7 Leading Brands Offering Residential Proxies for Web Scraping & Market Research

In the modern data-driven economy, entrepreneurs use web scraping and market research to trace competitors, monitor prices, analyze sentiment and identify trends. However, obtaining reliable and large-scale data is not that simple.

Increasingly, websites implement IP blacklists, bot-detection algorithms and geo-restrictions, so it is challenging to obtain the needed information without technical issues. The publicly available datasets may differ with the locations and frequent requests generated by a specific IP will easily trigger blocks.

Residential proxies help to tackle these challenges by directing the traffic via actual devices with IP addresses issued by an ISP. This makes the requests look like the normal activities of a user and bypasses restrictions and grants access to geo-specific content. They also allow configuring rotating or sticky sessions, allowing a wide variety of use cases such as bulk-scraping or account-based research.

Nevertheless, with dozens of providers making claims of superior speed, pools of IP, or reliability, selecting the right provider requires understanding of not only technical advantages, but also real-world applications as well.

This article lists seven of the top providers that can offer stable and high-performance residential proxies ideally suited to serious web scraping and market research activities.

1. NetNut – ISP-Connected Residential Proxy Network

NetNut is known to have direct ISP-sourced IPs, which simply means it does not rely on peer-to-peer device sharing, which is unstable. This strategy assures constant uptime and predictable performance.

With 85+ million IPs across 195+ countries, NetNut supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 protocols, making it compatible with a wide range of scraping tools, including Python frameworks (Scrapy, Playwright), browser automation (Selenium, Puppeteer), and API-based data extraction systems.

NetNut offers both rotating and static residential proxies:

Key technical advantages:

The performance metrics suggest success rates of between 96-99%, even against platforms that boast of aggressive anti-bot protection. For companies engaged in price-aggregation, monitoring travel fares, or scouting competitors, the combination of scale, targeting accuracy, and session stability that is available within NetNut is difficult to beat.

2. Bright Data – Massive IP Pool and Enterprise-Grade Features

Bright Data (previously Luminati) has one of the largest residential IP networks in the world, which is composed of over 150 million IPs in virtually every country.

It is known to have sophisticated control features and diverse proxy configurations, including rotating, static, and mobile, backed by effective developer tools.

Its Proxy Manager allows for:

Bright Data also provides Data Collector APIs and browser automation integrations that save the development cost for teams that want a ready-to-use scraping infrastructure. It allows credential-based authentication as well as IP whitelisting authentication, so it can fit in with enterprise security practices.

Although it has one of the highest prices among competitors on the market, a set of scale, precision, and reliability allows Bright Data to be a de facto product of choice for global-scale research projects, multinational brand monitoring, and region-specific market entry analysis.

3. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) – Balanced Performance and Anonymity

Decodo provides a 40+ million residential IP pool that assures great anonymity and excellent prices. It resolves the IPs automatically using rotating residential backconnect gateways with configurable session persistence, and this is key to tasks requiring a combination of scale and consistency- such as SEO monitoring, retail inventory tracking, and localized search analysis.

Furthermore, it has an easy-to-use dashboard and can easily be set up by first-time users as well as experienced users. It can also be used with Python scraping libraries, browser automation services and third-party SEO tools.

Decodo also offers in-depth request statistics, which assist the user in fine-tuning rotation frequencies and targeting to achieve a higher success rate. For those companies that have a need for cost-effective, simple to use and network reliability, Decodo still reigns supreme.

4. IPRoyal – Cost-Effective and Beginner-Friendly

IPRoyal offers a pricing plan and simple interface suitable for small and medium-sized teams.

It has a 2+ million IP pool that supports sticky sessions up to 30 minutes and accurate geo-targeting.

Advantages include:

Although it cannot compete with larger providers in terms of the number of available pools and geographical coverage, IPRoyal can be the best option in case of smaller research studies, local verification of content, and social media analysis. It is particularly attractive to new scraping teams testing residential IP workflows, and are unwilling to spend large sums of money monthly.

5. Oxylabs – Compliance-First Proxy Solutions

Oxylabs serves enterprise customers who are focused on the ethical process of data acquisition and adherence to the law.

