Best Bright Data Alternative in 2026 (Cheaper, No Contract Required)

Why People Are Looking for Bright Data Alternatives in 2026

Bright Data (formerly Luminati) is one of the most recognized names in the proxy industry — but recognition comes at a price. Their residential proxies start at $6/GB on small plans and only drop to around $2.50/GB at enterprise volume ($2,500+/month). For teams that don't need an account manager or a 200-page compliance deck, the overhead is hard to justify.

If you're a developer, scraper, or growth team looking for the same infrastructure at a fraction of the cost, this guide breaks down the best Bright Data alternatives in 2026 — ranked by actual value, not marketing spend.

What Makes a Good Bright Data Alternative?

Before jumping to recommendations, here's what to look for when evaluating Bright Data alternatives:

• Transparent pricing — no sales call required to get a number
• Pay-as-you-go billing — don't pay for bandwidth you don't use
• Large IP pool — 40M+ residential IPs for serious scale
• City-level geo-targeting — essential for local SEO, ad verification, price monitoring
• Unlimited concurrency — no artificial thread caps
• Never-expiring credits — so you're not forced to burn bandwidth monthly

Bright Data scores well on IP pool size and enterprise tooling, but fails on pricing transparency and self-serve accessibility for smaller teams.

The Best Bright Data Alternative: V-Proxies

V-Proxies is the strongest Bright Data alternative for 2026. Here's why it wins across every practical metric:

Price: $0.99/GB vs Bright Data's $4–6/GB

V-Proxies charges a flat $0.99 per GB — no tiers, no minimum commitment beyond $5, no contract. At 100 GB/month, that's $99 vs Bright Data's $400–600. That's 4–6x more bandwidth for the same spend. See the full pricing breakdown here.

IP Pool: 84M+ Residential IPs Globally

V-Proxies operates a pool of 84M+ residential IPs across 196+ countries. Bright Data's active, usable residential IPs are typically in the 72M range. For SEO monitoring, sneaker bots, price scraping, and ad verification — 84M+ unique residential IPs comfortably covers any workload. Learn more about the V-Proxies network infrastructure.

No Contract, No Sales Call

Bright Data requires you to talk to sales before getting enterprise pricing. V-Proxies lets you top up instantly with $5 and start making proxy requests within minutes. No quote, no contract, no account manager required.

99.97% Uptime and Success Rate

V-Proxies maintains a 99.97% success rate across its residential network — higher than Bright Data's documented residential proxy success rates on typical workloads.

Credits Never Expire

V-Proxies credits never expire. Bright Data resets or expires credits on monthly plans. If you run seasonal campaigns or have unpredictable proxy usage, never-expiring credits mean you never waste bandwidth you've already paid for.

Unlimited Concurrent Connections

V-Proxies places no cap on concurrent connections. Bright Data limits concurrency by plan tier. For high-throughput scrapers, bots, or automation pipelines that need thousands of parallel threads, V-Proxies gives you room to scale without an upgrade wall. See V-Proxies web scraping and sneaker bot use cases.

V-Proxies vs Bright Data: Feature Comparison

For a more detailed analysis, see our full V-Proxies vs Bright Data comparison page.

What Bright Data Offers That V-Proxies Doesn't

Be honest about the trade-offs. Bright Data genuinely has features V-Proxies doesn't:

• Scraping Browser — a managed headless browser that handles JavaScript rendering, bot detection, and CAPTCHAs
• Datasets marketplace — pre-scraped data you can buy instead of scraping yourself
• SERP API — structured search result data without scraping
• Web Unlocker — automatic proxy rotation plus fingerprinting bypass for difficult targets
• Enterprise SLAs — dedicated account managers and contracts for regulated industries

If you need any of these, Bright Data is the better choice. If you just need residential IP bandwidth, V-Proxies wins by a wide margin.

