Best US Residential Proxies: Field Guide for Scraping Workloads
Decodo is our pick for serious US residential proxy work because we have run it in production, not because the pricing page reads well. We measured datacenter proxies collapsing to roughly 22% success on hard Google review pages. Moving those jobs to residential made the scrape viable. We may earn affiliate commissions from provider links, but our verdicts separate first-hand testing from public research.
Quick Verdict
US residential proxies are worth paying for when the target scores hosting ASN traffic, localizes content by region, or rate-limits datacenter exits. The proxy is only one part of the system. In our pipeline, residential IPs worked because we paired them with Camoufox under xvfb, consent-wall handling, and token replay for deep pagination.
For Decodo, that meant $2.00/GB residential pricing as of May 2026, 115M+ residential IPs across 195+ locations, and geo controls precise enough for per-outlet rotation. For the other providers below, we researched public pricing and docs. We have not benchmarked them first-hand yet.
Best US Residential Proxy Providers Compared
Prices below use residential proxy pricing only, as requested. All prices are as of May 2026 and come from provider pricing pages.
| Provider | Tested By ProxyPeers | Residential Price | Pool | Best Fit | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decodo | Yes | $2.00/GB | 115M+ IPs, 195+ locations | Hard scraping targets, reviews, SERPs, e-commerce | 4.6 |
| Webshare | Researched | $1.40/GB | 80M+ residential IPs | Budget scraping where you bring your own anti-block stack | 4.1 |
| IPRoyal | Researched | $1.75/GB | Global residential pool | Bursty workloads needing non-expiring traffic | 4.0 |
| Oxylabs | Researched | $2.50/GB high-volume floor | 175M+ IPs, 195+ countries | Enterprise scraping and API workflows | 4.3 |
| Bright Data | Researched | $4.00/GB promo | 400M+ IPs, 195 countries | Enterprise buyers needing the largest pool and managed tooling | 4.4 |
Why US Residential Proxies Beat Datacenter IPs
Datacenter IPs are cheap, fast, and obvious. On hard targets, obvious loses.
When we ran hard Google review-page jobs through datacenter proxies, success fell to roughly 22%. That number matters because a scrape at 22% success stops being a scrape. It becomes a retry loop that burns time, tokens, and proxy budget.
Residential proxies changed the economics. A US residential IP carries a consumer ISP signal. That does not guarantee success, but it removes the easiest block reason: hosting ASN traffic.
The original insight from our own runs is simple. Blocks were not only an IP problem. The viable setup was residential proxy plus credible browser plus consent-wall handling plus token replay. If you swap only the proxy and keep a weak browser fingerprint, the target still wins.
Decodo: Our Tested Workhorse
Decodo is the only provider here we have tested first-hand at scale. Residential starts at $2.00/GB as of May 2026, and the pool is listed at 115M+ residential IPs across 195+ locations.
When we moved hard review scraping from datacenter proxies to Decodo residential, the job became viable. The key was not raw pool size alone. The key was repeatable rotation behavior by outlet and region.
In our pipeline, geography is data quality. A US page fetched from the wrong region gives the wrong local inventory, reviews, ads, or ranking surface. We use the same principle outside the US with Mumbai ports for India and regional ports for the Gulf. For US residential proxies, the same rule applies at state and city level.
Decodo also sells mobile, ISP, datacenter, Web Scraping API, and Site Unblocker products. The Web Scraping API starts at $0.09 per 1,000 requests as of May 2026, which makes it the lowest API entry price in this group. For teams that want one vendor for proxies and managed scraping, that matters.
Webshare: Cheapest US Residential Entry
Webshare has the lowest researched residential price here at $1.40/GB as of May 2026. It also lists an 80M+ residential IP pool and a free tier with 10 proxies and up to 1GB per month.
That price is the reason to look at Webshare. If the target accepts normal residential rotation and you already handle headers, browser state, retries, and parsing, the cost floor is hard to ignore.
The tradeoff is the missing managed unblocker layer. Webshare gives you proxies. It does not give you the full anti-block system. On easy US targets, that is fine. On hard targets, you own the browser fingerprint, consent screens, session strategy, and retry logic.
We have not benchmarked Webshare first-hand for US residential scraping. Treat the 4.1 rating as an editorial assessment from public data, pricing, and market fit, not a measured success score.
IPRoyal: Flexible Residential Traffic
IPRoyal residential pricing starts at $1.75/GB as of May 2026, with non-expiring pay-as-you-go traffic. That feature matters for teams that scrape in bursts instead of running steady daily volume.
The pricing model is the main advantage. If a US scraping job runs hard for 3 days, goes quiet for 2 weeks, then runs again, expiring bandwidth punishes you. Non-expiring residential traffic reduces that waste.
IPRoyal also sells ISP, datacenter, mobile, Web Unblocker, and Video Scraper API products. Mobile is expensive at $10.11/GB in the supplied data, so the residential offer is the value center.
