Just like its name, proxy-cheap is one of the cheapest proxy providers in the market, and very user-friendly for personal or small businesses. It also has other benefits, which I'll reveal in this article.
- 6+ Million IPs from 127+ countries
- Offer Countries Geo-targeting
- Supported random & session IP
Whether you are a tech-savvy or a business person, the name proxy may be familiar. You use proxies every time to connect to geo-blocked or censored sites. However, what matters most is the affordability and quality of a proxy. With Proxy-cheap, you can achieve both of these aspects. But that is not all with Proxy-Cheap because it has other benefits like.
Proxy-Cheap Pros and Cons
Throughout our study in the Proxy-Cheap, there are issues we like and others we don't like with this proxy provider. So, let's start with:
Why We Like it
- Cheap and flexible pricing: It has low rates like $3, 4$, and $ 5. These values stretch with a bandwidth range.
- Good location coverage: Its residential proxies cover around 127 countries around the world.
- No monthly commitment: The pricing of Proxy-Cheap’s residential proxies is unconditional, they only depend on the bandwidth size.
- Easy to use dashboard: Everything is directly found in the dashboard panel. No dashboard configurations but an easy-to-manage dashboard.
- Supports the new IPV6: With the IPV6, Proxy-Cheap promises higher data security, more packet capturing, and efficient data tunneling.
Why We Don't Like it
No FAQS, blogs, or Tutorials: Proxy-Cheap has no FAQS or tutorials that answer burning questions or demonstrates some technical queries.
Limited geo-targeting: No ASN, City, or ISP geo-targeting. Hence, if you want to target a specific city, Proxy-Cheap may not be suitable for you.
Complicated trial system: The process of free trial is confusing. Proxy-Cheap claims that they offer a free trial, but when you register and pay them, there is no refund for any trial.
Proxy-Cheap Overview
In general, Proxy-Cheap has one of the highest IP pools of around six million. These IPs are generally the residential IPs that emanate from ISP. The residential IPs are found in around 127 regions and rotate under HTTPS request or a specific time.
Secondly, we have the datacentre proxies that you find in several Proxy-Cheap's datacentres. Lastly, we have mobile proxies which you can use with a mobile phone. In other words, they are tied to SIM Cards. Not to forget, all these proxy types have HTTP or SOCKS 5 protocols. You can access them with either IP authentication or username authentication.
Proxy-Cheap IP Types
As pointed earlier, Proxy-Cheap has Datacentre proxies, Residential proxies, and Mobile proxies. The residential proxies are the most popular Proxy-Cheap because you find them in 127 countries globally. These proxies have a geo-filter feature that targets particular countries.
The residential proxies have about six million IPs which rotates under a session or an HTTP request. When you acquire a new IP for every request, it ensures a higher anonymity level. Still, the residential proxies have an IP session or sticky time which is about thirty minutes.
The second type is the datacentre proxies. These proxies emanate from Proxy-Cheap servers and not ISP’s residential ones. Datacentre proxies are also private and consist of IPV4 and IPV6. Most significantly, the IPV6 enhances speed, security, efficiency and higher traffic in datacentres proxies.
Thirdly, we have mobile proxies. You can use the mobile proxies with mobile phones, modems or other devices that support the 3G or 4G SIM card. When you are in a remote area where ISP proxies or datacentres network cannot reach, you could use mobile proxies. Mobile proxies also host thousands of IPs. These IPs rotate under specific time or per requests to help you browse anonymously.
Proxy-Cheap Pricing
As pointed earlier, Proxy-Cheap has Datacentre proxies, Residential proxies, and Mobile proxies. The residential proxies are the most popular Proxy-Cheap because you find them in 127 countries globally. These proxies have a geo-filter feature that targets particular countries.
The residential proxies have about six million IPs which rotates under a session or an HTTP request. When you acquire a new IP for every request, it ensures a higher anonymity level. Still, the residential proxies have an IP session or sticky time which is about thirty minutes.
