7 Best private proxy providers for 2025
A private proxy can be an incredibly useful tool in your day-to-day work, allowing you to have a dedicated IP you can use to scrape data, research geo-blocked content, or set up important automations. However, to use a private proxy, you need a reliable product that will fulfill your needs.
That’s why, along with our research team, I analyzed their protocols, uptime, and locations. In this article, I explore the best private proxy providers, analyze their offers, and give you a list of the 7 best providers for all your private proxy needs.
Top 7 private proxy providers – shortlist
- Oxylabs – best all-around proxy provider
- Smartproxy – best private residential proxy provider
- Webshare – excellent private proxies for bulk users
- Bright Data – an efficient private proxy for businesses
- NetNut – the best pay-as-you-go private proxies
- PrivateProxy – fast private proxy for individual uses
- IPRoyal – the most cost-effective private proxy
Key points about private proxies
Private proxies are a great way to obfuscate your internet traffic and can be effectively used for individual or business purposes. Here are a few things you need to know about private proxies:
- Private proxies give you a dedicated IP address. This means you won’t have to worry about somebody else getting that IP banned for whatever reason.
- A private proxy can help you market scrape, bypass geo-blocks, or conduct market research by hiding your IP address.
- Unlike a VPN, a private proxy doesn’t encrypt all your traffic, making it a much faster option. So, when security isn’t a top priority, a proxy can be a cheaper and more effective way to mask your IP address.
- Proxies are often metered, ensuring you only pay for the traffic you use.
The best private proxies – detailed list
Picking the right private proxy depends on your needs, locations, and use. I evaluated the top providers to give you a detailed comparison of each proxy provider’s offer, including server locations, pricing, and more.
1. Oxylabs – best all-around private proxies
| Rating: | 4.6 |
| Price: | From $6.75/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter, ISP |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S), SOCKS5 |
| Locations: | 188 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
Oxylabs is a reputable proxy company that offers multiple proxy services, including residential proxies, a web scraping API, and what’s most relevant for this list, a dedicated data center proxy, which I’ll focus on today. Its private proxies are excellent for businesses, particularly in marketing and SEO.
Oxylabs offers dedicated datacenter and ISP proxies in over 188 locations. With a 99,9% uptime guarantee and 2M+ IPs available for customers, you will surely have a private IP that will suit your needs.
To avoid users abusing its services, Oxylabs limits its proxy use for streaming services, gaming, banking, government websites, email providers, and ticket-selling websites. However, the options can be overwhelming for beginners and individual users. In case you need any help with its services, Oxylabs offers 24/7 customer support.
The dedicated data center proxy starts at $2.25 per IP per month, but Oxylabs requires you to purchase at least 3 IPs, meaning you’ll need to pay at least $6.75/month to use its services. A 3-day money-back guarantee lets you test out the addresses you purchase before committing, but Oxylabs doesn’t offer plans that last more than one month.
Given everything, Oxylabs is an excellent choice for market research and price monitoring, ad verification, and SEO monitoring. With attractive prices and IPs worldwide, Oxylabs is my #1 pick for private proxies.
2. Smartproxy – best residential private proxies
| Rating: | 4.4 |
| Price: | From $7.50/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter, residential |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S) |
| Locations: | 195 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
Smartproxy offers many proxy services, including private residential and data center proxies, making it an excellent choice for individuals and businesses alike. With servers in 195 locations, it can provide easy anonymity on a small scale and advanced services for businesses in need.
Smartproxy offers private residential and dedicated data server proxies, bringing users diverse choices. Along with the proxy, you’ll get some very useful extras like an anti-detect browser, browser proxy extensions, and a proxy address generator. These and an intuitive dashboard make the service stand out as particularly useful for private users.
Smartproxy does limit access to its proxies for services like entertainment, gaming, gambling, and government websites, and access to banking, emails, and non-entertainment streaming requires you to give Smartproxy your ID. In case you need help, Smartproxy offers 24/7 support.
Price-wise, Smartproxy offers dedicated data center proxies at $2.50/month per IP. However, it doesn’t offer a purchase of fewer than 3 IPs, meaning you’ll be paying at least $7.50/month. Residential proxies are more expensive, starting at $3.50/month per IP, with a minimum purchase of 10 IPs for a total of $35.00/month. Smartproxy offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, which allows you to test its services without committing.
Given its wider use cases and feature set, Smartproxy is an excellent choice for users looking to mask their traffic and for businesses that need a residential proxy.
