Best Proxy Providers 2026: ProxyEmpire, Oxylabs, Bright Data, Decodo, SOAX, IPRoyal Compared by Use Case

For organizations that need residential and mobile proxies under one vendor relationship, ProxyEmpire is the strongest fit among these six. Bright Data leads for compliance-heavy enterprise programs, and Oxylabs for teams that want proxies and scraping APIs on a single budget.

The remaining three serve narrower business cases. Decodo suits self-service teams building data pipelines, SOAX suits agencies that must ring-fence client budgets, and IPRoyal suits account-management work that depends on long-lived IPs.

The comparison below is organized around those use cases. It opens with an entry-pricing summary, profiles each provider with a quick facts table, then compares them side by side and closes with advice on getting more value from whichever one is chosen.

Quick picks

• ProxyEmpire: residential and mobile from one vendor
• Bright Data: enterprise compliance
• Oxylabs: proxies plus scraping APIs
• SOAX: agency budget control

Pricing Compared

Entry pricing varies with each provider's commercial model. ProxyEmpire sells rotating residential at three dollars fifty a gigabyte and rotating mobile at four fifty, with no contract. Decodo's smallest residential subscription costs $11.25 for 3 GB, and its Wallet charges four dollars a gigabyte. Bright Data's coded flexible rate is also four dollars for three months, with committed plans from $499.

Oxylabs requires a subscription from $30 a month, with residential at six dollars a gigabyte on the first tier. IPRoyal charges $7 for a single gigabyte on subscription. SOAX prices by credit and country tier, with one US example at three dollars a gigabyte for 100 GB.

For procurement, the headline rate matters less than the commitment attached to it and whether unused traffic survives the billing period. A cheaper rate tied to a monthly commitment can cost more over a year than a higher rate on traffic that never expires.

Matched to Business Use Cases

ProxyEmpire (best for residential and mobile on one account)

Fact	Detail
Networks	Residential, mobile (rotating and dedicated), ISP, datacenter
Support	24/7 live chat and email, public status page
Account management	Dedicated manager for Corporate and Enterprise
Contracts	None

Consolidating vendors only works if support scales with the relationship. ProxyEmpire pairs its residential and mobile networks with 24/7 live chat and email, a public status page and a dedicated account manager for Corporate and Enterprise clients, so one point of contact covers every proxy type the business uses.

Commercially, there are no contracts, unused GB on GB plans never expire, and payment can be made by card, PayPal, crypto or bank transfer. Targeting by ZIP, ASN and mobile carrier is included. The company reports 30M+ residential and 4M+ mobile IPs and is an EWDCI member.

Beyond the core networks, the account adds static ISP proxies in 24 countries, datacenter IPs in 62 and dedicated US 5G mobile, plus scraping APIs for ecommerce, SERP and social media. For a business, that breadth means new projects rarely require a new vendor.

All sales are final, so evaluation runs through the $1.97 trial covering both networks.

Oxylabs (best for proxies plus scraping APIs)

Fact	Detail
Model	One subscription across products
Plans	Starter to Enterprise, $30 to $2,500+ a month
Mobile	140+ countries, real devices
Compliance documents	Sourcing handbook, KYC policy, trust center

Oxylabs reduces vendor count for data teams by putting proxies, the Web API, an unblocker and an agent browser on one bill. Residential rates fall with volume, and plans include unlimited concurrent sessions.

Teams that only need proxies may find the subscription model less efficient, since no pay-as-you-go tier is shown and residential plans include 3 proxy users.

For compliance reviews, Oxylabs publishes a residential proxy sourcing handbook, a KYC policy and a trust center. A $5 welcome credit allows a small pilot before a tier is chosen.

Bright Data (best for compliance-led enterprises)

Fact	Detail
Certifications	ISO 27001, SOC 2, SOC 3, CSA STAR Level 1
Residential pool	400M+ monthly IPs, 195 countries
Billing channels	AWS Marketplace, Azure, wire, card and more
KYC	Required before residential use

Bright Data is built for procurement-heavy organizations, and it reports serving 50,000+ customers. Its certifications, GDPR page and cloud marketplace billing make vendor approval straightforward, and daily spend limits per zone help finance control exposure.

