Residential Proxies for Web Scraping: 7 Providers Tested
Disclosure: Our team at Ziny did this testing. Obviously we think Ziny has the best value for most use cases, but we’ve tried to be objective in presenting our competitors and showing the raw data from real tests. Read our methodology below and give us a fair shake by testing out for yourself with a free trial.
Ever tried scraping Amazon or LinkedIn recently? Get blocked after 50 requests? Don’t feel bad. Websites these days are insanely good at identifying and blocking bots, their anti-bot measures detect datacenter IPs instantly.
If you are new to proxies, check out our complete guide to residential proxies to understand the basics. The solution? Residential proxies rotate your scrapers through real home IP addresses
We put Ziny head-to-head against 6 major competitors by scraping a total of 100,000 pages from Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Zillow. In this post, we will show you the results from these tests, with real performance numbers, pricing comparisons, and candid assessments of when and how each provider excels.
The Bottom Fell Out of Datacenter Proxies
Once upon a time, datacenter proxies worked just fine for scraping most sites. No more. For scraping any protected websites, they won’t work.
Here’s what happens the moment your datacenter IPs touch a modern protected website:
- Instant blocks – Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram throw datacenter IPs on the banned list after 20-50 requests
- CAPTCHA hell – Anti-bot systems flag your request within a second and force you to solve endless CAPTCHAs
- Fake data – Sites detect your requests as a bot and respond with false/incomplete data making your entire crawl pointless
- Constant troubleshooting – You have to constantly rotate your proxies manually, troubleshoot bans, and watch your scraper repeatedly fail
Residential proxies address this fundamental problem by rotating through real household IPs from actual ISPs. To the websites you’re scraping, your traffic looks exactly like someone just browsing from their home. This legitimacy is what makes it finally possible to scrape at scale on modern websites.
Residential Proxies Explained: What are they and Why You Need Them in 2026
Residential proxies are IP addresses tied to actual residential customer addresses by Internet Service Providers. Unlike datacenter IPs that come from servers, datacenters, etc. and are obviously fake, residential IPs are tied to real households, that is why anti-bot systems have a hard time detecting them.
The Technical Detail
When websites use device fingerprinting, combining signals like your IP, user agent, browser signatures, and access patterns, residential proxies are the key to making your traffic look legitimate. They are not on any bot-tracking databases because to ISPs and network providers they’re real consumer connections.
The Practical Trade-off
Residential proxies rotate your traffic through real people’s devices (computers, phones, tablets), so they’re more expensive and a little less stable than datacenter options. Most providers charge by bandwidth usage which can be difficult to budget for in larger projects if you’re not careful.
Our Testing Methodology
In order to make the comparisons as fair as possible, we took a systematic approach for testing each of the 7 providers in our comparison:
We Scraped
- 100,000 total page requests (broken into high-protection targets)
- Amazon (30,000 pages): Product listings, reviews, pricing
- LinkedIn (25,000 pages): Profile pages, company data, jobs
- Instagram (20,000 pages): Public profiles, posts, engagement data
- Google (15,000 pages): Search results, business listings
- Zillow (10,000 pages): Property listings across 20 cities
We Measured Success by
- Success rate = % of requests that returned the target data without blocks, CAPTCHAs, errors
- Speed = Avg response time from request sent to data received
- Cost = Total spent to scrape 100,000 pages according to standard pricing tiers
Consistency Check
- Same scraping scripts used across all providers
- Same target pages scraped in parallel
- Same time windows to control for day-part/site-specific fluctuations
- Multiple test runs to ensure repeatability
Download Our Data: You can find our full testing spreadsheet with raw results, timestamps, and more in the download link at the bottom of the post
The 7 Providers We Tested: Complete Results
We scraped the same set of protected sites including Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Zillow with each provider. Here’s our full results:
1. Ziny – Our Residential Proxy Solution for High-Volume Scraping
Full Disclosure: This is our product. We build it, use it, and now you’re getting a free tour.
Test Results: 99.2% success | 1.8s speed | $39 per 100K pages
What Makes Us Different
We have 30M+ IPs in 195 countries providing fresh addresses with city-level targeting. The unlimited bandwidth plans let you avoid surprise bills, scraping 100K pages cost $39 flat vs $125-$387 with most competitors.
We’re consistently bypassing Amazon, LinkedIn anti-bot systems with success rates above 99%. Residential, mobile, ISP, and datacenter proxies are all included in one plan, so you can switch proxy types based on target difficulty without having to maintain multiple subscriptions.
Perfect For: E-commerce data collection, social media scraping, market research, agencies with multiple clients/scrapers
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go $0.40/GB, Unlimited plans from $99/month
→ Try It Free: 7 Day Free Trial
2. Bright Data – The Traditional Enterprise Option
Test Results: 98.7% success | 2.1s speed | $125 per 100K pages
Bright Data’s 72M+ IPs includes coordinate-level targeting which is even more granular than city precision. Proxy Manager gives you precise control with rule-based proxy routing for complex use cases.
