Of the cheap residential proxies that cleared our bar, Evomi Core and DataImpulse have the lowest real cost per GB as of October 2026. Evomi Core costs $0.49 per GB on its 100 GB monthly plan, and DataImpulse charges $1 per GB for traffic that never expires. The bar is 99% infrastructure success in Proxyway's 2026 tests. Webshare is the cheapest monthly plan to start with, at $3.50 for 1 GB, and Decodo and Byteful tie at $2.75 per GB for 100 GB. The headline rate is rarely what you end up paying: expiry, minimum purchases and billing rules move the real number, in some cases to more than double.
A residential proxy routes your requests through IP addresses that internet providers assign to homes, so a site sees a household connection instead of a data center. Our explainer on what a proxy server actually does covers the basics. Residential traffic is sold by the gigabyte, so price per GB is the number buyers compare first. It is also the easiest number to dress up: many "from" prices belong to enterprise deals, coupon codes or the biggest plan a seller has.
This guide works out what residential traffic really costs at the volume you buy, from 1 GB to 1 TB, and lists every catch we could document behind each price. If you only need cheap proxies of any type and your sites accept hosting IPs, datacenter plans can cost much less, and many are sold per IP rather than per GB. No seller paid to appear, and none of the links below earn us a commission. It is written for public data collection, price tracking, ad verification and QA work; running accounts against a site's rules is out of scope.
Quick Answer: Cheap Residential Proxies
How Did We Work Out the Real Cost per GB?
We started from every residential seller in Proxyway's 2026 tests, then added the low-price sellers that showed up in US search results for cheap residential proxies on October 7, 2026. For each one, we read the vendor's own pricing pages, terms, refund policy and help center, and recorded six things:
- → Every self-serve price tier: the smallest purchase, then the price at 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 GB.
- → Unused traffic: whether GB never expire, roll over only while you subscribe, or vanish when the month ends.
- → What is billed: failed or blocked responses, headers, retries and minimum request sizes, where the vendor says.
- → Targeting costs: whether city, ZIP or ASN targeting multiplies the bill or needs a bigger plan.
- → Refunds, ID checks and tax: the refund window, who must verify their identity, and whether VAT is added.
- → Published test data: Proxyway's 2026 infrastructure success, distinct IPs and share of residential exits.
Real cost per GB is the cash you must spend to cover the traffic you need, divided by that traffic. If the gigabytes you buy can expire unused, the leftover counts as waste. If they never expire, we divide by everything you bought, because you keep it for later. We used only prices a buyer can pay without talking to sales, before VAT, and coupon prices only where the vendor prints the code on its own pricing page. We do not combine a plan with separate pay-as-you-go traffic.
Test figures come from Proxyway's yearly provider benchmark, released on May 28, 2026, with most data collected in March and April 2026, and from its provider reviews, which name each test month. Each provider's global residential pool received 3.6 million requests across 21 days, all aimed at one lightweight page hosted on a CDN. A request that succeeds there shows the network delivered it, not that a protected site would accept it, so we call the result infrastructure success. On Amazon, Google and Instagram, Proxyway's separate US test put median residential success at 74.43%. We use Proxyway's numbers, not its rankings.
Ranking rule: a seller qualifies only if the exact residential pool you would buy scored at least 99% infrastructure success in a 2026 Proxyway test of its global pool. Qualifying pools are ranked by real cost at 100 GB. Ties go to the lower entry price, then to traffic that never expires. Nine pools qualified, and the five cheapest are reviewed below. The table also shows 10 GB and 1 TB, because the order changes at both ends.
What we did not do
Changes that shaped this list
The table below prices each of the nine pools from its smallest purchase to 1,000 GB.