When it comes to pricing of Proxy-Cheap, the prices are different in each proxy type. First, we have the residential proxies pricing, which is charged per bandwidth and starts at $4.99 per GB to $3 per two to three-hundred GB. That means Proxy-Cheap offers a discount if you move to higher bandwidth.
Unlike other proxy providers which specify the bandwidth to use, Proxy-cheap gives you a choice to choose any bandwidth size without any monthly obligations. That is advantageous when you want a higher bandwidth without an expiry date.
Next, we have the datacentre proxies, which are the cheapest of all the proxy types. Could you believe that they cost as low as $0.30 per proxy? That seems the lowest price ever but sorry to disappoint you because some costs are added to their package. For instance, on top of $0.30, you have to pay a fixed $150 monthly price. Also, this package accounts for the number of IPV4 and IPV6.
However, we would recommend you a $4.99 plan which only has IPv4 pricing with a low monthly price of $4.99. Lastly, we have mobile proxies, which also rates its proxies per month. On that note, Proxy-Cheap categorizes its mobile plan in countries like France, United States, and Lithuania.
Proxy-Cheap recommends the United States 3G among the three mobile packages because it costs fifty dollars on random proxies and has a sticky 30 minutes IP session. Else, if you want a 4G network with a free mobile operator, you could use the France package.
Proxy-Cheap Authentication
Unlike most proxy providers, Proxy-Cheap's residential proxies do not support IP Authentication. In other words, they only support Username/Password authentication.
Proxy-Cheap companies give you the username or password authentication once you register with them. However, they provide complex username/password details, which are hard to master. Also, you cannot change them. To find the username or password authentication, you only tap the gear icon on the panel's right side.
On the other hand, there is IP authentication in mobile and datacentre proxies. The Proxy-Cheap system requires you to whitelist an IP that they will use to connect you to websites. They can use your ISP Address to whitelist you, or they choose another IP from trusted sources.
Proxy-Cheap Protocols
When you want to add more security details to your data, Proxy-Cheap has got you covered with HTTP(S) or Socks5. These protocols are an extension to the typical HTTP platforms that are unsecured. The most commonly used protocols for all proxy types are HTTPS.
HTTPS provides two security layers like Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Secure Layer (TLS). Both of these secure layers encrypt your data against snoopers, hackers or trackers.
Lastly, we have the SOCKS 5 protocols present in the datacentre and mobile proxy types but absent in residential proxies. Socks 5 protocols are also secure with SSH technology that encrypts data. They also light to evade blocks, errors or Captchas. Not to mention their fast connection that comes because of their light nature.
Testing Proxy-Cheap
Proxy-cheap seems incredible in its theory, but what if we test it? On that note, we tested Proxy-Cheap on four platforms. These platforms include data scraping, social platform, sneaker sites and speed. If you want to see their results, they are in the table below.
| Tested for | Data scraping | Social platform | Sneaker sites | Speed test |
| Rating | 76/100 | 78/100 | 77/100 | 86/100 |
Generally, the performance of all four samples are fair considering that some of the Proxy-Cheap competitors are expensive. Most significantly, we were impressed with the speed of this proxy provider. But that is not all because we will elaborate on each sample and our finding on each of them. Therefore, our first test was the scraping performance.
For Data Scraping Performance
Average success rate on E-commerce websites- 76%
As you can see from the table, Target.com, Best Buy and eBay were above average. Notably, we were impressed with eBay performance of 81%, knowing how it has a strict anti-scraping policy. However, Aliexpress did not reach our target score of 70 %( we will explain the reasons later in the sections.)
Amazon was the first site we conducted the test. We knew that we had an uphill task when considering that Amazon is one of the most challenging sites to scrape. However, to our amazement, Proxy-cheap produced excellent results with Amazon. Except for the few Captchas timeouts and several connection errors, Amazon would have performed even better.
