Residential proxies are IP addresses issued by internet service providers and assigned to real connections (home, office, smart devices). Traffic through such addresses appears as normal user behavior, so websites and anti-bot systems treat it more leniently than IPs from data centers.

Why they are needed: secure access to personal and ad accounts, checking local search results, monitoring prices and availability, testing interfaces for different countries and cities. Geotargeting is precise — from country to specific city, which helps you see content ‘as if you were there’.

By format, they can be static (for long sessions and ‘recognizable’ connections) and rotating (for large-scale data collection). Familiarize yourself with the available options for residential IP addresses in your personal account.

How Residential Proxies Work: Backconnect, Rotation, Sticky

Provider IPs are gathered into a large pool and distributed via a backconnect gateway. You connect to a single ‘entry’ address (endpoint), and the system provides an exit IP based on your filters: country, city, and if necessary, a specific provider or ASN. This allows you to see pages and prices just as a local user would.

Rotation can be configured in three ways:

• by time — address change after a set interval;
• by event — a new IP for each request or connection;
• by volume — renewal after X megabytes of traffic.

For long scenarios (accounts, forms, payments), sticky sessions are used: the same address is held for 5–30 minutes or until an explicit restart. For crawling and data collection, aggressive rotation with limited request frequency and parallelism is more convenient.

HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols are supported. Authorization is via login/password or IP whitelist. It’s useful to immediately set timeouts, retries, and enable response code logging — this makes it easier to catch CAPTCHA spikes and adjust the pace.

Static vs. Rotating. A static address provides a ‘recognizable’ connection and fewer reasons for additional checks — a good choice for careful work with accounts. A rotating pool scales data collection and is more resilient to rate limits, but requires discipline: stream limits, pauses, distribution by subnets/ASNs.

IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 is undoubtedly compatible almost everywhere, but it’s scarce and more expensive for large volumes. IPv6 provides a huge address space and is more cost-effective for scaling, but some platforms don’t support it perfectly — it’s worth testing the target resource. If you need a reserve of addresses and flexible rotation, check out IPv6 residential proxies.

What to Choose: Residential, Datacenter, ISP, or Mobile

The choice depends on traffic naturalness, required speed, and budget. A quick guide:

Criterion	Residential	Datacenter	ISP (static)	Mobile
IP Source	Home/Office Providers	Datacenter Server Subnets	Telecom Providers (Static)	3G/4G/5G Operators
Anti-Bot Resilience	high	medium/low	high	very high
Speed/Latency	medium/high	high	high	medium
Pricing	medium	low	above medium	high
Long Sessions (Sticky)	yes	limited	excellent	yes
Scaling/Streams	high	very high	medium	medium
Geo-Accuracy	city/provider	country/region	city/provider	often region
Typical Tasks	accounts, SERP, prices, QA	mass crawling	billing/ad accounts	SMM, applications

When to Choose What

• If you need ‘human-like’ behavior and city targeting, choose residential (selection is available on the residential IP solutions page).
• If you need maximum speed at the lowest request price, datacenter proxies are suitable.
• For stable payment/ad accounts, static ISP addresses are better: recognizable IP and predictable sessions.
• For social networks and mobile platforms, mobile 4G/5G proxies are appropriate — they are closer to application behavior but more expensive.

Brief conclusion. If key metrics are action conversion and passing anti-bot checks, start with residential. If, in the same scenarios, you hit a request price wall, test datacenter proxies; if it’s login stability, switch to ISP; if it’s social network ‘whims’, use mobile.

Pricing and Plans: Unlimited or Per GB

The ‘per gigabyte’ model. You only pay for consumed traffic. Convenient for pilot tests, irregular launches, careful parsing. Monitor your traffic limit and disable media to avoid ‘burning through’ your limit.

Unlimited. Fixed monthly price with no data volume limit — beneficial for constant load and team work. Clarify fair use, stream limits, and retry policy. Ready-made plans with unlimited traffic are in the unlimited residential packages section.

Ports, streams, sessions. More simultaneous connections mean a higher price, but also higher throughput. For accounts, use sticky sessions (10–30 minutes); for mass crawling, use ‘per request’ or timed rotation.

How to Quickly Estimate Your Budget

1. Estimate the average response: HTML/JSON is usually 80–300 KB.
2. Multiply by daily requests and working days.
3. Add 15–25% for redirects, CAPTCHAs, and retries.

If the total is close to the monthly unlimited price, choose unlimited: the cost per successful request will be lower, and forecasting will be simpler.

