Residential vs Datacenter Proxies: The Price Gap Is the Answer
Datacenter rotating proxies start at $0.30/GB (Rayobyte) and residential at $1.75/GB (IPRoyal) — a 6x gap that is really a reputation gap. Datacenter wins on price and speed; residential wins wherever the target blocks server ranges.
The datacenter-vs-residential question is a price question with a reputation answer. On 2026-09-19 datacenter rotating started at $0.30/GB and residential at $1.75/GB — and you pay that premium only when the target blocks datacenter ranges, which you should test before paying anything.
Bottom line upfront
Same job, six times the price, and the difference is one thing: where the IP is registered. A datacenter IP lives in a hosting range that any site can block with a rule. A residential IP is issued to a real ISP subscriber, so it looks like a person. On 2026-09-19 the published entries were $0.30/GB for datacenter rotating (Rayobyte) and $1.75/GB from for residential (IPRoyal). The operator’s rule: start with datacenter, and upgrade to residential only when the target actually blocks you. The table below shows what each side publishes, dated.
Datacenter and residential proxies do the same mechanical job — they put a different IP in front of your requests. They are priced 6x apart on 2026-09-19, and the gap is one thing: reputation. This page compares what each side publishes, dates the prices, and gives you the decision rule we actually use.
What a datacenter proxy is
A datacenter proxy is an IP address allocated to a hosting company — a rack, a VPS, a cloud range. It is fast, cheap, and trivially identifiable: the IP’s owner is a known hosting provider, so a target can block the whole range with a single rule.
Published entry points, 2026-09-19:
- Rayobyte datacenter rotating: $0.30/GB (1–50 GB tier)
- Webshare datacenter: $2.99/mo for 100 proxies ($0.0299/proxy)
That is the price band datacenter lives in: cents per GB, a few dollars per proxy. It is the workhorse for high-volume scraping of targets that do not fight back.
What a residential proxy is
A residential proxy is an IP that a real ISP issued to a real subscriber, routed through the proxy company’s network. The target sees an address that belongs to a household, so blocking it means blocking real customers — most sites will not do that casually. You pay for that reputation per GB.
Published entry points, 2026-09-19:
- IPRoyal residential: from $1.75/GB
- Decodo residential: $3.75/GB at 3 GB
- Bright Data residential: $4.00/GB pay-as-you-go (promo, list $8.00/GB)
The price gap, dated
| Provider | Type | Starting price (as of 2026-09-19) | Billing | Free tier / trial | Best for | Official site |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rayobyte | Datacenter rotating | $0.30/GB (1–50 GB) | Tiered monthly | not published | Open-target scraping at volume | rayobyte.com |
| Webshare | Datacenter | $2.99/mo for 100 proxies | Monthly | 10 free proxies | Budget IPs for light jobs | webshare.io |
| IPRoyal | Residential | from $1.75/GB | PAYG, no contracts | not published | Cheapest residential entry | iproyal.com |
| Bright Data | Residential | $4.00/GB PAYG (promo, list $8.00) | PAYG or subscription | Free trial, no card | Biggest published pool, geo targeting | brightdata.com |
Read . The full provider set is in the dataset.
When each one wins
- Datacenter wins when the target does not block hosting ranges. Cheaper by an order of magnitude, faster, and you can throw volume at it. Most of the open web lives here.
- Residential wins when the target does block hosting ranges — anti-bot suites, marketplaces, ticket systems, search engines with aggressive rate limits. The premium is the price of looking human.
- ISP proxies win when you need one constant address with residential reputation — the third corner of the triangle, covered on its own page.
What the table doesn’t tell you
- The 403 test is free and definitive. Run a few hundred requests through a $0.30/GB datacenter line at your target. If they pass, you are done — residential would be a donation to the provider. If they fail with hosting-range blocks, you have your answer with evidence. We do exactly this on real machines; the procedure is on How we test.
- Promo pricing skews the residential column. Bright Data’s $4.00/GB and Webshare’s residential $3.50/GB are 50%-off promos off $7–8 list prices. When the promo ends, the residential premium grows.
- “Residential” is not one product. Rotating residential (per-request IPs) and sticky residential (held IPs) behave differently against targets. Bright Data, Decodo, Webshare and Infatica publish both; IPRoyal does not publish its session types as of 2026-09-19.
- Pool size is not always published. Oxylabs, SOAX, ProxyEmpire and Rayobyte do not show pool sizes on their pricing pages as of 2026-09-19. When you cannot verify coverage, compare on price and published targeting.
Who wrote this
Written by the Runein operator — the same person who pays for and runs these tools. Corrections and vendor price changes go to [email protected] and are re-read, re-dated and logged. Disclosure: some links on this page point to vendor official sites; if we later add affiliate links, buying through one may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes what we recommend.
Datacenter vs residential, head to head
Scroll the table sideways on a phone →| Field | Datacenter proxy | Residential proxy |
|---|---|---|
| Where the IP lives | Hosting-company ranges (racks, VPS, cloud) | ISP-issued to real subscribers (households, phones) |
| Starting price (as of 2026-09-19) | $0.30/GB rotating (Rayobyte) | $1.75/GB from (IPRoyal) |
| Typical billing | Per GB or per IP, monthly | Per GB (PAYG or subscription) |
| Free tier / trial | Webshare: 10 free proxies; others not published | Bright Data free trial no card; Decodo free trial; SOAX free sandbox |
| Speed | Datacenter-class, low latency | Home-connection class; slower on average |
| Block risk on guarded targets | High — server ranges are rule-blocked | Low — looks like real subscriber traffic |
| Session types | Rotating and static (per IP) | Rotating and sticky (published by Bright Data, Decodo, Webshare, Infatica) |
| Best for | High-volume scraping of open targets, price-sensitive work | Blocked targets, geo-sensitive jobs, account-adjacent traffic |
Both columns as published on vendor pages, read 2026-09-19. Residential is marked as our pick for blocked targets; datacenter remains the default for everything else.
FAQ
Are residential proxies really 6x more expensive than datacenter?
Can I use datacenter proxies for web scraping?
Why would a site block datacenter IPs but not residential?
Which is faster, datacenter or residential?
When should I use an ISP proxy instead of either?
Sources
- Rayobyte — pricing (datacenter and residential rows) (read 2026-09-19)
- IPRoyal — pricing (residential row) (read 2026-09-19)
- Webshare — pricing (datacenter row) (read 2026-09-19)
- Bright Data — residential proxies pricing (read 2026-09-19)