3. Webshare – best private proxies for multiple IPs
| Rating: | 4.3 |
| Price: | From $18.30/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter, residential |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S), SOCKS5 |
| Locations: | 50 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
Webshare offers private residential and data center proxies, making it a diverse choice for individuals and businesses with needs ranging from internet anonymity to high-performance data scraping.
The first thing I must note about Webshare is that it offers private proxies that can be shared with up to 2 other users, confusing the name. That’s why, if you’re looking for a truly private proxy, you’ll have to use its dedicated proxy server or dedicated residential proxy offers. All its dedicated proxies offer high speeds and a Chrome extension to make using them more manageable.
While the server proxy has unlimited bandwidth, the dedicated residential proxy offers only 250GB by default, with any increases costing you extra, making web scraping potentially more pricey. Webshare only offers services in 50 countries, making it less viable for people requiring IPs in less popular locations.
Dedicated proxy servers start at $26.60/month with 20 IPs, while dedicated residential proxies start at $9.00/month for 20 IPs. While its per-proxy price is extremely competitive, the high IP minimum makes these services slightly more expensive than the competition, making Webshare a great choice for high-usage users rather than folks who only need a few IPs for occasional checks. Webshare also offers a 2-day money-back guarantee.
Overall, I’d suggest Webshare for high-volume proxy users who require proxies in popular countries. With the high minimum IP limit and services in only 50 countries, Webshare has a bit of a niche. But in that niche, it offers excellent pricing.
4. Bright Data – datacenter proxies with attractive pricing
| Rating: | 4.2 |
| Price: | From $22.00/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S), SOCKS5 |
| Locations: | 98 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
Bright Data is a leading proxy provider with one of the largest proxy pools on the market. Offering private datacenter proxies, it’s an excellent choice for companies looking for a proxy for their business needs, while its pricing makes it have limited application for individual consumers.
Offering 770,000 IPs in 98 countries, Bright Data has a wide variety of locations to choose from for your private datacenter proxy. The proxies have a bandwidth limit of 100GB per IP, which can limit intense web scraping, mainly if you’re targeting resource-heavy websites.
The provider claims a 99.9% success rate on its IPs, which, along with a claimed 99,99% uptime, is impressive. Bright Data also boasts simple integration through either its dashboard or a robust API.
Bright Data’s private proxies start at $22.00/month, with 10 IPs included in the package. If you commit to purchasing more IPs, the price per IP will decrease. Bright Data’s fair use policy limits you to 100 GB per IP, split in any way you want, and if you exceed that limit, you’ll be charged its pay-as-you-go rate of $0.60/GB. Bright Data doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee; however, it does offer a 7-day free trial for some of its services.
Bright Data is an excellent choice for market research, bulk account management, and SERP tracking. Given the bandwidth limits, it may not be the best for web scraping and AI training.
5. NetNut – best metered private proxies
| Rating: | 4.1 |
| Price: | From $7.00/month |
| Private proxy types: | Residential |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S) |
| Locations: | 195 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
NetNut offers private static residential proxies, which are excellent for long-term, low-detection access. I believe NetNut is perfect for social media marketers, ad verification, and eCommerce-related activities.
NetNut offers over 1 million static residential private proxy addresses in 195 countries around the world. Offering IP whitelists, granular sub-account control, and scalability tools, the provider clearly targets its services to larger businesses and enterprises. The company also offers support through multiple channels, including live chat, email, WhatsApp, Discord, and Telegram, which is very impressive and helpful.
Pricing-wise, NetNut offers per GB prices in annual and monthly plans. The cheapest plan is a 7GB annual plan that costs $7.00/month, which is a pretty good deal if you know your proxy usage is low-traffic and sporadic. The most expensive plan is a $3825/year 1TB plan, which is clearly a sign of NetNut’s enterprise-focused solutions. Unfortunately, NetNut does not offer a money-back guarantee, which is particularly surprising given that it offers annual plans.
Given NetNut’s bandwidth limits and approach, I’d say the best use cases for its services are low-traffic activities like social media management and ad verification. These activities require a reliable residential proxy but are unlikely to use up a lot of bandwidth. I wouldn’t recommend this proxy for web scraping or AI data training.
6. PrivateProxy – best private proxy for individuals
| Rating: | 4.0 |
| Price: | From $3.00/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter, residential |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S), SOCKS5 |
| Locations: | 200 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
PrivateProxy.me offers proxies that are targeted to businesses and individuals alike, with private residential and datacenter proxies meant for a wide range of uses. Given its low minimum purchase requirements and wide allowed uses, I’d say that it is the top pick for individual users.