It has a network of 100+ million residential IPs offering a high uptime and strong geo-targeting capacities.

Key offerings:

The legal support team of Oxylabs will assist in sustaining compliance with laws bound to GDPR and other data protection laws, certifying it as a wise choice in sectors where regulations are tight, i.e., in finance, pharmaceuticals, and research in the public sector.

6. SOAX – Precision Targeting with ISP and Mobile Filters

SOAX offers 8+ million clean residential IPs and has notable fine-grained targeting features. The users have the ability to filter by ISP, ASN, the type of connection and location, offering highly controlled scraping scenarios.

One of the greatest strengths is session control, which allows users to keep an IP as long as they like or rotate every specific period. This comes in handy when checking ads, UX, or tracking SERPs in different locations.

Its IP cleanliness ensures low block rates, resulting in higher scraping performance in general. 

SOAX targets those teams that are more interested in specific accuracy than in large IP pools.

7. PacketStream – Bandwidth-Sharing Model for Budget Projects

The peer-to-peer network that the company PacketStream provides with residential IPs is one of the cheapest on the market since it costs only $1 per GB.

The trade-off is that the quality and stability of IP may change with the availability of the participants.

It’s best suited for:

Although it is not the best choice to use in mission-critical or high-volume tasks, it is simple and ultracheap, and a good way to get started as a freelancer or by a small team of employees.

How to Choose the Right Residential Proxy Provider?

Before committing to a provider, evaluate your use case against the following technical and operational factors:

1. IP Pool Size and Quality

Larger IP pools increase your chances of accessing clean, unblocked addresses from diverse regions. However, quality matters as much as quantity—look for providers with strong IP hygiene practices, regular blacklist checks, and a wide geographic distribution to ensure consistent performance in targeted markets.

2. Rotation and Session Control

For high-frequency scraping, short rotation intervals help avoid detection and bans. For login-based or transaction-heavy scraping, sticky sessions are critical. The ability to customize rotation timing or maintain an IP for hours ensures flexibility across projects with different operational and security requirements.

3. Geo-Targeting Precision

Country-level targeting may suffice for broad research, but city- or ISP-level targeting is essential for hyper-local market intelligence. Precise targeting improves relevance, helps replicate user conditions, and allows for accurate competitive analysis when monitoring region-specific content, pricing variations, or localized advertising campaigns.

4. Protocol Support

Ensure support for HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 for maximum compatibility across tools and frameworks. SOCKS5, in particular, is valuable for handling non-HTTP traffic, P2P applications, and tasks requiring additional authentication layers, giving developers more versatility in complex scraping environments.

5. Authentication Options

Both credential-based and IP whitelisting authentication should be available for secure and flexible integration. Multiple authentication methods allow for better team collaboration, compatibility with automation tools, and easier access control in enterprise environments where security compliance is mandatory.

6. Pricing Model

Match your budget to usage patterns—monthly plans suit predictable workloads, while pay-as-you-go works for irregular scraping. Transparent billing, volume discounts, and trial options also help ensure you get the best cost-to-performance ratio without hidden fees or wasted bandwidth.

7. Compliance & Ethical Use

Choose providers with clear Acceptable Use Policies and compliance frameworks to avoid legal complications. Adhering to data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA protects your business reputation, reduces regulatory risks, and ensures long-term operational stability for ongoing research projects.

Final Thoughts

Residential proxies have evolved into a strategic necessity for organizations relying on continuous, large-scale data acquisition. They not only unlock access to geographically restricted or protected datasets but also ensure the reliability and completeness of collected information.

For enterprise-grade reliability and ISP-connected IPs, NetNut leads the field. Bright Data offers unmatched global coverage and advanced control, while Decodo delivers balanced performance at competitive rates. IPRoyal and PacketStream provide entry-level affordability, SOAX excels in hyper-targeted geo-filters, and Oxylabs remains a leader for compliance-heavy environments.

By aligning your project’s goals—whether speed, geographic accuracy, regulatory compliance, or cost efficiency—with the strengths of a provider, you can build a web scraping and market research operation that is both scalable and sustainable.