Best Cheap Proxies 2026: Cheapest by What You Need
"Cheap" is meaningless without a workload, because every provider prices a different thing: per GB, per IP, or per month with strings attached. The verified November 2026 floor prices: residential at $0.49/GB (Evomi subscription) or $1/GB pay-as-you-go (DataImpulse), datacenter at $0.30 to $0.50/GB, a static IP at $0.02 (Proxy-Seller IPv6) to $0.98 (Proxy-Seller ISP), and $5 buys a working test pack at three providers. This page lists the cheapest option per need, and names the catch attached to each price.
Cheapest by need, all verified November 2026. Cheapest entry ($5): DataImpulse Intro, 5 GB residential or 10 GB datacenter. Cheapest steady residential: Evomi, $0.49/GB on the 100 GB monthly plan. Cheapest non-expiring residential: Evomi pay-as-you-go at $0.99/GB (from 15 GB) or DataImpulse at $1/GB flat. Cheapest mobile: Floppydata, $1/GB for 30-day traffic. Cheapest datacenter: Evomi $0.45/GB PAYG ($0.30 at 1 TB). Cheapest static IP: Proxy-Seller IPv6 $0.02/IP, ISP $0.98/IP.
The full price table
| Need | Cheapest | Price | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| First test pack | DataImpulse Intro | $5 for 5 GB residential / 10 GB datacenter | refund only within 7 days, excluding crypto |
| Steady residential | Evomi 100 GB plan | $0.49/GB ($49/mo) | subscription: unused GB reset monthly |
| Non-expiring residential | Evomi PAYG / DataImpulse | $0.99/GB from 15 GB / $1/GB flat | Evomi PAYG has no volume discount below 1,000 GB |
| Mobile traffic | Floppydata | $1/GB (30-day validity) | non-expiring costs $1.50/GB; 19 GB minimum |
| Datacenter per GB | Evomi | $0.45/GB PAYG, $0.30 at 1 TB | 512-byte minimum billing per request |
| Datacenter flat-rate | DataImpulse | $0.50/GB, never expires | no per-IP product at all |
| Static IPv4 | Proxy-Seller | from $0.49/IP | tiers price out in the configurator only |
| Static IPv6 | Proxy-Seller | from $0.02/IP | only works on IPv6-native targets |
| Static ISP | Proxy-Seller / Evomi | $0.98/IP (23 countries) / $1.00 shared (US only) | Evomi shared = up to 3 customers per IP |
| Bulk committed residential | IPRoyal custom | from $1.75/GB | custom tier published from 10 TB |
| Hardest targets, cheapest effective | Bright Data promo | $4/GB with RESIGB50 | list $8; promo rotates |
Why the cheapest option is rarely the cheapest option
Two costs sit outside the sticker price, and both dwarf a few cents per GB.
Success rate. A $1/GB pool that succeeds 60% of the time on your target costs $1.67 per delivered GB; a $4/GB pool at 95% costs $4.21 but delivers the data. Before optimizing price, run the cheapest provider's test pack against your actual target and compute cost per successful request. Our proxy provider benchmark records the two hands-on tests we have published, with dates and methods.
Expiry and waste. Subscription GB that reset monthly are the quiet markup. A "cheap" $0.49/GB plan at 60% utilization costs an effective $0.82/GB. Non-expiring balances (DataImpulse, IPRoyal, Evomi PAYG) pay exactly for what you fetch, which is why the flat $1/GB rate so often beats cheaper-sounding subscriptions in practice.
The cheap providers, briefly
DataImpulse is the simplest cheap option: $1/GB residential, $0.50/GB datacenter, $2/GB mobile, flat, no subscription, never expires. Costs more than Evomi at steady volume, wins everywhere else. Full detail: pricing and review.
Evomi posts the lowest residential rate ($0.49/GB at 100 GB/month) and the lowest PAYG floor ($0.99/GB), plus the cheapest datacenter entry ($0.45/GB). Username/password auth only; ISP addresses US-only. Detail: pricing.
Floppydata wins mobile at $1/GB by selling one balance across residential, mobile and datacenter, and static datacenter at $0.79/IP is among the cheapest per-IP products. Detail: pricing.
Proxy-Seller owns the static floor: $0.02/IP IPv6, $0.49/IP IPv4, $0.98/IP ISP, with AUTOMATE15 stacking 15% off most products. Detail: its review.
IPRoyal is the bulk buy: $1.75/GB custom residential tiers (published from 10 TB) with bandwidth that never expires, and $1.39/IP dedicated datacenter. Detail: pricing.
What not to buy when you are budget-hunting
- Free proxy lists. Overused, blacklisted, no geo-targeting, no support, and a non-trivial share are operated by parties who read the traffic. The $5 packs above are the real budget option.
- Cheap datacenter for protected targets. At $0.50/GB it feels frugal and succeeds at nothing on Amazon, LinkedIn or Instagram; the money is simply burned. Check the class guide first.
- Big subscriptions for bursty work. The monthly reset quietly raises the effective rate; PAYG balances exist for exactly this pattern.
- "Unlimited" plans for scraping. Unlimited is priced against consumer browsing, and providers enforce it; scraping traffic gets throttled or terminated.
The verified floors, November 2026: residential $0.49/GB (Evomi, 100 GB monthly subscription) or $1/GB pay-as-you-go flat (DataImpulse); datacenter $0.45/GB (Evomi PAYG, $0.30 at 1 TB) or $0.50/GB flat (DataImpulse); mobile $1/GB (Floppydata, 30-day validity); static IPs from $0.02 (Proxy-Seller IPv6), $0.49 (IPv4) and $0.98 (ISP). The cheapest entry point is a $5 pack at DataImpulse.
Datacenter: $0.30 to $0.60 per GB. Residential: $0.49 (subscription) to $1 (flat pay-as-you-go) at the budget end, up to $8 list at the enterprise vendors, with Bright Data's RESIGB50 promo at $4. Mobile: $1 to $2 per GB at the cheapest three providers, $5.20 to $7.50 at the traditional vendors.
From established providers, yes: the cheap tiers at DataImpulse, Evomi, Floppydata, IPRoyal and Proxy-Seller are the same infrastructure as their expensive tiers, just priced at lower commitment. The unsafe cheap proxies are free public lists, which have no operator accountability and a documented history of traffic interception.
Structure, not quality. Evomi's $0.49 rate requires a monthly subscription at 100 GB, so steady usage gets a volume price. DataImpulse charges $1/GB flat with no commitment; at a steady 100 GB/month that is $100 against Evomi's $49, but in a month where you use 20 GB, DataImpulse still costs $20 total while an unused Evomi subscription bills $49.
Usually not a proxy at all: SERP APIs start at $1.90 per 1,000 Google results (Apify's GOOGLE_SERP group) and handle CAPTCHAs, which raw datacenter IPs do not. If you are set on proxies, rotating datacenter at $0.45 to $0.50/GB plus a CAPTCHA solver is the cheapest path; see best SERP scraping proxies.
Sometimes: Bright Data runs a 7-day trial after business verification, Oxylabs gives a $5 welcome credit, Smartproxy has a 3-day money-back window, and DataImpulse and Floppydata effectively trial through refund windows (7 days and 3 days under 1 GB used respectively). For immediate anonymous testing, the $5 packs are faster than any verification flow.