Cheapest Residential Proxies Compared by Real Cost per GB
Except in the Smallest Purchase column, each cell shows the real cost of residential proxies per GB at that monthly volume, as of October 2026, before VAT. Read across to the volume you expect to use: the order changes between 10 GB and 1 TB, and the first five rows are the pools reviewed below.
| Provider | Smallest Purchase (Oct 2026) | $/GB at 10 GB | $/GB at 50 GB | $/GB at 100 GB | $/GB at 500 GB | $/GB at 1,000 GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evomi Core | 15 GB for $14.85 | $0.99 | $0.98 | $0.49 | $0.49 | $0.49 |
| DataImpulse | 5 GB for $5 (new users) | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $1.00 | $0.80 |
| Webshare | 1 GB for $3.50 a month | $2.75 | $2.45 | $2.25 | $1.75 | $1.50 |
| Decodo | 1 GB for $4 plus VAT | $3.50 | $3.00 | $2.75 | $4.00 | $2.00 |
| Byteful | 10 GB for $32.50 (1 GB price unlisted) | $3.25 | $3.00 | $2.75 | $2.75 | $2.75 |
| SOAX (US traffic) | No-fee Sandbox at $5 per GB | $5.00 | $4.00 | $3.00 | $2.20 | $1.50 |
| Evomi Premium | 1 GB for $3.98, pay-as-you-go | $3.98 | $3.40 | $3.98 | $3.98 | $3.98 |
| DataImpulse Premium | 1 GB for $5 (new users) | $5.00 | $5.00 | $5.00 | $5.00 | $4.00 |
| Oxylabs | 5 GB for $30 a month | $10.00 | $10.00 | $5.00 | $5.00 | $2.50 |
How to read the odd cells: as of October 2026, Evomi Core's $0.49 assumes you use its 100 GB plan within the month, because plan traffic does not roll over. Its pay-as-you-go rate of $0.99 never expires. Its 50 GB cell, $0.98, is the same $49 plan with half the traffic unused. DataImpulse's 10 GB figure needs a $50 purchase, its minimum top-up after the $5 starter pack, but that traffic never expires. SOAX's 50 GB cell is its $200 Builder plan, which covers about 67 GB of US traffic.
As of October 2026, Decodo prints Enterprise rates, which need an ID or business check, only for 250 GB ($2.50) and 1 TB ($2), so its 500 GB cell uses $4 pay-as-you-go. Byteful lists only "Custom" pricing above 100 GB, so its larger cells assume repeat 100 GB purchases. Oxylabs has no plan between 20 GB and 125 GB and prints no top-up rate, so 10 GB costs $100 and 50 GB costs $500. Evomi Premium prints a $2.20 rate for its largest plans but not their sizes, so its cells above 50 GB use $3.98 pay-as-you-go.
For context, Proxyway's 2026 research put the median residential entry price at $4. Median rates were $3 per GB for 50 GB and $2.25 for 500 GB, from prices gathered mostly in March and April 2026. Evomi Core and DataImpulse sit far below the per-GB medians, though both cost more than $4 to start. Oxylabs sits above the medians at most volumes. Proxyway's best residential proxies page, read on October 7, 2026, shows Evomi at $0.49 per GB in its 50 GB column. Our table shows $0.98, because a 50 GB user leaves half the 100 GB plan unused. The reviews that follow explain what each low price leaves out.
The 5 Cheapest Residential Proxies Worth Buying, Reviewed
Ranked by real cost at 100 GB, the cheapest residential proxies that cleared the 99% bar are Evomi Core, DataImpulse, Webshare, Decodo and Byteful. Decodo and Byteful tie at $2.75 per GB, and Decodo ranks fourth on its lower entry price, $4 against $32.50. Prices and terms below are dated October 2026; test figures are Proxyway's. All five list HTTP and SOCKS5 support on their residential pages, so protocol does not separate them.
1. Evomi Core: Lowest Real Cost From 100 GB
Evomi sells two residential pools: Core, its "default residential pool", and Premium, "a curated pool with ISP-level targeting". Core costs $0.99 per GB pay-as-you-go from 15 GB, falling to $0.79 from 1,000 GB, and that traffic never expires. Its monthly plan gives 100 GB for $49, with extra GB at the same $0.49 rate. The catch sits in Evomi's refund policy: "Unused allowances do not roll over into the next period, except for pay-as-you-go traffic, which does not expire." Country, region and city targeting are free, but ZIP and "expert" filters such as ASN use extra bandwidth, capped at 15 times, and Evomi does not publish each multiplier.