Most providers on my list heavily limit the way their proxies can be used by blocking entertainment, gaming, and ticketing websites. On the other hand, PrivateProxy does not limit the use of its proxies, which can be attractive to users who need specific solutions that other providers often block.
In fact, its FAQ explicitly lists sneaker drop snatching as a possible use case, something other providers may frown upon. If you need it for more traffic-heavy tasks, PrivateProxy offers unmetered bandwidth with all packages. Unfortunately, during my testing, I’ve had trouble contacting its support team. Responses took a long time, and the agent wasn’t the most helpful.
The pricing model is also tailored to both businesses and individuals, with the datacenter private proxy starting at $3.00/month with 1 IP address and private static residential proxies starting at $5.00/month. Per IP prices become lower as you purchase more IPs in both cases. Unfortunately, PrivateProxy does not have any sort of money-back guarantee.
Given its low cost of entry and diverse use cases, I’d definitely recommend PrivateProxy to individuals who need a proxy for gaming, sneaker hunting, or entertainment purposes. It can also be a great tool for data scraping, although given its lack of money-back guarantees and lax customer support, it’s not the best on our list.
7. IPRoyal – cost-effective metered proxies
| Rating: | 3.9 |
| Price: | From $3.50/month |
| Private proxy types: | Datacenter, residential |
| Protocols: | HTTP(S), SOCKS5 |
| Locations: | 195 countries |
| Performance: | 99.9% uptime |
IPRoyal offers residential and datacenter proxies with a focus on geotargeting, enabling you to use IPs located in a given state or city. With diverse pricing options, it’s an interesting choice for individuals, solopreneurs, and large enterprises alike.
IPRoyal boasts some interesting features, including the Sticky IP, which will make your IP remain the same for up to 7 days. This can be particularly useful for things like ad verification or security testing.
With a high uptime guarantee, and over 32 million IPs in 195 countries, IPRoyal has a diverse proxy offering. Unfortunately, I also found the support lacking, with long response times on the live chat during testing, which could be a problem if I had a problem that needed to be solved ASAP.
IPRoyal offers IP-based pricing for its datacenter solution, starting at $1.39/month per IP with a 90-day plan. Its residential proxies start at $3.50/GB and are metered by traffic. It also offers premium private proxies for $1.56/month per IP, which are only available in 40 countries. IPRoyal doesn’t provide an outright money-back guarantee, which is disappointing given that it offers 3-month plans.
If you require very specific geotargeting or have low-traffic needs, IPRoyal’s offer is an interesting one. Its datacenter offer is great value for money for web scraping, given that it’s private and unmetered.
What is a private proxy?
A private proxy is essentially like a middleman communicating between your IP and the server you’re connecting to. It allows you to hide your identity, location, and other key information from the website you’re visiting. The “private” part means that every proxy IP you purchase is only used by only you, unlike a shared proxy, where many users have access to the same proxy server, slowing it down, and increasing risk of bans and detection.
While this may sound like a virtual private network (VPN), there are some key differences. A proxy doesn’t encrypt your traffic between servers. Instead, it only hides your address. This makes proxies slightly faster than VPNs, but also less secure.
That’s why proxies are mainly used for specific jobs, such as scraping the web for data, conducting market research, managing social media accounts in multiple locations, or purchasing rare sneakers and tickets.
How we tested private proxies
The Cybernews research team and I evaluated private proxies by focusing on the factors most important for day-to-day use. This includes performance, reliability, coverage, and pricing. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the aspects we looked at:
- Proxy solutions offered (30%). We looked at the range of proxy solutions offered by a given provider including residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, and how they perform. I also looked at how the offered features correspond with the price of the product, and how versatile their offers are.
- Global coverage (25%). We checked how many countries the proxy providers covered, as well as at how well they handle detailed geotargeting on state and city levels.
- Ease of use (25%). We analyzed each provider's ease of use and accessibility to business and individual users. I also checked the quality of their customer support.
- Extras (20%). I looked at what additional features each provider offered on top of the proxies. These include browser extensions, and API integrations.
