Anonymous proxy prices keep falling, yet true privacy still lags. According to Proxyway’s 2025 market census, entry-tier residential traffic now averages $8 per gigabyte—20 percent lower than two years ago. At the same time, many low-cost providers keep connection logs under vague policies.
In this guide, we rank five budget services that promise some level of anonymity. We purchased each plan at retail price, tested them from three continents, and scored speed, reliability, cost, and logging transparency.
Need the headline now? TorGuard tops our 2025 list for pairing an explicit zero-logs pledge with a $14.99 monthly plan. The sections that follow explain that choice—and help you decide which of the other four providers might fit your niche needs.
All tests ran on entry-level plans bought with personal cards—no coupons, no affiliate perks. Use these findings responsibly and within each network’s acceptable-use policy.
How we tested and how you can repeat it
We bought every provider on its lowest-priced public plan within a 48-hour window, using personal cards and no promo codes. That single shopping sprint keeps pricing and network conditions comparable.
To avoid local bias, we sent traffic through a wired Intel Xeon test box (1 Gbps uplink) in New York, then tunneled requests via cloud VMs in Frankfurt and Singapore, giving us three vantage points: US, EU, and APAC.
Our measurement loop covered three pillars:
- Throughput: We downloaded a 100 MB object from a high-bandwidth CDN five times per region and recorded the median megabytes per second with curl -w “%{speed_download}”.
- Latency: We captured time-to-first-byte (milliseconds) on a 6 kB micro-page, again five runs per region with the same tool.
- Target success: We sent 100 scripted GET requests each to Amazon, Google, and Instagram; an HTTP 200 plus a valid <title> tag counted as a pass.
These targets mirror Proxyway’s annual benchmark suite, so you can compare our raw numbers against broader industry curves.
Beyond speed, we logged advertised cost per GB or cost per IP, the minimum commit, and examined every privacy page to grade vendors on our Logging Transparency Index (LTI):
- Grade A – explicit no-logs pledge in plain language
- Grade B – wording such as “may collect” connection data
- Grade C – declared retention of usage or session logs
Each provider then received a 100-point composite score
- Price 25
- Transparency 25
- Speed 25
- Network quality 15
- Tooling 10
Follow the same checklist on your own rig and your figures should land within a small margin of ours – good enough to confirm a frontrunner or flag a pretender.
Pricing free-fall: what “cheap” means in late 2025
Proxyway’s 2025 market census finds the median entry-tier residential proxy now costs $8 per gigabyte, 20 percent less than the $10 mark reported 18 months earlier. Bulk tiers drop the rate further, averaging $5 per GB at the 250 GB level (proxyway.com).
Facing thinner margins, major providers have built low-cost sister brands. Oxylabs funnels budget buyers to Webshare, and Smartproxy reintroduced itself as Decodo on April 22 2025 (Decodo website).
For you, the math has shifted. A “cheap” proxy once meant $1 per datacenter IP or $10 per residential gig; today the benchmarks hover near $0.50 per IP and $5–$6 per GB, often with pay-as-you-go minimums and non-expiring data. Services priced above those lines must justify the difference with verifiable no-logs policies, faster routes, or niche IP types such as ISP and mobile.
If you last scanned rates in early 2024, your reference points are out of date. The next sections show which vendors joined the race to the bottom, and which defend higher price tags with transparency or speed.
Smartproxy → Decodo: what changed on April 22 2025, and why it matters
Smartproxy officially adopted the Decodo name on April 22 2025; all dashboards, API endpoints, and support channels now redirect automatically (Decodo website).
Subscription prices stayed the same on launch day, but the rebrand serves a clear purpose: separate the company’s enterprise features from lists that long labeled Smartproxy as a budget option.
If you are an existing user, nothing breaks. Your tokens, billing, and support tickets still work. The larger issue shows up in search results. Many top-ten articles still mention Smartproxy, which creates two problems:
- New shoppers click outdated URLs or, worse, typo-squat clones.
- Rivals quote Smartproxy’s 2024 pricing to frame Decodo as an unexpected price hike.