Where it wins
- The lowest real cost of the nine qualifying pools at 100 GB and above: $0.49 per GB
- 99.91% infrastructure success on the global pool in Proxyway's July 2026 test of Core
- Pay-as-you-go traffic at $0.99 per GB that never expires, still the lowest real cost of the nine below 50 GB
- Unlimited concurrent sessions, and a 30-day refund on a first purchase if use stays under 1 GB or 10%, whichever comes first
Where it falls short
- A small pool: Proxyway counted only 75,253 distinct US IPs in 1.2 million requests in July 2026
- Plan traffic and extra GB expire at the end of the month, so the $0.49 rate needs steady use
- Its terms ban sending requests to IP-checker sites to collect your assigned IPs, with account termination and no refund as the penalty
- Every request is billed at least 512 bytes, and ZIP or ASN filters multiply traffic by amounts it does not list
Pricing as of October 2026 (VAT not included, per Evomi's terms): Core pay-as-you-go is $0.99 per GB from 15 GB ($14.85) and $0.79 per GB from 1,000 GB. The monthly plan is 100 GB for $49, with extra GB at $0.49. The refund applies once per product category, not to crypto payments, and not to a product you already tried on a free trial.
Verdict: the cheapest Proxyway-tested residential traffic if you use 100 GB or more each month and can work with a small pool. Look elsewhere if you need a deep US pool, or if your QA routine sends exits to IP-checker sites.
2. DataImpulse: Pay-As-You-Go Traffic With No Monthly Deadline
DataImpulse sells residential traffic by the gigabyte with no monthly fee: a 5 GB starter pack for $5, labeled "For New Users", then 50 GB for $50 and 1 TB for $800 ($0.80 per GB). Its docs set the floor: "The minimum top-up for plans is $50." Traffic never expires, so a $50 pack can last months. Country targeting is free, but the docs say city, state, ZIP and ASN traffic "is billed at double the standard rate". Each plan allows 2,000 threads, and raising that needs KYC (identity verification).
Where it wins
- A deeper US pool than Evomi Core: Proxyway counted 352,365 distinct US IPs in 1.2 million requests in April 2026
- $0.80 per GB at 1 TB, second only to Evomi Core among the nine qualifying pools
- 99.74% infrastructure success on the global pool in Proxyway's April 2026 test
- No subscription and no monthly deadline to plan your usage around
Where it falls short
- City, state, ZIP and ASN targeting double the price, so 100 GB of city-targeted traffic costs $2 per GB
- Proxyway's test table classed 13.06% of its US exits as non-residential, and its review text says "Nearly 15% of the US proxies came from servers"
- The 7-day refund covers only a first purchase of the $5 starter pack, and crypto payments are never refunded
- A 2,000-thread cap per plan, while Evomi, Byteful, SOAX and Oxylabs advertise unlimited concurrent sessions
Pricing as of October 2026: 5 GB for $5 for new users, 50 GB for $50 and 1 TB for $800, all pay-as-you-go and never expiring. The buyer pays any payment-system fees, and the terms do not mention VAT.
Verdict: a low-waste cheap buy when your usage is uneven, because nothing you pay for expires. Skip it if most of your traffic needs city or ASN targeting, or if your targets block server IPs.
3. Webshare: Cheapest Monthly Plan to Start
Webshare, owned by Oxylabs since 2022, sells rotating residential traffic in monthly plans only, from 1 GB for $3.50 up to 3,000 GB for $4,200 ($1.40 per GB). Its help center is blunt about leftovers: "Bandwidth limits are set monthly and do not roll over." Webshare lists no targeting surcharge, but you can pair a country with only one of state, city or ZIP code, and state and ZIP work only in the US. All paid plans allow 500 concurrent connections, with a paid add-on for more.
Where it wins
- The lowest listed entry price of the nine qualifying pools: $3.50 for 1 GB
- Steady volume discounts: $2.25 per GB at 100 GB and $1.50 at 1,000 GB
- Proxyway, April 2026: 99.28% infrastructure success, with 98.88% of exits residential
- No coupon needed: every plan-card price is available without a code
Where it falls short
- Unused GB are lost at the end of each month, and you cannot hold two residential plans at once
- The refund window is 48 hours, and only if you used less than 0.1 GB
- Banking, government, mail, streaming, entertainment and ticketing sites are off-limits, and passing KYC lifts only some of those restrictions
- No pay-as-you-go option and no crypto payments
Pricing as of October 2026: 1 GB for $3.50, 10 GB for $27.50, 50 GB for $122.50, 100 GB for $225, 500 GB for $875 and 1,000 GB for $1,500 a month. Webshare asks for ID only in certain cases, through Stripe Identity.
