benchmark before choosing on price alone.
Can I get residential proxies cheaper than $6.50/GB? Some smaller or newer providers advertise under $5/GB but lack pool size and uptime track records. None in our current benchmark group price below $6.50/GB with a verifiable pool size over 30M IPs. SOAX at $9/GB is the most expensive reviewed because of mobile IP depth.
Is Decodo safe to use at scale? Yes — it runs on Smartproxy’s infrastructure, which serves thousands of customers at scale. We recommend starting with a trial batch to validate success rates on your specific targets before committing to large volume.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by an editor. As of 2026-05-31. Legitimate use only.