Best Residential Proxy Providers in 2026: Honest Reviews, Ranked by Real Value

Introduction

There are over 50 residential proxy providers on the market. Most are resellers, many are mediocre, and a handful are genuinely good. Picking the wrong one costs you money (if you over-pay) or time (if their IPs get blocked on your targets).

This guide cuts through the noise. We ranked providers using four criteria that actually matter for real workloads:

1. Price per GB — the most direct cost metric

2. Pool size and IP quality — determines success rates on protected targets

3. Technical capability — API, session management, geo targeting

4. Honesty — do advertised specs match real-world performance?

No affiliate rankings. No paid placements. Just an honest assessment of who delivers the most value in 2026.

Quick Rankings at a Glance

#1 — V-Proxies: Best Overall Value

Website: v-proxies.com
Price: From $0.99/GB (residential)
Pool: 84.2M residential IPs
Countries: 120+
Targeting: Country, city, ASN, carrier
Session Types: Rotating (default) + sticky (up to 60 min)
API: Full REST + webhooks + CLI + Node.js & Python SDKs
Uptime: 99.7% (30-day average)
Min. Purchase: $5
Credits: Never expire

Why V-Proxies Ranks First

V-Proxies is the only provider in the market that combines:

• The lowest per-GB price among quality providers ($0.99/GB)

• A genuinely large pool (84.2M IPs — not padded numbers)

• A developer-first API that requires no sales calls or dashboard configuration

• Credits that never expire — you pay for what you use, full stop

• All three proxy types (residential, mobile, datacenter) under one account

The math is stark: for a team using 100 GB/month of residential proxies, V-Proxies costs $99. Bright Data costs $840. That is the same billing cycle, comparable quality, 88% lower spend.

Performance at V-Proxies

V-Proxies publishes live network statistics. As of mid-2026:

• Active IPs: 84,219,553 residential

• P50 Latency: <200ms residential, <80ms datacenter

• Uptime: 99.7% (30-day rolling)

• Request throughput: 12,833 req/s average; 361,000 req/s peak

• Global PoPs: 7 (San Francisco, Washington DC, São Paulo, Dublin, Paris, Stockholm, Mumbai)

Who V-Proxies Is Best For

• Independent developers and solo scrapers

• Small to mid-size scraping teams

• Agencies managing client SEO monitoring or ad verification campaigns

• Startups building data products on a budget

• Anyone doing proof-of-concept before committing to enterprise pricing

Who Should Look Elsewhere

• Large enterprises requiring contractual SLAs, dedicated account managers, and procurement processes → Oxylabs or Bright Data

• Operations needing ISO 27001 certification documentation or formal data processing agreements → Bright Data or Oxylabs

Verdict

For 95% of use cases, V-Proxies delivers everything you need at the most competitive price in the market. If you are not running a Fortune 500 data operation, start here.

➡️ Get started at V-Proxies — $5 minimum

#2 — IPRoyal: Best Budget Alternative

Website: iproyal.com
Price: $1.75/GB (residential)
Pool: ~34 million IPs
Countries: 195
Session Types: Rotating + sticky
Notable: Non-expiring PAYG traffic
Trustpilot: 4.6/5

Where IPRoyal Wins

IPRoyal's strongest differentiator is non-expiring PAYG traffic. If your scraping workload is irregular — sporadic projects spread across months — non-expiring traffic means no wasted bandwidth.

At $1.75/GB, it is significantly cheaper than mid-market and enterprise options. Customer support receives consistently high marks on Trustpilot and G2 (4.6/5).

Where IPRoyal Falls Short

The pool is smaller than most competitors at ~34M IPs (vs V-Proxies' 84.2M), which can increase IP reuse on high-volume workloads. Success rates on heavily protected targets (~93%) are lower than premium providers (99%+). API capabilities are more basic than V-Proxies or enterprise options.

V-Proxies vs IPRoyal

V-Proxies wins on pool size (84.2M vs 34M), price ($0.99 vs $1.75), and API quality. IPRoyal's non-expiring credit model is a selling point — but V-Proxies credits also never expire, eliminating that advantage. At equal credit non-expiration, V-Proxies is the superior choice at every metric for the same or lower price.

Best for: Users who specifically want the IPRoyal brand or have existing integrations.