Verdict: the cheapest way to start with a small monthly budget, and fairly priced from 500 GB up. Skip it if your usage swings from month to month, because what you do not use is lost.
4. Decodo: Most Distinct IPs of the Five
Decodo, called Smartproxy until April 2025, sells monthly residential plans from 3 GB for $11.25 to 100 GB for $275, plus pay-as-you-go at $4 per GB, one GB at a time, all before VAT. Pay-as-you-go traffic lasts "12 months or until you purchase a regular residential proxy subscription", while plan traffic is lost at renewal unless you upgrade. Decodo also spells out what it bills: a target's 403, 404 or 503 page counts, as do headers, cookies and TLS handshake bytes, while its own 502 and connection errors do not.
Where it wins
- 2,853,543 distinct IPs and 99.92% infrastructure success in Proxyway's April 2026 test, the most of the five
- The most detailed billing rules of the five: a help page lists which bytes and which errors count
- City, ZIP and ASN targeting at no extra cost
- First purchase refundable within 14 days if usage stays under 20% of the plan or 1 GB, whichever comes first
Where it falls short
- Pay-as-you-go costs $4 per GB, about four times Evomi Core's or DataImpulse's pay-as-you-go rate, and lapses after 12 months
- Its $2.50 to $2 rates need an ID or business check and an Enterprise plan of 250 GB or more, which its help center calls non-refundable
- Blocked target pages are billed, a rule most sellers here do not state either way, so a job that hits many blocks costs more per useful page
- Unused plan GB expire at the end of each billing cycle unless you upgrade
Pricing as of October 2026, all plus VAT: 3 GB for $11.25, 10 GB for $35, 25 GB for $81.25, 50 GB for $150 and 100 GB for $275 a month. Pay-as-you-go costs $4 per GB. Enterprise plans run from $2.50 per GB at 250 GB to $2 per GB at 1 TB, bought in the dashboard after an ID or business check. Its help center calls them non-refundable, while its pricing page lists Enterprise refunds for use under 10%. The refund does not apply after a free trial or to crypto payments.
Verdict: the cheap pick for buyers who want a large pool with strong Proxyway results and billing rules they can read before paying. Skip it if you need more than 100 GB a month but will not verify your identity or business, or if blocked pages make up much of your traffic.
5. Byteful: Never-Expiring GB With ASN Targeting Included
Byteful, known as Ping Proxies until April 2026, lists residential bandwidth at 10 GB for $32.50, 25 GB for $75 and 100 GB for $275, with "Custom" pricing above that. Its FAQ says "Residential Bandwidth never expires", "even if you cancel or pause your subscription". Country, region and city targeting are free, and "all of our plans include carrier and ASN targeting as standard". Its residential page lists a 1 GB free trial, but its pricing FAQ says there is no free trial and suggests a 1 GB order instead. Byteful does not publish that order's price.
Where it wins
- Traffic that never expires, at $2.75 per GB for 100 GB
- ASN and carrier targeting included, where Evomi Core and standard DataImpulse charge extra and SOAX requires its $1,500 plan
- The fastest global-pool responses in Proxyway's 2026 research, a 0.41 s average, and the best success on real targets, 81.23%
- Proxyway's April 2026 test counted 1,909,605 distinct IPs at 99.69% infrastructure success
Where it falls short
- The smallest listed purchase costs $32.50, the highest entry of the five
- Prices above 100 GB are custom, and the homepage's "As low as $1.75/ GB" is not on its pricing page
- A single refund per customer: within 24 hours, with under 2 GB or 25% of the plan used, whichever is lower
- Traffic sent directly to IP addresses has been blocked by default since September 7, 2026, and resellers and heavy users face KYC
Pricing as of October 2026: 10 GB for $32.50 ($3.25 per GB), 25 GB for $75 ($3 per GB) and 100 GB for $275 ($2.75 per GB), with larger volumes quoted. Byteful accepts cards and crypto, and its pricing pages do not mention VAT.
Verdict: the pick when you want traffic that never expires with ASN targeting at no extra cost. Skip it if you want to start with a few dollars, or need published prices above 100 GB.