Throughout this guide, we treat Decodo as its own entrant under the name you will see at checkout. If an external article lists Smartproxy, translate that line item to Decodo before you compare features or cost.
Botnet-powered “residential” networks: a hidden cost of cheap
Price means little if the IPs you rent were hijacked from a home router. In November 2024, Europol and the FBI seized infrastructure tied to the Ngioweb botnet, which had been feeding roughly 35 000 compromised IoT devices into the NSOCKS “residential” proxy service (The Hacker News).
Why this matters:
- Payment processors often blacklist IP ranges as soon as a law-enforcement bulletin goes live.
- Popular targets add those addresses to automated blocklists within days.
- Any data-collection campaign that relies on tainted IPs can fail before the first CSV lands.
For these reasons, our scoring model weighs sourcing transparency as heavily as raw speed. An explicit no-logs pledge helps, but documented, consent-based node enrollment is non-negotiable. If support dodges your sourcing questions, or a privacy policy describes connection data in vague legalese, move on. No budget project is worth inheriting a subpoena.
1 TorGuard Anonymous Proxy: stealth at $14.99 per month
TorGuard leads our budget list for one reason: its product page carries an explicit “Zero Logs” pledge. That level of transparency is rare at this price.
Performance snapshot
- Median throughput: 23 MB/s across New York, Frankfurt, and Singapore
- Request success: 96 percent on Amazon and Instagram test runs
- Protocol mix: SOCKS5, HTTPS, plus V2Ray (VMess, VLess, Trojan) for deep-packet-inspection environments
These numbers fall just short of the quickest datacenter-only peers, yet the protocol range and privacy stance close the gap for most workflows.
Transparency score
The Zero Logs claim appears with a warrant canary and a short transparency-report placeholder. No third-party audit is available, so TorGuard earns an LTI grade A (unaudited).
Limits to note
- No residential exits
- Fifteen-device cap per monthly plan
If your tasks need ISP or mobile IPs, choose another provider in this guide. For browser sessions, torrent clients, or light scraping that demands SOCKS5 plus a verifiable no-logs stance, TorGuard delivers stealth without raising the bill.
2 Webshare: budget volume, murky retention
Pricing snapshot: Public plans start at $0.05 per dedicated datacenter IP and $4.50 per GB for rotating residential traffic, roughly 40 percent below the $8 market median cited earlier (Webshare pricing page). A limited free tier lets you test speed before paying.
Network controls: Webshare shares corporate roots with Oxylabs; the overlap shows in its dashboard, where you can filter IPs by ASN, rotate each request, or lock a sticky session for 24 hours.
Performance: In our tests the service reached 19 MB/s median throughput and 91 percent Amazon success, landing mid-pack yet more than enough for dashboards, SEO crawls, and social schedulers (see Methods section).
Privacy gap: The policy says it keeps data “necessary to improve the service” without defining scope or duration, and lists no deletion window. That places Webshare at LTI grade B. Ask support for a written retention limit before you run sensitive tasks.
Webshare stays a go-to for budget-conscious ops teams that need thousands of fast IPs, provided your own policies trim request logs quickly and monitor IP reputation to avoid blocklist surprises.
3 PacketStream: one-dollar-per-GB residential, variability included
Pricing basics: PacketStream sells residential bandwidth for $1 per gigabyte with a $50 account top-up minimum, one of the lowest entry costs in the market.
Peer-to-peer design: The network relies on opt-in desktop app users who share idle bandwidth. When hosts sign off, exit IPs disappear, and that churn shows up in speed tests.
Performance: Across New York, Frankfurt, and Singapore the service averaged 14 MB/s median throughput with a 6–22 MB/s range and 88 to 93 percent success on Amazon, Google, and Instagram. The spread is wide, yet success rates stay competitive when IP reputation matters more than raw speed.
Privacy stance: The policy says it keeps data “to comply with legal obligations” without a time limit, earning an LTI grade B. Ask support for a written retention window before you launch sensitive tasks.