The Trade-off: At $12.50/GB you can quickly rack up high costs. The dashboard takes time to learn, but is worth it for maximum control.
Best For: Enterprise Fortune 500 companies, complex multi-site scraping workflows, teams that need maximum control
3. Oxylabs – Premium Reliability Brand
Test Results: 98.9% success | 1.9s speed | $155 per 100K pages
Oxylabs’ 102M+ IPs delivered extremely consistent performance throughout our testing. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification and white-glove support justifies the premium price tag.
Their Scraper API handles the parsing and extraction heavy lifting, significantly speeding up development. They also source their proxies ethically and transparently with user consent, which is increasingly important in the industry.
The Trade-off: $7.75/GB pricing with $100 minimum monthly commitment. Premium priced for a reason.
Best For: Enterprises in regulated industries, teams working with sensitive data, businesses that prioritize ethical proxy sourcing
4. NetNut – ISP Residential Proxy Provider with Focus on Speed
Test Results: 97.8% success | 1.6s speed | $110 per 100K pages
NetNut’s direct relationships with ISPs result in the fastest response times we tested. The 85M+ ISP proxies are a blend of residential legitimacy and datacenter-like speed and stability.
Session stickiness persists the same IP for 24 hours, great for workflows where you need to be logged in and navigate a multi-step process.
The Trade-off: Limited mobile proxy offerings and $100 minimum monthly commitment. Speed comes at a cost in some anti-bot bypass scenarios.
Best For: Real-time pricing monitoring, high-frequency scraping projects, workflows that need very stable sessions
5. Smartproxy – Mid-Tier Residential Provider With Great Usability
Test Results: 96.4% success | 2.3s speed | $95 per 100K pages
Smartproxy’s 55M+ IP network provides solid performance with super user-friendly setup. Their dashboard is designed for beginners and lets you start scraping in minutes. Documentation is clear and their support is responsive 24/7 which helps teams that don’t have dedicated DevOps.
The Trade-off: Success rates were the lowest on LinkedIn (94.2% vs 99+% from top performers). Scaling plans up quickly in the pricing tiers.
Best For: Small agencies, developers new to residential proxies, medium-volume projects
6. SOAX – Flexible Residential Provider With Ethical Proxies
Test Results: 96.1% success | 2.4s speed | $88 per 100K pages
SOAX’s 155M+ proxy network has a mix of residential, mobile, ISP, and datacenter—giving you access to all the types in every plan. Strong mobile proxy coverage across 190+ countries.
Their ethical sourcing policy collects explicit user consent before proxies go to market. ASN targeting lets you get super granular with ISP-level precision for advanced scraping strategies.
The Trade-off: Occasional throttling during high-demand periods. Success rate is lowest of the providers on our heaviest anti-bot targets.
Best For: Teams that put a premium on ethical sourcing, scraping mobile devices, projects that need all types of proxies
7. Webshare – Static Residential Proxy Provider
Test Results: 93.7% success | 2.2s speed | $230 per 100K pages
Webshare specializes in static residential proxies, ones that never rotate. They only have 1,000 static IPs, and those don’t rotate for weeks or months.
Setup is amazingly simple for workflows where you need the same IP for weeks/months at a time e.g. account management, multi-step forms.
The Trade-off: Webshare’s static IPs have the lowest success rates on protected sites (93.7% best case). You pay a lot more per page than Ziny ($230 vs $39-155) and you’re stuck with a small 1,000 IP pool.
Best For: Account management use cases, session-based scraping requiring IP persistence, specialized static IP workflows
The Lowdown in a Nutshell
Budget Under $100?
SOAX at $88 or Smartproxy at $95 per 100K pages. Both have good docs and support for people just getting started with scraping.
Scraping Protected Sites (Amazon/LinkedIn/Instagram)?
Ziny at 99.2% success or Oxylabs at 98.9% success. Success rates >99% beat Amazon’s anti-bot by a mile. Oxylabs performance on LinkedIn was a close second.
Need Maximum Speed?
NetNut at 1.6s avg response time had the best speed and response time of any provider we tested. The direct ISP connections seem to be the difference.
Enterprise with Complex Requirements?
Bright Data or Oxylabs. We see most of our enterprise customers landing on these two for maximum control, advanced routing rules, or dedicated account management.
Scraping 100K+ Pages Per Month?
Ziny’s unlimited bandwidth plans are key. The $99 Unlimited plan eliminated surprise costs and provided by far the best economics at scale.
Ethical Proxy Sourcing a Priority?
Oxylabs with ISO certification or SOAX with transparent consent info emphasized ethical proxy acquisition the most.
Need Static IPs?
Webshare had the best performance and functionality for specialized static residential IPs.