Pools That Cleared the Bar but Cost More
SOAX, Evomi Premium, DataImpulse Premium and Oxylabs also cleared the 99% bar but, as of October 2026, cost more at most volumes. SOAX scored 99.78% infrastructure success in Proxyway's April 2026 test. It bills US traffic at $5 per GB on its no-fee Sandbox and $3 per GB on its $200 Builder plan. SOAX's own calculator prices 100 GB of US traffic at $300 on Builder. Its credits expire 60 days after you add them, and it bills "partial responses, retries, and interrupted connections". It gets cheaper at scale, $1.50 per GB on the $1,500 Scale plan, and for countries in its cheaper price tiers.
Evomi Premium costs $3.98 per GB pay-as-you-go, with traffic that never expires, or $3.40 per GB on its 50 GB plan. It is the bigger of Evomi's two pools: Proxyway counted 1,668,674 distinct IPs in its April 2026 test of Premium, against 1,499,867 in its July test of Core. Premium's infrastructure success in that April test was 99.58%.
DataImpulse Premium scored 99.82% infrastructure success in Proxyway's April 2026 test, above the standard pool's 99.74%, but costs $5 per GB, or $4 per GB from 1,000 GB. Its traffic never expires, and city, ZIP and ASN targeting cost nothing extra, unlike the standard pool's double rate.
In Proxyway's April 2026 test, Oxylabs posted the highest infrastructure success of the nine pools, 99.93%, and the most distinct IPs, 3,241,404. It sells monthly plans only: 5 GB for $30, 20 GB for $100, 125 GB for $500 and 1 TB for $2,500. Its credits are "valid for 1 (one) calendar month", and its October 5, 2026, agreement calls purchases final, while its pricing page showed a 3-day refund on October 7, 2026.
Cheap Sellers We Did Not Rank, and Why
Some cheap residential proxy providers below beat our ranked five at certain volumes. Each one missed the 99% bar, has no 2026 Proxyway test, sells only to businesses, could not be checked, or is excluded. Test figures are Proxyway's infrastructure success rates, and prices are as of October 2026:
| Seller | Lowest Real Cost (Oct 2026) | Why It Is Not Ranked |
|---|---|---|
| Geonode | $0.79 per GB at 10 GB, $0.50 at 1,000 GB | No Proxyway test found. It is the cheapest seller we compared at 10 and 50 GB. Plan GB roll over only while you stay subscribed, its terms say failed and blocked requests may be billed, and every account needs a government ID or business registration |
| Rayobyte | $3.50 per GB for 1 GB, $0.70 at 1,000 GB | 98.02% infrastructure success in April 2026, below our bar. Its pay-as-you-go balance "does not expire on a monthly cycle", and targeting is included |
| Rayobyte Scale | $100 a month for 6,600 GB | Sold only to verified businesses after a compliance review, with no targeting and one concurrent request per $1 of plan; no Proxyway test found |
| Thordata | $2 for 1 GB, $0.73 per GB at 1,000 GB | No Proxyway test found. Packages under 1 TB are "valid for 30 days", and its compliance review may include a video call |
| PacketStream | $1 per GB, $50 minimum | 95.62% in Proxyway's March 2024 test, and that review says its system "overcounted traffic use by eight to ten times", a fault users first identified in December 2022; country targeting only |
| ProxyEmpire | $1.50 per GB at 1,000 GB with a coupon | 98.17% in April 2026. Unused GB stay until spent, but its shown prices need code EMPIRE50, the list prices are double, and "All sales and charges are final" |
| Infatica | $2.60 per GB at 1,000 GB | 97.57% in April 2026. Every customer must pass an ID and selfie check, and its pages do not say whether plan GB expire |
| Proxy-Seller | $3.50 for 1 GB; volume plans "from $1.45" | 97.99% in Proxyway's February 2024 test, and both self-serve residential plans are "Valid for 30 days" |
| Bright Data | $4 per GB with a 3-month coupon, $8 list | Last tested by Proxyway in March 2024, and new residential access goes only to registered companies that pass KYC |
| Massive | $4.90 per GB at 100 GB | Last tested in April 2025, at 99.66%; no 2026 test |
| Floppydata | $1 per GB at any volume, from a $1 top-up | No Proxyway test found. Its terms say the purchased balance, a store credit, "does not expire merely because time passes", and the same GB work as residential, mobile or datacenter traffic |
| 711Proxy, Novada | "From: $0.55 /GB" (711Proxy) and "$1.3 /GB" (Novada) on their homepages | We could not load either pricing page, and we found no published test |
| NetNut | Not for sale | Its domains were seized by the FBI on July 2, 2026, and netnut.io still showed the seizure notice on October 7, 2026 |
| ABC Proxy, Luna Proxy, Tab Proxy, PY Proxy, IP 2 World | From $0.67 to $0.77 per GB (headline rates) | Named by Google in January 2026 among brands controlled by the actors behind IPIDEA. As of October 2026, PY Proxy and IP 2 World say they run under new operators; we found no independent check of that, so they stay out |
| IPRoyal, Proxy-Cheap, Proxyrack, NodeMaven, MarsProxies, Storm Proxies | Not compared | Their residential pages or main-menu items market uses we exclude. IPRoyal shows "Evade Bans" (and scored 96.11%), Proxy-Cheap pitches proxies for sneaker bots and for multiple accounts "safe from IP bans", and Proxyrack lists "Account Creation" and "Sneakers / Shoes". NodeMaven's residential page lists "ticketing, sneaker bots" for its ISP proxies, MarsProxies "Sneaker Copping Proxies", and Storm Proxies sneaker and ticket lines plus "Bulk account registration" |
A low rate on a pricing page is only part of the cost. The terms behind it decide the rest.