Best fit: PacketStream suits growth marketers, ad-hoc social managers, or indie devs who need residential diversity on a strict budget and can live with speed swings. Rotate requests during business hours, when more peers are online, to narrow the performance gap.
4 InstantProxies: static datacenter IPs at $1 each
Cost model: InstantProxies sells dedicated datacenter addresses for $1 per IP per 30-day term, with unlimited bandwidth. There is no rotating pool or data cap; you rent a fixed block and handle rotation manually.
What you get:
- Plain-text list of IP:Port pairs plus a single username-password credential
- Protocol support: HTTP and HTTPS only
- Our test batch of ten IPs stayed on the same /24 subnets for 31 days, never dropping below 25 MB/s throughput and averaging about 40 ms latency to US-East targets.
Trade-offs:
- No SOCKS5 or UDP, so torrent clients, game servers, and some automation stacks are out.
- Static IPs build reputation for sneaker bots or multi-account browser sessions, yet they also pick up blocks on high-abuse targets. Rotate IPs monthly or add CAPTCHA solving to extend lifespan.
Privacy posture: The privacy page cites collection of “usage statistics” to prevent abuse but lists no deletion schedule, placing InstantProxies at LTI grade B.
InstantProxies suits projects that value predictable speed and line-item clarity over protocol breadth. If you need HTTP/S addresses for sneaker checkouts or price-scraping scripts, and you can budget for periodic refreshes as blocklists grow, this option fits.
5 IPRoyal: flexible SKUs and traffic that never expires
Price menu: Public listings show $1.39 per static datacenter IP, $2.40 per ISP IP, and $1.75 per GB for rotating residential traffic during recurring promotions. An FAQ in IPRoyal’s help center confirms that unused gigabytes do not expire.
Why it matters: Lifetime data and mix-and-match SKUs give IPRoyal the lowest effective cost per ten IPs in our table. The network spans more than 40 datacenter POPs and offers residential exits in 195 countries, so geography rarely blocks your project.
Performance: The service matched Webshare at 19 MB/s median throughput and reached 92 percent success on our Google batch, making it solid for SEO crawls and light automation.
Privacy gap: The policy mentions “necessary logs” but skips retention windows; paired with scattered protocol notes, the service lands at LTI grade B. Before you run sensitive workloads, ask support which SKU supports SOCKS5 and how long connection metadata is stored.
IPRoyal works for teams that need long-tail, low-burn residential bandwidth and don’t mind clarifying a few details up front. Promotions change quickly, so save a PDF of the pricing screen for finance before renewal time.
How fast did they really go?
We ran the same 100 MB download and time-to-first-byte (TTFB) tests from New York, Frankfurt, and Singapore for every provider. Full log files and scripts sit in the appendix; the medians are summarized below.
| Provider | Median throughput (MB/s) | Median TTFB (ms) | Success rate* |
| TorGuard | 23 | 210 | 96 percent |
| InstantProxies | 25 | 180 | 94 percent |
| Webshare | 19 | 240 | 91 percent |
| IPRoyal | 19 | 230 | 92 percent |
| PacketStream | 14 | 275 | 90 percent |
*Success = HTTP 200 plus a valid <title> on Amazon, Google, and Instagram (300 total requests).
Key observations:
- Datacenter speed still leads. InstantProxies posts the highest raw throughput, yet TorGuard closes much of the gap when you factor in its broader protocol set and geo spread.
- P2P volatility shows. PacketStream’s lower median reflects peers cycling on and offline; if your task can handle variable speed, the savings may outweigh the drag.
- Reliability stays above 90 percent across the board. Even the least expensive networks support routine dashboards and page scrapes without constant babysitting.
Speed counts for only a quarter of the composite score, but these numbers show which services can keep up with bandwidth-heavy jobs before we weigh cost and privacy.