#3 — SOAX: Best Mid-Market Option with ASN Targeting

Website: soax.com
Price: From $3.60/GB (residential)
Pool: 155 million (advertised)
Countries: 180+
Targeting: Country, city, ASN, ISP
Notable: Flexible ASN and ISP-level filtering

Where SOAX Wins

SOAX offers strong ASN and ISP-level targeting — useful for operations that need to appear as a specific ISP (e.g., appearing as a Comcast subscriber rather than just a US IP). The advertised pool is large at 155M, though independent benchmarks suggest real active IPs are smaller than advertised.

The dashboard is well-designed, and the team has invested in compliance documentation that appeals to enterprise procurement.

Where SOAX Falls Short

At $3.60/GB (entry), SOAX costs 3.6x more than V-Proxies for comparable basic functionality. The $90/month minimum plan for their standard residential tier adds friction for smaller teams. Monthly credits expire, meaning unused bandwidth is lost.

Best For

Teams that specifically need ASN or ISP-level targeting and have a mid-market budget ($200–$800/month range).

#4 — Decodo (formerly Smartproxy): Best for Ease of Use

Website: decodo.com
Price: From $7.50/GB (residential)
Pool: 115 million IPs
Countries: 195
Session Types: Rotating + sticky
Notable: Excellent dashboard UX, strong documentation
G2 Rating: 4.7/5

Where Decodo Wins

Decodo (the rebranding of Smartproxy in 2024) has won "Best Value Provider" from Proxyway four years running — though at $7.50/GB, "value" is relative. Their platform is genuinely the most user-friendly in the mid-market: the dashboard is clean, documentation is thorough, and onboarding is fast.

The network delivers 99.86% global success rates and sub-0.6 second response times. Their Site Unblocker and SERP API products extend beyond raw proxy access.

Where Decodo Falls Short

$7.50/GB is expensive relative to V-Proxies ($0.99/GB). A $75 minimum purchase adds friction for testing. Monthly plan credits expire. For developers comfortable with a REST API, Decodo's UX advantage over V-Proxies diminishes — V-Proxies is built code-first.

Best For

Non-technical users and small business teams who value a polished UI over the lowest possible price. Marketing agencies managing client data collection without in-house engineering.

#5 — Oxylabs: Enterprise Performance Standard

Website: oxylabs.io
Price: From $8.00/GB (PAYG), lower with contracts
Pool: 175 million IPs
Countries: All countries, city and ZIP targeting
Success Rate: 99.95% (vendor-reported)
Notable: Largest proxy pool, ZIP-code targeting, enterprise SLAs
Capterra: 4.7/5

Where Oxylabs Wins

Oxylabs has the largest residential proxy pool in the market at 175 million IPs — more than twice V-Proxies' 84.2M. It offers ZIP-code level targeting (granular beyond city), 99.95% reported success rates, and enterprise-grade infrastructure with dedicated account managers and compliance documentation.

The Web Scraper API and Serp Scraper API products handle JavaScript rendering and bot detection internally — useful for teams that don't want to manage browser automation separately.

Where Oxylabs Falls Short

It is expensive. $8/GB PAYG puts 100 GB at $800/month — vs $99 at V-Proxies. This is only justified for operations where every failed request has significant business cost or where enterprise procurement requires specific compliance documentation.

The platform is also designed for enterprise buyers — there are minimum commitments, account manager requirements, and a more complex onboarding process than developer-first platforms.

Best For

Large enterprises, financial services firms, or operations requiring ZIP-code precision and contractual SLAs where cost is secondary to reliability.

#6 — Bright Data: Most Feature-Rich Enterprise Option

Website: brightdata.com
Price: From $8.40/GB (PAYG), as low as $0.49/GB at contract scale
Pool: 150M+ residential IPs
Countries: 195
Notable: Web Unlocker, SERP API, managed datasets, AI-powered scraping tools
G2 Rating: 4.7/5 (#1 in Proxy Network category)

Where Bright Data Wins

Bright Data is not just a proxy network — it is a comprehensive data infrastructure platform. Beyond raw residential IPs, it offers:

• Web Unlocker — handles Cloudflare and advanced bot detection automatically

• SERP API — structured search engine results without raw proxy management

• Datasets — pre-collected, structured data products

• Browser API — managed headless browser with proxy rotation built in

For large-scale operations running mixed workloads across many target types, Bright Data's breadth of tools reduces engineering overhead.