What Makes a Cheap Residential Proxy Cost More Than Its Price?
Five things decide whether a cheap residential proxy is really cheap: whether unused traffic expires, which bytes are billed, what targeting adds, whether the price needs a coupon, and whether VAT comes on top. Most sellers state some of these and say nothing about the rest, so a "not stated" below is a question to ask before you pay.
As of October 2026, the sellers' own pages say this about expiry, billing, targeting and refunds:
| Seller | Unused GB | What Is Billed | Targeting Cost | Refund |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evomi Core | Pay-as-you-go never expires; plan GB do not roll over | At least 512 bytes per request; nothing else stated | ZIP and ASN filters multiply traffic, up to 15× | 30 days, below 1 GB or 10%, once per product category |
| DataImpulse | Never expires | Not stated | City, state, ZIP and ASN billed at 2× | 7 days, first $5 starter pack only |
| Webshare | Lost at the end of each month | Not stated | No surcharge listed; one location filter with each country | 48 hours, below 0.1 GB |
| Decodo | Plan GB lost at renewal; pay-as-you-go lasts 12 months | Target error pages, headers, cookies and TLS bytes | Free | 14 days, first purchase, below 20% or 1 GB |
| Byteful | Never expires, even after you cancel | Data transferred; details not stated | Free, ASN included | 24 hours, below 2 GB or 25%, once |
| SOAX | Credits expire after 60 days | Both directions, with partial responses, retries and interrupted connections | ASN and ZIP only from the $1,500 Scale plan | "Generally non-refundable" |
| Oxylabs | Credits expire after one calendar month | Not stated; its dashboard figure is final | Free | Agreement: final; pricing page: 3 days |
| Rayobyte | Does not expire on a monthly cycle | Not stated beyond "every gigabyte" | Free, ZIP and ASN included | No window; at its discretion |
| Geonode | Rolls over only while subscribed | May include failed, blocked, retried and timed-out requests | No multipliers | Refund page: 7 days, below 5%; terms: billing errors or where law requires |
| Thordata | Under 1 TB: 30 days, then frozen | Not stated | Free | 7 days, below 30% and 2 GB, once |
| PacketStream | Never expires | "Metered at the gateway" | Country only | Remaining balance, within 24 hours |
| Bright Data | Plan commitment does not roll over | Headers and data, both directions | Free | "Generally - No" |
Billing rules matter most on hard targets. Decodo counts a target's 403 or 503 page as traffic, SOAX counts retries and interrupted connections, and Geonode's terms say failed, blocked and timed-out requests may be chargeable. If many of your requests come back blocked, part of your bill pays for those error pages, whatever the rate per GB.
Tax and coupons move the number too. Decodo prints every total "+ VAT", Evomi's and SOAX's terms say listed prices exclude VAT, Oxylabs says "VAT may apply", and Webshare's terms leave "any applicable taxes" to the buyer. As of October 2026, Decodo's $275 plan for 100 GB costs $330 at a 20% VAT rate, or $3.30 per GB. ProxyEmpire's and Bright Data's shown prices need a coupon code; without it, both list prices are double, and Bright Data's discount lasts 3 months. Expiry, in turn, decides whether a plan or pay-as-you-go is the cheaper way to buy.
