Best Value Proxy Plans for Web Scraping
Web scraping is the most common use case for proxy services, but not all scraping projects have the same requirements. The best value plan depends on your target sites, request volume, and data type.
Matching Your Scraping Workload to a Plan
Light scraping (under 5,000 pages/day): A 5 GB residential plan at $4.75/GB ($23.75/month) handles this comfortably with text-only scraping and compression enabled. At 20 KB average per page, 5 GB covers approximately 250,000 pages.
Medium scraping (5,000--50,000 pages/day): A 20 GB residential plan at $4.50/GB ($90/month) provides ample bandwidth. Alternatively, 25 ISP proxies at $2.47/IP ($61.75/month) with unlimited bandwidth may be more cost-effective if you are targeting fewer domains.
Heavy scraping (50,000+ pages/day): At this scale, ISP proxies almost always win on cost. A 50-pack at $2.35/IP ($117.50/month) provides unlimited bandwidth, which is critical when scraping at high volume. Reserve residential proxies for sites that specifically block ISP-range IPs.
Cost Optimization by Target Site Type
| Target Type | Recommended Proxy | Why | Estimated Cost (100K pages/month) |
|---|---|---|---|
| E-commerce (Amazon, eBay) | Residential | Strict anti-bot, needs residential IPs | $9--$20 (2--4 GB) |
| Search engines (Google, Bing) | Residential | Geo-targeting essential | $4.50--$9 (1--2 GB) |
| News/media sites | ISP | Light protection, speed matters | $12.35 (5 IPs) |
| Social media (public data) | Residential | IP diversity prevents rate limits | $13.50--$22.50 (3--5 GB) |
| Real estate listings | ISP | Stable sessions for pagination | $12.35 (5 IPs) |
| Job boards | ISP or Residential | Varies by site | $12--$20 |
The Scraper's ROI Framework
Before choosing a plan, calculate your expected return:
- Value per data point: How much is each scraped record worth to your business?
- Required volume: How many records do you need per month?
- Proxy cost per record: Total proxy spend divided by successful records collected.
Example: A price intelligence company scraping 500,000 product prices monthly. Each price point saves $0.02 in manual research time.
- Monthly value: 500,000 x $0.02 = $10,000
- Proxy cost: 50 GB residential at $4.40/GB = $220
- ROI: 45x return on proxy investment
Scraping-Specific Features That Save Money
Hex Proxies includes several features that directly reduce scraping costs:
- Auto-rotation: New IP per request without manual configuration, ensuring high success rates
- Sticky sessions: Maintain the same IP for multi-page crawls, reducing failed continuations
- City-level targeting: Pinpoint specific geos without wasting bandwidth on incorrect regions
- SOCKS5 support: Lower overhead than HTTPS for compatible scrapers
- Real-time dashboard: Catch bandwidth leaks before they drain your plan
Recommended Stack for Maximum Value
For professional scraping operations, we recommend a hybrid approach:
- 50 ISP proxies ($117.50/month) for your primary, high-volume targets
- 20 GB residential ($90/month) for protected sites requiring residential IPs
- Total: $207.50/month covering virtually any scraping workload
This combination provides unlimited bandwidth for your main targets and residential coverage for the rest, all managed from a single Hex Proxies dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use residential or ISP proxies for web scraping?
It depends on your targets. ISP proxies are better value for high-volume scraping of lightly protected sites. Residential proxies are necessary for heavily protected sites (like Amazon or Google) that require genuine residential IPs.
How much bandwidth does web scraping use?
With text-only scraping and compression, expect 20--50 KB per page. Full-page scraping with assets uses 200 KB--2 MB per page. A 20 GB plan covers 10,000--1,000,000 pages depending on content type.
Can I use Hex Proxies with Scrapy, Puppeteer, or Playwright?
Yes. Hex Proxies works with all major scraping frameworks including Scrapy, Puppeteer, Playwright, Selenium, and custom HTTP clients. Configuration requires only the gateway address and authentication credentials.
Optimize Your Scraping Budget
Mix ISP ($2.08/IP) and residential ($4.25/GB) proxies for maximum coverage at minimum cost.
Related Resources
Best Proxies for Web Scraping in 2026
A data-driven guide to choosing the best proxy for web scraping. Includes testing methodology, success rate benchmarks by site category, code examples in three languages, and a site-category recommendation matrix.
Residential Proxies
High-quality residential proxies with rotating IPs from 100+ countries. Perfect for web scraping, data collection, and market research.
ISP Proxies
Ultra-fast ISP proxies with static IPs and unlimited bandwidth. Optimized for sneaker sites, social media, and high-speed tasks.
Rotating Proxies
Automatic IP rotation with every request or on a timed interval. Built for large-scale scraping and data collection.