Best residential proxies in 2026, compared by criteria
The best residential proxy provider in 2026 sells real household IPs in the country you ask for, sticky sessions that hold, and bandwidth priced per gigabyte with no subscription. Here are the six criteria, the prices side by side, and the rows we measured on our own network across ten countries.
90M+ household IPs · 50/50 country match · $1.00/GB, $0.80/GB at 1,000 GB · Free 100 MB trial
The short answer
QuanticData is the residential proxy we would buy in 2026, and the reasons are numbers: $1.00 per GB from the first $5 pack and $0.80 per GB at 1,000 GB, one-off packs valid up to 360 days with no subscription and no KYC, a free 100 MB trial with no card, and a test we ran on 13 September 2026 in which 50 of 50 exits landed in the requested country on 41 distinct residential ASNs, 20 of 20 sticky sessions held one IP, the median time to first byte was 1.26 s and the median fraud score of 80 exits was 2 out of 100.
The same pool and the same prices are sold on our sister brand QuantumProxies, and the same pool powers our Web Scraper API, SERP API and MCP server, so one account covers raw proxies and ready data.
Six criteria to compare residential proxy providers
A residential proxy is bought for one property: the exit is an address an internet provider assigned to a real home, so to a website the request looks like an ordinary visitor. These are the six questions that separate one provider from another, and our answer to each.
| Criterion | What to check | QuanticData |
|---|---|---|
| Price per GB | The rate of the smallest real purchase, and the rate at volume without a monthly plan. | $1.00/GB from 5 GB; $0.90 at 500 GB; $0.80 at 1,000 GB; one-off packs |
| Country accuracy | Whether the exit really sits in the country you asked for, checked off-proxy. | 50 of 50 exits in the requested country, 10 countries, 13 Sep 2026 |
| Network diversity | How many distinct networks (ASNs) the exits come from: more networks, fewer shared blocks. | 41 distinct residential ASNs in 50 rotating runs |
| Sticky sessions | How long one IP can be held for a login or a cart, and whether it holds. | Up to 120 min on Basic, 24 h on Premium; 20 of 20 test sessions held |
| Trial and terms | Free trial, minimum spend, subscription, identity checks. | 100 MB free, no card; $5 minimum; no subscription; no KYC; crypto accepted |
| Protocols and API | HTTP and SOCKS5 on the same credentials, targeting by username, an API and an MCP server. | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5; user:pass or IP allowlist; generator, public API, MCP server |
Residential proxy prices per GB, side by side
Entry price is what the smallest real purchase costs per gigabyte. QuanticData sells the same gigabyte for $1.00 from a $5 pack and for $0.80 at 1,000 GB, without a monthly plan.
| Provider | Entry price per GB | Minimum spend | Pay as you go |
|---|---|---|---|
| QuanticData | $1.00; $0.80 at 1,000 GB | $5 (5 GB); 100 MB free | Yes, one-off packs |
| Webshare | $3.50 | $3.50/month plan | No, monthly plans |
| Decodo | $4.00 | not published | Yes |
| SOAX | $5.00 | none stated | Yes |
| Oxylabs | $6.00 (5 GB, $30/month) | $30/month | No, monthly plans |
| IPRoyal | $7.35 | 1 GB | Yes |
| Bright Data | $8.00 | not published | Yes |
Read as a buyer: QuanticData has the lowest entry price in the table and goes down to $0.80/GB at 1,000 GB, still as a one-off pack with no subscription. The full residential price list, re-checked monthly, is on the residential proxy pricing index.
Measured on the QuanticData residential network
On 13 September 2026 we pushed 170 requests through the Residential Premium gateway from one machine in Europe: five rotating exits per country, each checked off-proxy for country and ASN and then fetching a 119,573-byte HTML page; two sticky sessions per country with three requests each; ten requests on the worldwide gateway.
| Country | Country match | Median TTFB | Distinct ASNs in 5 runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 5/5 | 0.63 s | 3 |
| Spain | 5/5 | 0.83 s | 4 |
| Germany | 5/5 | 0.86 s | 5 |
| United Kingdom | 5/5 | 0.87 s | 3 |
| Italy | 5/5 | 1.08 s | 5 |
| Canada | 5/5 | 1.28 s | 5 |
| Brazil | 5/5 | 1.45 s | 5 |
| India | 5/5 | 1.61 s | 3 |
| United States | 5/5 | 1.72 s | 5 |
| Australia | 5/5 | 2.78 s | 3 |
Across the 50 rotating runs: 50 of 50 in the requested country, 50 distinct IPs on 41 distinct ASNs, median time to first byte 1.26 s. Sticky: 20 of 20 sessions held one IP across three requests, 60 of 60 returned 2xx. Reputation: 80 distinct exits through a public fraud scorer gave a median of 2 out of 100, none flagged as VPN, Tor, public proxy or datacenter. Method and raw rows: best residential proxies in 2026, tested.