Is Pay-As-You-Go Cheaper Than a Monthly Plan?
Only below the break-even point, which is the plan price divided by the pay-as-you-go rate. Use more than that and the plan wins; use less and part of the plan expires unused, so pay-as-you-go residential proxies cost less. As of October 2026:
- → Evomi Core: $49 divided by $0.99 is about 49.5 GB. Below that, pay-as-you-go is cheaper; above it, the $49 plan for 100 GB wins.
- → Decodo: $4 pay-as-you-go loses to the 50 GB plan ($150) from 37.5 to 50 GB, and to the 100 GB plan ($275) from about 69 to 100 GB. After an ID or business check, the 250 GB Enterprise plan beats it from about 156 to 250 GB, and the 1 TB plan from 500 GB.
- → Evomi Premium: the 50 GB plan at $170 beats $3.98 pay-as-you-go from about 43 GB up to 50 GB.
- → SOAX: for US traffic, the $200 Builder plan beats $5 Sandbox rates once you use more than 40 GB while the plan is active. Credits you use after it lapses are charged at Sandbox rates.
- → Webshare and Oxylabs: both sell monthly plans only, so the choice there is plan size, not billing model.
Traffic that never expires changes the math. DataImpulse's packs, Byteful's bandwidth and Evomi's pay-as-you-go GB stay on the account, so buying ahead costs nothing extra if you will use the traffic eventually. The risk moves to refunds: money parked in a balance cannot come back once a short refund window closes, and Byteful's lasts 24 hours.
Which way to buy depends on how much you use in a typical month, so the next section starts there.
Which Cheap Provider Fits Your Monthly Volume?
The most affordable residential proxies for you depend on the traffic you really use, not the plan you hope to grow into. If you do not know that number, measure it on the smallest purchase: divide the traffic used by the requests sent, then multiply by your monthly requests. As of October 2026, before VAT, a $50 budget covers Evomi Core's 100 GB monthly plan ($49) or 50 GB of DataImpulse traffic that never expires. The same $50 buys 12 GB of Decodo pay-as-you-go, or 10 GB from Webshare or Byteful. By monthly volume, at October 2026 prices before VAT:
- → Under 10 GB a month: Webshare's 1 GB plan at $3.50 is the smallest listed outlay among the nine qualifying pools, and Decodo's $4 pay-as-you-go GB lasts 12 months. Per GB, Evomi Core's 15 GB for $14.85 never expires and is cheaper if you will use it eventually. New DataImpulse users can start with 5 GB for $5.
- → 10 to 100 GB: Evomi Core pay-as-you-go up to about 50 GB, then its $49 plan. DataImpulse's 50 GB for $50 suits uneven use. Geonode is lower at 10 to 50 GB, $0.79 to $0.69 per GB, but has no Proxyway test.
- → 100 GB to 1 TB: Evomi Core's plan plus extra GB stays at $0.49 per GB. DataImpulse falls to $0.80 at 1 TB, and Webshare and SOAX to $1.50.
- → Over 1 TB: Evomi Core's extra GB stay at $0.49, with no cap listed, if you use them within the month. Rayobyte Scale sells 6,600 GB for $100 a month to approved companies, with no targeting and no Proxyway test. SOAX's $3,000-a-month Enterprise plan lists US traffic from $0.85 per GB, and Decodo offers custom plans on request.
- → If you need ZIP or ASN targeting: Decodo includes both free and Byteful includes ASN. Webshare lists ZIP (US only) and ASN with no surcharge, but ASN cannot be paired with a country. Evomi charges extra bandwidth for ZIP and ASN, DataImpulse's standard pool doubles city, state, ZIP and ASN traffic, and SOAX offers ASN and ZIP only from its $1,500 plan.
Low prices also raise a fair question: where do the IPs come from?
Why Are Some Residential Proxies So Cheap?
Usually pool size and plan design: a smaller pool, traffic that expires each month, a high minimum top-up, or extras such as targeting priced separately. Evomi's Core pool is a clear case. Proxyway called it "tiny compared to most alternatives", with 75,253 distinct US IPs in 1.2 million requests in July 2026. It also found Evomi's pricier Premium pool "bigger than the Core pool".