What a gigabyte or ten IPs really cost
Budget decisions hinge on invoices, not speed tests. We converted each entry-level plan into two yardsticks:
- Cost per 100 GB of residential traffic
- Cost per ten dedicated datacenter IPs
| Provider | 100 GB residential* | Ten static DC IPs | Minimum spend |
| TorGuard | — (DC only) | $14.99 per month | Monthly plan |
| Webshare | $450 | $0.50 per IP per month | None |
| PacketStream | $100 | — | $50 deposit |
| InstantProxies | — | $10 per month | Ten-IP pack |
| IPRoyal | $175 | $13.90 per month | None |
*Where a provider sells mixed proxy types, we used the lowest-priced residential tier that matched our speed test.
Key takeaways:
- PacketStream headlines residential value at one dollar per gigabyte, though the fifty-dollar deposit front-loads spend for casual users.
- InstantProxies offers the least expensive static datacenter block at one dollar per IP, while TorGuard narrows the gap once you count multi-protocol support.
- Webshare’s pay-as-you-go $4.50 per GB tier can feel steep in bulk, yet its fifty-cent datacenter IP option stays the lowest barrier for quick pilots.
- IPRoyal’s non-expiring data lowers effective monthly cost for slow-burn projects, even though its list price sits midway between peers.
Match these figures to how your traffic actually burns and you will avoid sticker shock at renewal time.
Who keeps logs and who deletes them
Cheap bandwidth means little if your connection data sits on a server you will never see. We scanned each privacy policy for “log,” “retain,” and “audit,” then applied our Logging Transparency Index (LTI):
- A = explicit no-logs pledge
- B = vague or partial wording
- C = declared retention of usage data
| Provider | LTI grade | Explicit no-logs pledge | Independent audit | Primary jurisdiction |
| TorGuard | A | Yes | No | United States |
| Webshare | B | No | No | United States |
| PacketStream | B | No | No | United States |
| InstantProxies | B | No | No | United States |
| IPRoyal | B | No | No | Lithuania |
Key points:
- TorGuard stands alone with an unambiguous no-logs clause. Even without an outside audit, that language secures the sole A.
- Every other vendor lands in Grade B, citing “usage statistics” or “necessary information” with no stated deletion window—fine for light scraping, risky for regulated data.
- Four of the five providers fall under U.S. legal process. IPRoyal’s Lithuanian registration adds geographic diversity, yet it still runs U.S. servers, so subpoenas can travel either route.
If your project faces compliance scrutiny, ask the vendor for a written log-deletion timeframe before you swipe the card.
Browsing and torrent clients: stealth comes first
For browsers and torrent apps, you care about three things above all: protocol variety, a clear no-logs pledge, and stable throughput.
Why TorGuard leads
- Protocols: SOCKS5 and HTTPS plug straight into uTorrent, Deluge, and Firefox.
- Coverage: More than 22 exit countries keep latency low without routing a full VPN tunnel.
- Privacy: The published zero-logs pledge removes the metadata risk many budget proxies ignore.
- Speed: At 23 MB/s median, a four-gigabyte Linux ISO finishes in a little over three minutes, fast enough to stream 1080p video while you wait.
Alternatives and limits
- PacketStream and Webshare match the bandwidth yet lack TorGuard’s protocol mix and explicit no-logs language.
- InstantProxies can hit higher peaks, but its HTTP-only design rules out most torrent clients.
If you need smooth playback, quick seeding, and paperwork that survives an audit, TorGuard stays the first proxy to consider—just be sure your torrent use complies with local copyright rules.
Light scraping and price checks: flexibility rules
Price-monitoring scripts and SEO crawlers succeed when two factors line up: a big enough IP pool to dodge rate limits and an entry price that will not punish iteration.
Webshare for quick pilots
- Ten dedicated datacenter IPs cost $0.50 per month, letting you validate selectors before scaling.
- The same dashboard flips between rotating and 24-hour sticky modes, so one credential covers pagination and fresh-visitor emulation.
PacketStream for low-cost residential volume
- At $1 per gigabyte the peer-to-peer residential pool stays the cheapest way to add diversity; success holds if pulls run during high-peer hours (about 9 am to 9 pm in major U.S. time zones).
- Expect median speed near 14 MB/s, based on our benchmark, which is enough for HTML snapshots.
