Which residential proxy gives the best value in 2026? The best value is the plan with the lowest cost per successful request, not the lowest price per GB. Floppydata is a strong pick if you want residential, mobile, and datacenter traffic on one balance at $1 per GB. DataImpulse matches that price. Geonode costs less at higher volume. Your best choice depends on your target sites and your monthly traffic.
I reviewed published pricing, stated pool sizes, and billing terms for three residential providers. I also built a simple test you can run yourself in under an hour. Run it before you buy. Published numbers show what a vendor claims. Your own test shows what you actually get.
What is a residential proxy?
A residential proxy sends your traffic through a real home internet connection. Websites see an ordinary household IP address, not a server farm. That lowers the chance of blocks and CAPTCHAs.
Teams use residential proxies for price monitoring, ad verification, SEO rank checks, market research, and testing how a site looks in another country. Datacenter proxies run faster and cost less, but sites flag them more often. Mobile proxies use carrier IPs and suit checks that need a mobile network.
What does Floppydata provide?
Floppydata sells rotating residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies. It also offers static residential and static datacenter proxies, a web scraper, and a free cloud browser that bills only the proxy traffic it uses. Its proxies support HTTP and SOCKS5.
Rotating plans bill per GB. Static plans bill per IP each month, in bundles of 20, 50, or 100. The scraper bills per 1,000 successful scrapes. One shared balance covers all three rotating proxy types, and mobile traffic costs the same as residential.
How much does it cost?
Rotating residential, mobile, and datacenter traffic costs $1 per GB, and that traffic stays valid for 30 days. Traffic that never expires costs $1.50 per GB. The minimum order is 19 GB, or $19. Static residential IPs start at $1.79 per IP each month, and static datacenter IPs start at $0.79.
Is it good for scraping?
Reviews list web scraping, SEO monitoring, and automation as its main uses. One independent review calls it an affordable service rather than a premium enterprise provider. Test it on your own targets before you scale.
How do you benchmark residential proxies?
You benchmark residential proxies by scoring five checks on the same targets, at the same time of day, with the same request count. Use these checks:
- Cost per successful GB. Price divided by success rate.
- Success rate. The share of requests that return a clean page.
- IP quality. Fraud score and blocklist status of the IPs you receive.
- Coverage. Countries, cities, and targeting options.
- Billing terms. Traffic expiry, minimums, refunds, and surcharges.
Here is a short Python script for the success rate and response time check. The time covers the wait until the response headers arrive, not the full page download. Replace the placeholders with your own proxy details. Test only sites you are allowed to access.
import statistics
import requests
PROXY = "http://USER:PASS@HOST:PORT"
TARGET = "https://example.com/"
RUNS = 200
proxies = {"http": PROXY, "https": PROXY}
times = []
ok = 0
for _ in range(RUNS):
try:
r = requests.get(TARGET, proxies=proxies, timeout=20)
if r.status_code == 200:
ok += 1
times.append(r.elapsed.total_seconds())
except requests.RequestException:
pass
print("Success rate:", ok / RUNS)
print("Median seconds:", statistics.median(times) if times else None)Run it at three different times of day. Repeat it on three kinds of targets: a simple page, a search engine, and a protected e-commerce page. Then check a sample of 100 IPs with a fraud score tool.
How do Floppydata, DataImpulse, and Geonode compare?
The three providers differ most on price at volume and on billing terms. Floppydata’s rotating residential plan is the one compared in this benchmark, so check its residential page for current rates before you buy.
| Provider | Residential price | Stated pool | Countries | Notable terms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Floppydata | $1 per GB valid for 30 days, $1.50 per GB if it never expires | Not published | 148 | One balance for residential, mobile, and data center. Minimum order is 19 GB |
| DataImpulse | $1 per GB flat | 90M+ | 195+ | Traffic never expires. Mobile costs $2 per GB. No ISP product and no scraping API. City, ZIP, and ASN targeting costs double |
| Geonode | From $0.79 per GB, down to $0.27 at 100 TB | 2.5M to 7.5M+ active IPs | 150+ to 195+ | City targeting, traffic never expires |
Two notes on these numbers. First, vendors state pool sizes themselves, and the figures are hard to verify. Floppydata’s residential page lists 148 countries and no pool size. Some older third-party pages cite 65M+ IPs and 195+ countries, so ask support for current numbers. Second, the DataImpulse and Geonode figures come from public pricing and comparison pages, including Geonode’s own pages, which differ from each other on pool size and country count, so confirm them on each vendor site.
What is the real cost of a residential proxy per useful GB?
The real cost is the price per GB divided by your success rate. You pay for every byte, including failed requests. A cheap plan with many failures costs more than it looks.
| Price per GB | Success rate | Cost per useful GB |
|---|---|---|
| $1.00 | 97% | $1.03 |
| $1.00 | 85% | $1.18 |
| $1.00 | 70% | $1.43 |
| $0.79 | 70% | $1.13 |
The last row matters. A $0.79 plan with a 70% success rate costs more per useful GB than a $1 plan with a 97% success rate. The success rates in this table are examples, not measured results. Measure your own rate with the script above.
Billing terms change the math too. At Floppydata, $1 per GB buys traffic that is valid for 30 days. Traffic that never expires costs $1.50 per GB, which is 50% more. If your usage is bursty, a provider whose traffic never expires may cost less in practice. DataImpulse, for example, lists $1 per GB for residential traffic that never expires.
What are the weak points of Floppydata?
It has four weak points you should check before buying.
- No free trial. You pay first, and the minimum order is 19 GB for $19. One November 2026 review reports that refund requests get a review within 3 days, and only if you used less than 1 GB.
- Unclear pool data. It does not publish a pool size, and country counts differ between sources.
- 30-day validity on the base rate. Traffic that never expires costs $1.50 per GB, which is 50% more.
Start with a small plan. Run the test. Scale only if your numbers hold.
Which proxy fits which job?
- Price monitoring and SEO checks across proxy types: Floppydata fits well because one balance covers residential, mobile, and data center.
- Large steady residential volume: Geonode gets cheaper as you buy more.
- Flat pricing and a big claimed pool: DataImpulse is worth testing.
- Sensitive accounts or paid traffic: Test every provider first, and expect to pay more for premium quality.
FAQ
Is Floppydata legit?
Floppydata is an operating proxy provider with public pricing and public customer reviews. The reviews are mixed. Test a small plan first.
Are residential proxies legal?
Residential proxies are legal to use in many countries, but the law depends on where you live and what you do with them. Follow the law and the terms of every site you access. This is general information, not legal advice.
Do I need an antidetect browser with a proxy?
Often not, for simple scraping and monitoring jobs. Antidetect browsers help when you manage many browser profiles. Floppydata offers a free cloud browser that bills only proxy traffic. It also publishes a setup guide for using its proxies with antidetect browsers.
How do I test a proxy before I buy?
Buy the smallest plan. Run the script above on three target types at three times of day. Check fraud scores on 100 IPs. Compare the cost per useful GB.
Final verdict
Do not pick a residential proxy by price per GB alone. Pick it by cost per useful GB on your own targets. Floppydata earns a place on your shortlist for its $1 rate and its single shared balance. Geonode and DataImpulse deserve a test run too. Measure first. Then commit.