We researched IPRoyal from public data. We have not run it through our hard-target pipeline yet, so we do not present a measured success rate.
Oxylabs: Premium Enterprise Alternative
Oxylabs residential pricing bottoms at $2.50/GB as of May 2026, but that floor requires high volume. Low-volume residential sits around $5 to $6/GB in the supplied data. The listed pool is 175M+ residential IPs across 195+ countries.
Oxylabs is built for enterprise scraping teams. The product line includes Residential, ISP, Datacenter, Mobile, Web Scraper API, Web Unblocker, Fast Search API, and newer AI-search tooling.
The value is not the cheapest US residential GB. The value is the managed API layer, documentation, support, and enterprise buying process.
We researched Oxylabs. We have not run our Google review-page workload through it, so the 4.3 rating is an editorial assessment, not our benchmark.
Bright Data: Largest Pool, Highest Friction
Bright Data lists 400M+ residential IPs across 195 countries. Residential pricing is $4.00/GB at the 50% promo rate as of May 2026 in the supplied data.
The pool is the story. Bright Data is the enterprise heavyweight for buyers that need scale, compliance review, managed datasets, Web Unlocker, SERP API, Scraping Browser, and support paperwork.
The cost is also the story. At $4.00/GB promo residential pricing, Bright Data is 2.9x Webshare’s $1.40/GB and 2x Decodo’s $2.00/GB. That difference compounds fast on rendered pages because browser scraping burns bandwidth.
We researched Bright Data from public pricing and product pages. We have not benchmarked it first-hand in our pipeline.
How To Choose US Residential Proxies
Start with the target, not the provider.
If the target blocks datacenter ASNs, use residential. Our measured 22% datacenter success rate on hard review pages is the reason. Cheap IPs stop being cheap when 78% of attempts fail.
If the target is geo-sensitive, buy for location controls. US residential proxies should support state and city targeting when the data changes by market. Product availability, local ads, review ordering, delivery options, and search results all shift by location.
If the target requires browser execution, budget by rendered page weight. A 2MB HTML-only scrape and a 25MB rendered browser session have different proxy economics. At $2.00/GB, 1GB buys about 500 pages at 2MB each, but only about 40 pages at 25MB each.
If the job is hard, stop judging providers by price alone. Residential IPs get you past one filter. The full system still needs browser realism, session control, consent handling, pagination state, and failure classification.
Recommended Stack For US Residential Scraping
Our production pattern is residential proxy plus hardened browser plus deterministic state handling. We run Camoufox, a hardened Firefox, under xvfb because headless defaults still leak automation signals.
The proxy rotates by outlet or account of work, not randomly per request. Random rotation breaks sessions and creates unnatural behavior. For review scraping and paginated search, we preserve enough state to look like one local user moving through the site.
Consent walls get explicit handling. Token replay handles deep pagination. Retries are classified by failure type, not thrown into one generic backoff queue.
The number that matters is completed records per GB, not requests per GB. If Provider A costs $1.40/GB and returns dirty localized data, Provider B at $2.00/GB wins because the usable-record cost is lower.
Final Verdict
Use Decodo for US residential proxy work when the target fights back and you want the provider we have actually tested. It costs $2.00/GB as of May 2026, the pool is large enough for real rotation, and it fits the full scraping stack we run.
Use Webshare when price is the constraint and your anti-block stack is already built. Use IPRoyal when non-expiring traffic fits bursty jobs. Use Oxylabs or Bright Data when procurement, support, managed APIs, and enterprise scale matter more than GB price.
For hard US scraping, the winning setup is not “buy residential proxies.” It is residential IPs, credible browser execution, clean geo strategy, and stateful scraping logic.
FAQ
What are US residential proxies?
US residential proxies route traffic through IP addresses assigned by US internet service providers. Targets see a consumer ISP signal instead of a datacenter ASN. That matters on sites that localize content or block hosting traffic.
Are US residential proxies better than datacenter proxies?
For hard targets, yes. We measured datacenter proxies at roughly 22% success on hard Google review pages. Residential proxies made those jobs viable because they removed the datacenter ASN signal.
Which provider has the cheapest US residential proxies?
Webshare has the cheapest researched residential price in this comparison at $1.40/GB as of May 2026. Decodo costs $2.00/GB and is the provider we have tested first-hand.
Do residential proxies guarantee scraping success?
No. The IP is necessary but not sufficient. In our pipeline, success came from residential proxies plus Camoufox under xvfb, consent-wall handling, token replay, and controlled rotation.
How should we price a US residential proxy job?
Price by usable records per GB. A rendered browser scrape can burn 25MB per page, which turns 1GB into roughly 40 page loads. The cheapest GB loses when retries, wrong geo, and blocked sessions reduce usable output.