Other Bright Data Alternatives Worth Considering

• Oxylabs — quality-filtered IPs, QUIC support, enterprise SLAs. Still 2.5–6x more expensive than V-Proxies. See our Oxylabs alternative guide.
• Smartproxy (Decodo) — solid mid-market option, $3.75/GB entry, 58M+ IPs. Not pay-as-you-go. See our Smartproxy alternative guide.
• IPRoyal — starts at $1.75/GB, supports 24-hour sticky sessions. See our IPRoyal alternative guide.

How to Switch from Bright Data to V-Proxies

Switching is straightforward. The proxy URL format is the same HTTP/HTTPS structure:

http://username:password@gate.v-proxies.com:9000

Geo-targeting uses the same username-append syntax — country, city, and ASN targeting all work identically. Most teams migrate in under 10 minutes. Read the V-Proxies documentation to get started.

Try V-Proxies Free Before You Commit

V-Proxies offers a free trial so you can test the full residential proxy network before spending anything. Join the V-Proxies Discord community to claim your trial and get hands-on support from the team.

Join the V-Proxies Discord and get your free trial →

Once you're ready to scale, top up from $5 at $0.99/GB — no subscription, no contract, credits never expire. Top up here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is V-Proxies really cheaper than Bright Data at all volume levels?

Yes. V-Proxies charges $0.99/GB regardless of volume. Bright Data's cheapest rate ($2.50/GB) only applies at $2,500+/month commitment. Below that threshold, Bright Data charges $4–6/GB. V-Proxies is cheaper at every volume tier, including the very highest volumes Bright Data serves.

Does V-Proxies offer a free trial?

Yes. V-Proxies offers a free trial for new users. Join the V-Proxies Discord to claim your free trial and get access to the full residential proxy network before spending anything. After the trial, top up from $5 at $0.99/GB.

Can I use V-Proxies for the same use cases as Bright Data?

For core residential proxy use cases — web scraping, SEO monitoring, price intelligence, sneaker bots, ad verification, account management — yes, V-Proxies is a direct replacement. The only gaps are Bright Data's proprietary add-ons: Scraping Browser, Datasets marketplace, and SERP API. If you rely on those, you need Bright Data. If you bring your own scraper, V-Proxies covers everything at a fraction of the cost.

How does Bright Data's IP pool compare to V-Proxies?

Bright Data claims a very large raw IP count, but their active, non-datacenter residential pool is approximately 72M IPs. V-Proxies maintains 84M+ active residential IPs — a larger usable pool. For most workloads, both pools are more than sufficient. For extreme scale where IP diversity is critical, V-Proxies's larger active pool is an advantage.

Is switching from Bright Data to V-Proxies technically complex?

No. The proxy URL format is identical: http://username:password@gate.v-proxies.com:9000. Country/city targeting uses the same username-append pattern. If you're running Scrapy, Playwright, Puppeteer, or any standard HTTP client, the only change is the endpoint and credentials. Most teams switch in under 10 minutes.

Does V-Proxies have unlimited bandwidth?

V-Proxies is pay-as-you-go — you buy bandwidth in GB and use it at your own pace. There are no artificial speed limits or bandwidth caps. Credits never expire, so unused bandwidth carries over indefinitely. There is no unlimited plan, but at $0.99/GB there's no need for one.

What is V-Proxies's refund policy?

V-Proxies does not offer refunds, but with a $5 minimum top-up and a free trial via Discord, you can thoroughly test the network before committing meaningful spend. The financial risk of trying V-Proxies is minimal.

Final Verdict

If you're paying Bright Data's rates for residential proxy bandwidth in 2026, you're overpaying by 4–6x. V-Proxies offers a comparable — in many ways superior — residential IP network at $0.99/GB with no contract and instant self-serve access. It's the best Bright Data alternative for developers and teams who want clean residential bandwidth without enterprise overhead.

Try it free first: join the Discord and claim your free trial.

Related reading: Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026 · Cheap Residential Proxies Under $2/GB · 2026 Proxy Buyers Guide