Best private proxy providers compared
| Provider | Rating | Pricing | Refund Policy | Pool Size | Supported Protocols | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxylabs | 4.6 | Starts at $6.75/mo | 7-day refund (conditions apply) | 2M+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | Large-scale data scraping, business use |
| Smartproxy | 4.4 | Starts at $7.50/mo | 3-day money-back guarantee | 600K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS | Small businesses, SEO monitoring |
| Webshare | 4.3 | Starts at $18.30/mo | No refunds | 100K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | Budget-friendly private proxies |
| Bright Data | 4.2 | Starts at $22.00/mo | 3-day refund (conditions apply) | 700K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | Enterprise solutions, advanced scraping |
| NetNut | 4.1 | Starts at $7.00/mo | No refunds | 500K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS | High-speed connections, automation |
| PrivateProxy | 4.0 | Starts at $3.00/mo | No refunds | 50K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | Affordable dedicated private proxies |
| IPRoyal | 3.9 | Starts at $3.50/mo | 100K+ IPs | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | General use, residential-like private proxies |
When to choose private proxies
Individuals and businesses use private proxies to ensure reliability and performance. While shared proxies can be great for broad uses, like quickly getting based geo-blocks on news websites or light research and data scraping, a private proxy is definitely the better choice when you need a fast proxy that will not be detected or banned for something another user has done.
That’s why you should consider a few key factors when deciding between a private proxy and a shared proxy. First off, your budget. A private proxy will be far more expensive than a shared proxy, meaning that if your primary goal is to save money, you should probably head the shared route.
If your main goal is reliability or performance, a private proxy will have a far more attractive offer for you. As I said, the fact that you are the only person with access to the IP will ensure that you won’t end up being punished for others’ mistakes.
What’s more, with a private proxy, you’ll ensure your bandwidth is not impacted by others using the same IP. Since shared proxies can have many users simultaneously, a high load will slow down your service. If you need fast proxies, I’d recommend using a private proxy over a shared one.
Finally, private proxies offer you more control over your IP allocation. If you need your IPs to be in a certain location or part of a certain subnet, using a private proxy will allow you to control the way your IPs interact with other servers, making it far more adaptable to your needs.
How to select the best private proxy provider
Selecting the right private proxy provider can seem daunting at first; however, by analyzing your needs and each product’s offer, you’ll be able to find the one that suits you bestthem.
First, consider whether you need a residential or datacenter proxy. Residential and ISP proxies are far better for jobs that require low detection, like web scraping, or bypassing anti-bot systems for uses like sneaker hunting and social media management.Datacenter proxies are faster and more stable than residential proxies. This makes them more useful when you’re looking for larger-scale web scraping, where detection isn’t this much of a worry, as well as SEO monitoring and ad verification.
When researching providers, contact support if you have any questions. You should also read reviews and testimonials to see whether others have used the given provider similarly to you. Finally, consider the pricing and transparency of each provider before making your final decision. If you’re unsure about your choice, I’d also suggest going with a provider that offers a money-back guarantee to ensure you can quickly try without committing.
If you’re looking for a provider that checks all the boxes, I recommend Oxylabs. With excellent customer support, transparent proxy procurement, and a money-back guarantee, it’s an excellent choice in case you’re unsure what you need.
Private proxies: advantages and disadvantages
Private proxies can be a great choice, but they also have drawbacks depending on your needs. That’s why you need to consider the following pros and cons when deciding whether to use a private proxy.
Final thoughts: which private proxy is best for you?
Private proxies are a complex topic; your choice will depend on your specific needs and budget. When picking one, you’ll have to decide between residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, depending on your use of the proxy. You can then pick a provider from my list that best fits your given niche.
I recommend Oxylabs, given its attractive pricing model, transparent practices, and unlimited bandwidth. However, some niches, mainly related to entertainment, streaming, and sneaker or ticket hunting, are where Oxylabs won’t work for you. In that case, I suggest using one of the other providers on my list that is less strict with its proxy uses.
FAQ
What's the difference between private and shared proxies?
Shared proxies route multiple users’ traffic through one IP, while private proxies reserve a given IP only for your use. This means shared proxies are usually cheaper, while private proxies are far more secure and have broader use cases.
How much do private proxies cost?
Private proxy prices vary based on provider, type, and features offered. For example, Oxylabs offers private proxies starting at $2.25 per IP/month, but it also requires you to purchase at least three IPs. The exact pricing will depend on the minimum purchase, bulk discounts, and more.
Can there be private residential proxies?
Yes, you can get private residential proxies. If you’re looking for them, I’d suggest using Smartproxy, as it’s my top pick, offering private residential proxies.
Why shouldn’t you use free private proxies?
Free private proxies often lack reliability, security, and performance. They may expose your data to risks, have slow speeds, or even be unreliable. You’re better off using a low-cost private proxy provider like Oxylabs to keep your data secure.
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