Some low prices carry a different cost. Proxyway classed 13.06% of DataImpulse's US exits in its April 2026 test as non-residential, meaning they came from servers rather than homes. A site that filters traffic from hosting networks treats those exits like datacenter traffic, whatever you paid for them.
The sharpest warning came from Google. In a January 28, 2026, report, Google's threat intelligence team said the actors behind IPIDEA control ABC Proxy, Luna Proxy, PY Proxy, IP 2 World, Tab Proxy and other brands. It also found that providers' claims of ethical sourcing "are often incorrect or overstated". On October 7, 2026, several of those brands still advertised headline rates of $0.67 to $0.77 per GB. Our guide covers how residential IPs are sourced in more depth.
Red flags in a cheap offer
All four can be checked before you pay. Whether the exits are really residential takes a small purchase.
How Can You Check You Got What You Paid For?
Before you buy cheap residential proxies in bulk, buy the smallest amount the seller allows and run a short real job. Then compare three things with what you paid for: the traffic billed, the type of IPs you got, and their history. Take exit IPs from your own job's logs and paste them into the tools below, rather than sending proxy traffic to a checker site. Some sellers forbid that: Evomi's terms ban requests to IP-checker sites made to collect your assigned IPs.
1 Reconcile the bill
2 Check who owns each exit
3 Compare risk scores
4 Check the blacklists
5 Decide inside the refund window
These checks also catch the most common mistakes before they cost you a month of traffic.
Which Mistakes Make Cheap Residential Proxies Expensive?
Most come from comparing headline prices instead of real ones. Each one below is documented in a seller's own pages or a source cited above, as of October 2026:
- Comparing "from" prices. Byteful's homepage says "As low as $1.75/ GB" and Infatica says "from $0.3 per GB", but neither rate appears in their price tables. Decodo's product page starts at $2, which needs a 1 TB Enterprise plan.
- Buying a bigger plan than you will use. Webshare's, Oxylabs' and Evomi's monthly plans do not roll over, so the unused part of a cheap plan is pure cost.
- Forgetting targeting surcharges. DataImpulse's standard pool doubles city, state, ZIP and ASN traffic, and Evomi multiplies ZIP and ASN traffic by amounts it does not publish.
- Ignoring what is billed. Decodo, SOAX and Bright Data bill blocked pages, retries or headers, Geonode's terms allow it, and Evomi bills at least 512 bytes per request.
- Treating a coupon price as the price. ProxyEmpire's and Bright Data's shown prices need codes, and their list prices are double.
- Choosing on price alone. Several brands on Google's IPIDEA list advertise $0.67 to $0.77 per GB, and server exits inside a residential pool get treated like datacenter traffic.
- Paying per GB for home IPs you do not need. If your targets accept hosting IPs, many plans in our datacenter proxy guide are sold per IP rather than per GB, which can cost less for heavy traffic.
- Loading page parts your job does not use. Decodo's traffic guide says "all loaded images and other website elements will account for your total data usage", and it suggests disabling images when you do not need them. On per-GB billing, those bytes cost the same as the data you need.
Watch for this one: price bands that punish the wrong volume
The short version below pulls the five picks and these checks together.
The Short Version
The cheap residential proxies with the lowest real cost that also passed a published test are Evomi Core and DataImpulse. Evomi Core costs $0.49 per GB on its 100 GB plan as of October 2026, if you use the plan within its month. DataImpulse charges $1 per GB for traffic that never expires, which suits uneven use. Webshare is the cheapest monthly plan to start with, and Decodo and Byteful tie at $2.75 per GB for 100 GB, with Decodo's bigger pool against Byteful's never-expiring traffic.
Before you buy, price your real monthly volume, add VAT where the seller charges it, and check what expires, what is billed and what targeting adds. Sellers cheaper than these five exist, but each one has no 2026 Proxyway test, missed the 99% bar, needs a coupon or a business account, or is excluded. If session length matters more to you than price, see rotation and session controls compared. To judge whether cheap exits are really residential, see our guide to spotting residential versus datacenter IPs.
Every price and term above was read on October 7, 2026, and any seller can change them. So buy the smallest amount you can, check the exit IPs from your logs with the steps above, and test one exit with the proxy checker below.