Proxy glossary: the words on a pricing page
37 terms, each with the reason it changes what you pay. Misreading this vocabulary is how you buy the wrong plan, so every entry says what the word costs rather than only what it means.
Residential proxy
An IP address belonging to a real home internet connection, rented by the gigabyte. The hardest type to block and the most expensive.
ISP proxy
A hosted address registered to a consumer internet provider. Residential-looking identity at datacenter speed, and it stays yours.
Datacenter proxy
An address belonging to a server in a datacenter. Far cheaper than residential, and the first thing a careful site blocks.
Mobile proxy
An address on a phone carrier's network, shared by thousands of real subscribers. The hardest to block and the most expensive.
Proxy pool
The set of addresses a provider can route you through. The advertised size is a vendor claim nobody outside can verify.
Rotating proxy
A connection that hands you a different address on each request, or on a timer. The default for scraping at volume.
Sticky session
Holding the same proxy address for a set period so a login or checkout survives more than one request.
Backconnect
One gateway address that fans out to the whole pool behind it, so your code never handles an address list.
Concurrency limit
The cap on how many requests you can have in flight at once. Often the real constraint on a scraping job, not price.
Bandwidth overage
What a provider charges once you pass the gigabytes your plan includes. Often several times the headline rate.
Pay as you go
Buying bandwidth in top-ups instead of a monthly plan. Cheaper for bursty work, dearer per gigabyte.
Sub-user
A separate set of credentials under one account, so you can split traffic by project, client or machine.
ASN
The number identifying who owns a block of IP addresses. It is the first thing bot detection checks about you.
Geo-targeting
Choosing which country, city or carrier your requests appear to come from. Granularity varies enormously by provider.
KYC
The identity checks a provider runs before selling to you. Ranges from an email address to a company registration.
Success rate
The share of requests that get through. The number that decides everything, and the one no comparison table can give you.
Per-GB pricing
Billing by the gigabyte you move, the dominant model for residential proxies and the one most comparisons assume.
Per-IP pricing
Billing per address rented per month, with traffic uncounted. It cannot be honestly converted to a per-GB rate.
Traffic rollover
Whether gigabytes you paid for but did not use survive into the next billing period. Most providers do not say.
Prepaid traffic
Buying a block of gigabytes up front and drawing it down, instead of committing to a recurring monthly allowance.
Minimum commitment
The smallest spend or term a provider will sell, which decides whether an advertised rate is reachable by you at all.
Ports vs IPs
A numbered endpoint you connect to. On some providers a port is the billing unit, and it is not the same as an address.
IP whitelisting
Authenticating by registering your own server's address with the provider, instead of sending a username and password.
SOCKS5
A proxy protocol that forwards any TCP traffic rather than only HTTP, and the one some providers charge extra for.
Exit node
The address a target website actually sees. Everything before it in the chain is invisible to the site you are fetching.
Session duration
How long a provider will keep giving you the same address before it rotates, measured in minutes or requests.
Thread
One simultaneous connection. On unlimited-bandwidth plans, threads are usually the resource being sold instead of gigabytes.
Ban rate
The share of requests a target site refuses. The number that decides real cost, and the one nobody publishes.
CAPTCHA rate
How often a target serves a challenge instead of the page. A softer signal than a ban and it costs the same bytes.
Captcha solving service
A third party that clears a challenge for you and returns the token, billed per 1,000 solves rather than per gigabyte.
Solve rate
The price for clearing 1,000 challenges of one type. The unit every captcha solving service quotes, and it differs per type.
Captcha worker pay
What a solving service pays the person clearing a challenge, published on its own recruitment pages and rarely beside its prices.
IP reputation
How a target site scores an address before serving it, based on what that address has done elsewhere.
Subnet diversity
How spread out a pool's addresses are across networks. A large pool inside a few subnets behaves like a small one.
Credit (scraping API)
Scraping APIs bill in credits, and one credit buys different amounts of work depending on the request. What each provider charges, with sources.
Success-only billing
Compare successful-request billing policies, including chargeable errors, early cancellations and failed-request protection.
JavaScript rendering
Running a page's own scripts in a browser before returning it. Scraping APIs charge more for it, sometimes five times a plain fetch.