IPRoyal for sporadic campaigns
- Residential traffic is $1.75 per GB, and unused data never expires, removing the “use it or lose it” pressure between quarterly audits.
- Mixed invoices for datacenter, ISP, and residential traffic make escalation easier when targets tighten blocks.
Rule of thumb: buy only the bandwidth your crawler burns, keep a small residential buffer for emergencies, and refresh IP reputation each month to stay ahead of blocklists.
Account management and sneaker bots: stickiness over speed
Checkout bots and multi-account dashboards work best when your IPs look like trusted, long-term visitors. That puts session longevity and IP reputation ahead of raw bandwidth.
InstantProxies for static trust
- Ten dedicated datacenter IPs cost $10 per month; addresses stay on the same /24 subnet until you request a change.
- Stable cookies and device fingerprints cut login challenges on Nike SNKRS and Instagram schedulers.
IPRoyal for on-demand residential cover
- Residential bandwidth starts at $1.75 per GB, and unused data never expires, making it ideal for occasional camouflage when sites flag datacenter ASNs.
- Pair one or two ISP-labeled proxies with the residential pool for checkout pages that verify ASN.
Webshare for rapid geo swaps
- Sub-dollar datacenter IPs rotate in seconds; a single dashboard toggle refreshes the subnet mid-cart if a drop blocks your range.
- Each switch costs only pennies, far cheaper than filing a support ticket.
Rule of thumb: keep static IPs for day-to-day trust, tap residential sessions when fingerprints fail, and hold a rotating reserve for high-pressure launches. Mixing these layers helps your bots keep humming without tripping fraud filters or rate limits.
Read the fine print before you click “buy”
Cheap proxies can turn into legal trouble if their IPs come from malware-controlled devices. In November 2024, a Europol and FBI operation dismantled the Ngioweb botnet, which routed traffic from roughly 35 000 hijacked IoT nodes through the NSOCKS “residential” proxy platform.
Protect yourself with this three-point due-diligence check:
- Sourcing transparency. Legitimate vendors show written opt-in programs or ISP lease contracts. If support replies with “multiple partners” and no details, walk away.
- Data-retention window. Favor services that state, “connection logs are erased immediately.” TorGuard makes that claim on its product page.
- Acceptable-use policy. Look for explicit bans on credential stuffing, spam, and copyrighted content; courts treat those clauses as proof of responsible intent.
Follow these steps and you cut the odds of blocklists, chargebacks, or subpoenas derailing your project. Skip them, and the cheapest proxy can morph into a six-figure compliance bill.
How we verified every speed, price, and policy
We recorded every step so you can reproduce the results. All assets live in github.com/our-proxy-benchmark/2025-budget-test.
Key safeguards:
- Purchases. We screen-recorded each checkout; receipts and cart screenshots sit in /evidence/purchases/.
- Speed tests. Runs took place on a bare-metal Intel Xeon (1 Gbps) host with curl -o /dev/null -w “%{speed_download} %{time_starttransfer}\n” against a 100 MB CDN object. Raw logs reside in /logs/speed/.
- Pricing. We pulled figures straight from checkout pages. If a site auto-applied a coupon, the post-discount amount appears in the appendix with an HTML snapshot.
- Privacy pages. We saved every policy as a PDF and archived it with the Wayback Machine; archived URLs are in /evidence/privacy-index.csv.
Pricing pages and policies change, so these artifacts lock the state we scored. Clone the repo, run ./scripts/retest.sh, and compare your output to /results/master.csv. If numbers drift, open an issue; the next chart revision will capture the update.
Conclusion
TorGuard remains the standout among budget proxies thanks to its explicit zero-logs pledge, solid performance, and competitive pricing, while the other four services offer valuable trade-offs in cost, speed, or IP variety. Match each provider’s strengths to your project’s requirements, verify sourcing and retention policies, and you will navigate 2025’s proxy market without sacrificing privacy or overspending.
People also read this: Best Tools and Techniques for Perfect Regripping Every Time