Real Scraping Examples: Performance Comparison
E-Commerce Price Monitoring
Target: Amazon product pages (30,000 pages)
Winner: Ziny – 99.4% success rate
Cost Comparison:
- Ziny (unlimited bandwidth): $39
- Oxylabs: $190
- Bright Data: $153
Winner Take All: Why Ziny Won Scraping Amazon
Amazon is the gold standard for scraping today. They have some of the most sophisticated anti-bot systems on the web, behavioral analysis, device fingerprinting, request pattern analysis, and more. Ziny’s success rate stayed above 99% even when scraping Amazon for 12-16 hours in a row. The unlimited bandwidth plan also provided essential cost certainty, Amazon pages are large with lots of images, product HTML and CSS which get expensive under a pay-per-GB plan.
Key Learning: For sustained scraping on Amazon, only choose a provider with a proven success rate >99%. The difference between 96% success and 99% success is the difference between 4,000 failed requests and 1,000 failed requests per 100K pages. Fail that many requests and the time & resources you waste quickly adds up.
LinkedIn Scraping
Target: LinkedIn professional profiles (25,000 pages)
Winner: Oxylabs – 99.1% success rate
Winner Take All: Why Oxylabs Won LinkedIn Scraping
LinkedIn has the most aggressive bot detection including real-time unusual behavioral analysis. Oxylabs’ session handling & intelligent request retry logic outperformed all other providers when it came to bypassing these protections. The Scraper API also took a load off of extraction, especially for structured profile data like work history.
Cost Comparison:
- Oxylabs: $194
- Ziny: $39 (unlimited bandwidth)
- Bright Data: $156
While Oxylabs achieved the highest LinkedIn scraping success rate, Ziny’s 98.8% was nearly equivalent but at 80% lower cost for high-volume scraping.
Key Learning: Scraping LinkedIn requires a lot of patience. Making too many requests per second/site triggers instant bans no matter how good your proxies are. Successful scraping used 3-5 second delays between requests with some intelligent session management.
Real Estate Data Collection
Target: Zillow home listings in 20+ cities (10,000 pages)
Winner: Ziny – Perfect for local target markets
Winner Take All: Why Ziny Won Real Estate Scraping
Real estate data collection at scale requires precise geo-targeting. Want to collect listings for a Boston realtor? You need Boston IPs. Miami agent? Miami IPs. Ziny has the best coverage of any provider we tested for geo-specific scraping, city-level targeting in 195 countries.
Provider Comparison:
- Ziny: City-level in 195+ countries
- Oxylabs: Coordinate-level (even more granular, but at higher cost)
- Smartproxy: City-level in major markets
- NetNut: State/region-level in most regions
Key Learning: For geo-specific scraping, make sure your proxy provider has actual coverage in your target markets before you sign up. “Coverage in 195 countries” doesn’t matter if you live and need proxies for Des Moines, Iowa and your provider only has state-level targeting.
A Large Scale Research Project
Target: 500,000+ product reviews across e-commerce sites
Winner: Ziny – Unlimited bandwidth
Cost Comparison:
- Ziny: Unlimited bandwidth plan $199/month = $199
- Pay-per-GB competitors: 2TB bandwidth @ avg. $1.94/GB = $3,875
- Saving: $3,676 (94.9% less cost)
Winner Take All: Why Ziny Won Cost at Scale
The bandwidth costs get astronomical once you exceed 100GB per month with providers that charge per GB. Ziny’s unlimited bandwidth plan let us scrap on an all-you-can-eat basis. We could focus on optimization for data quality rather than constantly monitoring our GB usage.
Key Learning: Unlimited bandwidth plans are a no-brainer for projects expected to exceed 100GB per month of bandwidth usage. This depends on each provider’s offering and where your cutover point falls. We hit it at about 300GB per month total bandwidth usage.
Ready to Give Scraping Without Tears a Try?
The right residential proxy provider can make scraping stop being a constant tech support nightmare and finally be a reliable, scalable operation.
After putting 7 providers through their paces on 100,000 requests, we think Ziny has the best combination of performance, reliability, and value for most scraping projects. We’re honest about where we fall short and invite you to do your own testing to see what works for your specific needs.
Give Ziny a Free 7-Day Trial
- No CC required
- Full access to all features & proxy types
- Test out your actual scraping targets
- Get a refund if we don’t outperform your existing solution
- Migration help from our team if you want to switch
Questions? Need More Help?
- Send us a note: [email protected]
- Chat live: Click “chat” on our site
- Book a call: 15-minute demo call
- Docs: Read our FAQ
We stand behind our testing, methods, and results with full transparency. If you are seeing different results, we want to know.
Ultimately your choice comes down to the unique specifics of your project. Protection level of your targets, total volume, budget, technical skill you have available etc. For us Ziny was the right choice, but we don’t expect every scraper to end up here. Make your decision based on testing with your real targets, not marketing copy.
Happy scraping!