What to Look for in the Terms

• billing by calendar or from purchase date;
• rollover of unused GBs or ‘expiration’;
• limits on streams/ports and regions;
• authorization methods (login/password, IP whitelist), HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5 support.

Detailed plans and calculator are in the Prosox pricing table.

Where Residential Proxies Offer Maximum Benefit

Parsing and Crawling

What to use: rotating residential with 1–5 minute intervals or ‘per request’.
Settings: stream limit, varied pauses, gzip, media blocking.
Useful tip: if traffic is high, unlimited is more cost-effective.

SERP Monitoring

What to use: city targeting + sticky 5–15 minutes.
Settings: subnet/ASN change, stable User-Agent, careful pauses.

Ad and Creative Verification

What to use: static ISP IPs or residential in sticky mode.
Settings: fixed city, persistent cookies/storage, limited parallelism.

SMM and Multi-Account Management

What to use: residential or mobile 4G/5G; 1 IP = 1 profile.
Settings: sticky 10–30 minutes, time-based action distribution, warm-up before key steps.

Other scenarios (price monitoring, localization QA, maps/catalogs) are solved with similar settings — choose the country/city and session mode according to the frequency and duration of actions.

Anti-Ban Checklist: 6 Settings to Avoid Unnecessary Checks

• Pace and Parallelism. 1–3 requests/sec per domain, random pauses, stream limits; if 429/403, reduce speed and change IP/subnet.
• Session Mode. Accounts and forms — sticky 10–30 minutes; parsing — ‘per request’ or timed rotation 1–5 minutes; 1 IP = 1 profile.
• Fingerprints and Headers. Consistent User-Agent within the session, matched language/timezone/geo; disable DNS/WebRTC leaks, store cookies for ‘long-term’ profiles.
• CAPTCHAs and Limits. Warm up the session with safe transitions, increase intervals, alternate subnets/ASNs; if possible, use lightweight endpoints (HTML/JSON without media).
• Logs and Quality Control. Record response code, time, size, geo/ASN, session tag; regularly discard ‘bad’ IPs with a high percentage of CAPTCHAs/errors.
• Security. IP whitelists, different keys and ports per project, minimal permissions and access review; store logs for a limited period and without unnecessary data.

Legality and AUP

Residential proxies are legal when used within the bounds of the law, platform rules, and the provider’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Spam, hacking, DDoS, bypassing payment barriers, and collecting personal data without justification are prohibited. Record only necessary telemetry, limit log retention, and check the requirements of target jurisdictions before launch.

FAQ

1. How do residential proxies differ from datacenter and ISP proxies?
   Residential proxies are real provider addresses, appearing as traffic from ordinary users. Datacenter proxies are cheaper and faster, but more often fall under filters. ISP proxies provide a static ‘provider’ IP for long sessions.
2. What is a sticky session and when should you enable it?
   Sticky holds the same IP for a specified TTL (e.g., 10–30 minutes). It is needed for logging into accounts, placing orders, and QA scenarios. For parsing, ‘per request’ or timed rotation is more effective.
3. What rotation frequency should you choose?
   For mass crawling — 1–5 minutes or ‘per request’. For forms and accounts — sticky with a reasonable TTL. If you encounter CAPTCHAs, reduce parallelism and increase the interval.
4. IPv4 or IPv6 — which is better?
   IPv4 is compatible ‘everywhere’ but more expensive. IPv6 provides a huge pool and is beneficial for large volumes. If the target supports both stacks, consider the residential IPv6 option for scaling.
5. How much does it cost and how to avoid overpaying?
   Compare not only the price per GB but also the cost per successful request. For constant load, unlimited is often more cost-effective.
6. Where to get started quickly?
   Choose the country/city and session mode for Prosox residential IPs in your personal account, get the proxy data, then test your scenario.
7. Is it legal to use residential proxies?
   Yes, provided you comply with the law, the provider’s AUP, and platform rules. They cannot be used for spam, hacking, DDoS, or data theft. Store only necessary telemetry and protect personal data.
8. Are they suitable for SMM and applications?
   Yes. For social networks and mobile accounts, mobile/residential addresses with sticky mode are especially useful.

Let’s Get Practical

Residential proxies provide a ‘user-like’ context and precise geotargeting — this increases action conversion and reduces anti-bot triggers. Start with short pilot tests: choose the country/city, session mode (sticky or rotation), measure the cost per successful request, and scale with ports and streams, maintaining a careful pace.

Ready to start? We’ll help you select a pool of residential addresses for your scenarios and choose the optimal payment model.