Where Bright Data Falls Short

Complexity and cost. The platform is genuinely difficult for beginners — KYC requirements, multi-product configurations, and pricing models that require a sales conversation. At $8.40/GB entry-level, it is among the most expensive options. The average for 100 GB/month runs to $420–$840 depending on plan — versus $99 at V-Proxies.

For individual developers or teams under $1,000/month spend, Bright Data is overkill and overpriced.

Best For

Fortune 500 companies, enterprise data teams, and operations that need managed scraping APIs, structured datasets, or a single vendor covering the entire data collection stack.

Head-to-Head Feature Matrix

Questions to Ask Every Proxy Provider

Before purchasing from any provider, get answers to these:

1. What is your active IP count, not your advertised maximum? Advertised pools (especially at 100M+) often include inactive or burned IPs. Ask for the active daily available count.

2. How are IPs sourced? Opt-in bandwidth sharing with compensation = ethical. Harvested from compromised devices = stay away.

3. Do you have a live status page? V-Proxies: status.v-proxies.com. Any provider unwilling to publish real-time uptime data should be questioned.

4. Do credits expire? Monthly expiration means you pay for bandwidth you may not use.

5. What does the REST API look like? Ask for the API documentation before buying. If there is no public API reference, the product is not built for developers.

Provider Recommendation by Use Case

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the best residential proxy provider in 2026? For value, API quality, and price, V-Proxies at $0.99/GB is the best overall option. For enterprise scale with compliance requirements, Oxylabs or Bright Data.

Q: How do I verify that a proxy provider's pool is real? Test it. Buy the minimum amount, run a large batch of requests, and check IP diversity and block rates on your actual target sites. V-Proxies minimum is $5.

Q: Is Bright Data worth the price? For operations requiring managed scraping APIs, compliance documentation, and enterprise SLAs — yes. For developers who just need reliable rotating residential IPs, no. You are paying for platform complexity you may not use.

Q: Which residential proxy provider has the largest pool? Oxylabs advertises 175M IPs. Bright Data advertises 150M+. V-Proxies' verified active pool is 84.2M. Note that many providers pad advertised numbers with inactive IPs.

Q: Can I switch providers without re-coding my integration? With V-Proxies' standard HTTP proxy authentication, switching from another provider requires only changing the gateway hostname and credentials — no structural code change.

Q: Which proxy provider has the best customer support? IPRoyal receives high marks for support quality on Trustpilot (4.6/5). Decodo and Bright Data both have strong support reputations. V-Proxies support is via contact page and Discord — responsive for a self-serve developer platform.

Q: What residential proxy service works for Google scraping? V-Proxies rotating residential proxies work for Google SERP scraping. Ensure you rotate on every request and use city-level targeting for localized results. ➡️ SEO Monitoring Use Case

Q: Is there a free trial for residential proxies? Most quality providers (including V-Proxies) do not offer a true free trial. V-Proxies minimum is $5 — low enough to function as a risk-free test. Oxylabs offers a 7-day trial for some products.

Summary

The best residential proxy provider in 2026 depends on your budget and scale:

• Under $200/month or developer team: V-Proxies at $0.99/GB, 84.2M IPs, full API, credits never expire

• Irregular usage / sporadic projects: V-Proxies (never-expiring credits) or IPRoyal ($1.75/GB, non-expiring PAYG)

• Mid-market with UX priority: Decodo at $7.50/GB, excellent dashboard, 115M IPs

• Enterprise / compliance-first: Oxylabs ($8/GB, 175M IPs) or Bright Data ($8.40+/GB, full data platform)

For the vast majority of teams reading this guide, V-Proxies offers every feature you need at a price that makes residential proxy use economically viable at any scale — from $5 test runs to multi-terabyte production operations.

➡️ Start with V-Proxies today — minimum $5, credits never expire →

Related Posts:

• What is a Residential Proxy?

• Residential Proxies: Complete Guide

• Buy Residential Proxy: 2026 Guide

• Cheap Residential Proxies Under $2/GB

• Residential vs Datacenter Proxies