How to Choose A Proxy?

A proxy can provide a high level of privacy and reduce the chance of a breach. For many businesses and individuals, proxies are an indispensable tool of marketing, arbitrage, and simply anonymity protection. As there are numerous proxy providers in the market with plenty of pricing plans, how can we choose an affordable proxy program that can perfectly meet our needs?

In this article, we divide proxy providers into three types according to their pricing models and explain how each of them charges.

1. Data charging

Proxy providers like Oxylabs and Luminati charge users for used data. Prices vary from $0.1/G to $30/G by type of IP. Different pricing plans can meet different demands of data.

These proxy providers usually provide data center proxy, static residential proxy, rotating residential proxy, and mobile residential proxy. Among the four types of proxy, data center proxy is the cheapest, while rotating residential proxy and mobile residential proxy bear the highest prices.

AdsPower can automatically match the browser fingerprint profile with the new rotating residential proxy of Oxylabs and Luminati.

If you use the proxy of Oxylabs or Luminati, after the location of the browser fingerprint profile is inputted, AdsPower will automatically match the profile with the proxy of designated country/region and even city.

2. Monthly billing

Monthly billing is another regular pricing model adopted by proxy providers, such as Instantproxies, Smart proxy, and Highproxies. A proxy program of these providers usually costs $1/month to $10/month.

If you have bought proxies of this type of proxy provider, you can use them in AdsPower via HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5. After setting up the proxy, you can check the proxy connection.

3. Pay-per-use

911s5 is one of the proxy providers that charge users each time they use the service. 911s5 proxies are rotating residential proxies, which are valid within 24 hours. Some proxy providers of this type provide proxies with longer validity, but none of them can be compared to 911s5 in size of the proxy pool.

It should be noticed that there are two main drawbacks to using these providers' proxies. First, the pay-per-use model can easily lead to proxies being flipped. Second, using them is sometimes like riding a roller coaster — the proxy connection is unstable.

Besides, with growth in uses and demands, if the proxy pool fails to keep expanding, possibilities of proxy sharing and IP abuse will significantly increase.

To use 911s5 proxies in AdsPower, you can have the program automatically match proxies, or choose a proxy in 911s5 and accordingly import it in AdsPower.

import the chosen proxy in AdsPower

Despite different pricing models, the cost of a proxy varies mostly depending on by how many users the proxy is used at the same time.

• Cheap proxies: share proxies tend to be the cheapest type of proxies. Shared proxies are IP addresses that are used by multiple users at the same time. A shared proxy can be used to register accounts on different websites or all on the same one. So if you fail to register a new account on some website using a proxy, probably it's because the website has detected that your IP address is related to another newly registered account.

  
  

• Expensive proxies: some proxy providers offer a large amount of proxies at higher prices. These proxies are cleaner, so you can expect better performance and speed when using them. Moreover, paying more means you will be enjoying more services, like after-sales technical support.

  
  

Conclusion

Having a clear idea of how proxy providers charge helps you choose the suitable proxy, especially when you have a limited budget.

In some cases, shared proxies can be a viable option for beginners who haven't realized the exact needs of their projects, or people who simply want to browse the web anonymously.

If you have strict requirements for reliability and security, then the pricier residential proxy is definitely worth it.

If you need to hide your browser fingerprint, whether it is for web scraping or personal use, AdsPower is a great app to do it with. It can be integrated with 3rd party solutions such as HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5. Also, it supports automatical matching of 911s5, Oxylabs, and Luminati rotating residential proxies.

Just make sure you choose good quality proxies to make your browsing fingerprin-free.