"Cheapest residential proxy" is a search query with a hidden trap: the lowest price per GB and the lowest cost per successful request are not the same number. This post breaks down ten budget-to-mid-tier residential proxy providers from a cost-and-reliability angle, plus a script for measuring the metric that actually matters before you commit real traffic.
The trap: price per GB vs. cost per success
A proxy at $0.50/GB that fails half your requests is more expensive than one at $1.40/GB with a 98% success rate, because you're paying for retries, wasted bandwidth, and engineering time spent debugging "random" failures. Before comparing sticker prices, calculate:
real_cost = traffic_price + failed_request_overhead + retries + setup_time + support_delays
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