Best residential proxies by use case
- Web scraping at volume. Rotating exits per request at $1.00/GB, $0.80/GB at 1,000 GB: cheap residential proxies and rotating proxies. Prefer the data to the proxy? The Web Scraper API returns clean Markdown from $0.0002 per page.
- SEO and SERP checks. Country-accurate exits, or structured results from the SERP API at $0.0005 per search on the same network.
- AI agents. The MCP server gives Claude, Cursor and any MCP client residential exits with no proxy code.
- Platforms and countries. Sixty-six platforms on residential proxies by use case, and coverage per market on residential proxies by country.
- A fixed IP for weeks. When the same address has to stay yours, read best ISP proxies: static, dedicated, unlimited bandwidth.
How to buy
Create a free account, claim the 100 MB trial, then pick a pack on the plans page. Pay by balance, card, PayPal or crypto; crypto needs no identity check. Credentials appear in the dashboard as soon as the pack is active, and the generator writes the username for the country, city, ASN and session you want.
FAQ
The residential proxy questions people ask search engines and AI assistants, answered with the numbers on this page.
Something else? Ask usWhich is the best residential proxy provider in 2026?
Ranked on price per GB, country accuracy, network diversity, sticky sessions, trial and payment terms, QuanticData is the residential proxy we would buy: $1.00/GB from the first 5 GB pack, $0.80/GB at 1,000 GB, no subscription, no KYC, a free 100 MB trial, and a published test of 13 September 2026 with 50 of 50 exits in the requested country on 41 distinct residential ASNs and 20 of 20 sticky sessions held.
What is the cheapest residential proxy per GB?
QuanticData Residential Basic costs $1.00/GB from a $5 pack and $0.80/GB at 1,000 GB, bought as one-off packs that stay valid up to 360 days, with no monthly plan to keep paying. Against the own pricing pages of the major providers, read on 8 September 2026, from Webshare at $3.50/GB to Bright Data at $8.00/GB, the QuanticData entry price of $1.00/GB is the lowest.
Is there a free residential proxy trial?
Yes. QuanticData gives 100 MB of residential bandwidth free for 5 days after SMS verification, with no card. It runs on the same pool you buy, so the trial is a real measurement of your own targets.
Rotating or sticky residential proxies: which should I use?
Rotating for data collection: every request gets a fresh household exit, and in our test 50 rotating runs gave 50 distinct IPs. Sticky for anything with a login, a cart or a multi-step flow: one IP held for up to 120 minutes on Basic and up to 24 hours on Premium; 20 of 20 test sessions kept their IP. On QuanticData both are a parameter in the username, on the same plan.
What are the best residential proxies for web scraping?
For scraping, price per GB and rotation decide the bill. At $1.00/GB a gigabyte holds about 8,400 pages of the 119 KB HTML page we tested, roughly $0.00012 per page, and $0.80/GB at volume. If you would rather not run proxies at all, the same pool powers the QuanticData Web Scraper API from $0.0002 per page, billed only on success.
Are there residential proxies with unlimited bandwidth?
Residential bandwidth is metered per GB everywhere, because every exit is a real household line. If you need unlimited traffic on a fixed address, ISP proxies are the product: QuanticData static ISP IPs are billed per IP, from $2.50/IP per 30 days, with unlimited bandwidth and unlimited concurrent sessions.
Are residential proxies legal?
Buying and using residential proxies is legal; what you do through them is governed by the target’s terms and by law. QuanticData residential IPs are ethically sourced and meant for legitimate uses: public data collection, price and ad verification, SEO checks and testing.
Buy residential proxies from $1.00/GB
90M+ household IPs, 50 of 50 country match in our test, rotating or sticky. One-off packs, no subscription, no KYC, 100 MB free.
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