The trade-off is flexibility: unused monthly commitments do not roll over, and mobile proxies no longer appear in its menus.

For pilots, a card-free trial and a first deposit match up to $500 lower the entry cost, and the coded flexible rate of four dollars a gigabyte avoids committing before demand is known. Residential access requires KYC, which may include a video call.

Decodo (best for self-service data pipelines)

Fact	Detail
Developer tools	Web Data API, SDKs, CLI, MCP server
Residential pool	115M+ IPs on every plan
Targeting	Continent to ZIP and ASN, free
Trial	Free, 3 days, 100 MB

Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) suits teams building automated pipelines or AI agents, with developer tooling that goes beyond raw proxies. Every plan reaches the full residential pool, and mobile starts at $2.25 a gigabyte.

Its trial converts automatically, and rollover of subscription GB is not stated, which matters for uneven demand.

On procurement, Paddle acts as merchant of record, and first purchases qualify for a 14-day refund under set conditions. The company reports 135K+ clients and integration guides for 50+ tools.

SOAX (best for agency budget control)

Fact	Detail
Guardrails	Traffic caps, protocol limits, domain lists per package
Networks	Residential and mobile at one price
Billing	Monthly credits, 1 credit = $1
Documents	SLA, DPA, KYC and KYB policy

SOAX lets agencies assign separate packages, each with its own limits, to each client, so one client's busy month cannot drain another's allowance. Analytics separating delivered from blocked traffic support client reporting.

Pricing varies by country tier, which makes forecasting multi-market work slightly harder.

Upgrades take effect immediately and downgrades at the next billing cycle, so an agency can scale for a busy quarter and step back afterward. Discounted plans are available for startups, and crypto payments are accepted after KYC.

IPRoyal (best for long-lived account sessions)

Fact	Detail
Sticky sessions	Up to 7 days
Residential traffic	Never expires
Team features	Workspace roles, 2FA, API ordering
Integrations	650+ tools

IPRoyal fits account-management operations where a changing IP could trigger security checks or force a fresh login. Residential traffic never expires, and team roles make shared access manageable.

Entry pricing is high for small orders, and mobile is billed per day from $10.11 rather than per gigabyte.

ISP proxies from $1.80 and datacenter from $1.39 sit on the same account, and registration needs no credit card. Its docs report an average support response of 58 seconds, and the company publishes a KYC policy and trust center.

Use Cases at a Glance

Provider	Primary use case	Residential and mobile on one account	Unused traffic	Commitment
ProxyEmpire	Consolidating residential and mobile	Yes	Rolls over	None
Bright Data	Enterprise compliance	Mobile not in current menus	Commitments lapse	Optional
Oxylabs	Proxies plus scraping APIs	Yes	Not stated	Subscription
Decodo	Self-service pipelines	Yes, sold separately	Not stated	Subscription or Wallet
SOAX	Agency budgets	Yes, one price	Not stated	Monthly credits
IPRoyal	Long account sessions	Yes, mobile per day	Never expires	None

How to Get the Most from These Tools

Assign networks by task. Route bulk collection through residential and reserve mobile for targets and campaigns that require it, since at several providers here mobile costs more per gigabyte.

Consolidate where it reduces overhead. Every additional vendor adds a contract, an integration and a support relationship; one account covering both networks removes that duplication.

Match billing to demand. Steady programs can use commitments efficiently, while uneven work benefits from rollover or non-expiring traffic.

Pilot before committing. Use trials and credits on real targets, especially where refunds are limited, and measure how much traffic each task really consumes before choosing a tier.

Which Provider Should You Choose?

Choose ProxyEmpire if you want residential and mobile from one vendor, with 24/7 support, account management and GB that never expire.

Choose Bright Data if certifications and procurement channels are decisive.

Choose Oxylabs if your team will use scraping APIs alongside proxies.

Choose SOAX if you manage separate client budgets.

Choose IPRoyal if your work depends on IPs that last for days.