Our next project was eBay. Like in Amazon, we thought eBay could perform lower, but that was contrary to our expectations. eBay produced above eighty percent results. Their connection speed was satisfactory and the sticky time in Proxy-Cheap allowed us to scrape more info. There were also few blocks and 404(not found) connection errors in eBay.
The likes of Walmart, Target.com and Best Buy had a fast connection, but they blocked us, and we experienced errors. There were also timeouts with these proxy providers. But those timeouts, errors, blocks and Captchas were not many as compared to Aliexpress. We hardly could connect to that site because of too many errors, 404 and 401(unauthorized) errors.
In conclusion, Proxy-cheap will work well if you have some Captchas removers and error removers. We also attribute the good performance of scraping sites because Proxy-Cheap supports scraping bots. Still, its rotating IPs enhance anonymous scraping.
Test on Social websites
Average success rate on Social Media – 78%
Overall, we were impressed by the social media scraping. The average was 78% which was satisfactory considering its affordable cost. The success rate depended on the successful scraping of social media accounts, creating multiple accounts, and social media marketing.
We got the social media's percentages from the number of Captchas, blocks, timeouts, and errors. On that note, there were few Captchas, zero blocks, and only 404 errors in platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Reedit.
Our main worry at first was to scrape Facebook and YouTube using Proxy-Cheap. We started with the $5 per 1GB residential plan, which somehow refused to connect to those sites. Therefore, we had to increase the plan to a higher bandwidth that would unlock those restrictions. From that point, the connection speed to Facebook and YouTube started rising.
We also used thirty minutes of sticky time to download Facebook and YouTube videos which were successful. Our only setback was Twitch which had many concurrent errors. In Twitch, we received more than ten blocks and multiple Captchas.
Overall, the connection speed and response time of social media sites is good when using Proxy-Cheap. Another benefit of Proxy-Cheap with social media sites is that it supports social media bots.
Test on Sneaker Sites
Average success rate on Sneaker Sites – 77%
As Sneaker sites are hard to scrape, we expected a less than 80% average rating on all sneaker sites. So, we were prepared for the worst, but Proxy-Cheap did not disappoint us.
We started the test with Nike.com. At first, the Proxy-Cheap connection with Nike was smooth, but the connection grew weaker after some time. Even when the residential IPs changed on requests, we still received 401(unauthorized) and 404(server not found) errors. Therefore we had to increase the bandwidth on the residential package and even incorporate the mobile proxies. This combination made us crack the Nike restrictions.
That was the same situation we experienced with Finish Line, but it had fewer blocks than Nike. Adidas and Supreme sites had a smooth connection and few blocks, but the 404 errors and the Captchas persisted until we used captcha removers.
Foot Locker had the best performance because of a smooth connection without disruptions. It had only two to three blocks, a few errors and some timeouts. But when the IP address changed per requests, these disruptions slowly vanished.
In general, the Proxy-Cheap sticky thirty minutes helped us in getting good results from sneaker sites. Also, the proxy network supports sneaker bots where we would cop multiple footwear without being detected.
Speed Test
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy | Ping (ms) | Download (Mbps) | Upload (Mbps) |
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy 1 | 493 | 11.21 | 16.37 |
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy 2 | 213 | 25.12 | 19.39 |
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy 3 | 324 | 50.64 | 61.33 |
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy 4 | 175 | 20.63 | 18.3 |
| Proxy-Cheap Proxy 5 | 107 | 12.56 | 105.37 |
Rating, 86/100
Holistically, Proxy-Cheap's speed connection was fast and took less time to respond when we used residential proxies. We, therefore, tested speed with five Proxy-Cheap proxies using a speed test. We also accounted for the internet bundles used for each Proxy-Cheap through their platform that shows internet usage.
Our best performing Proxy-Cheap Proxy was three. Even though it's used a higher latent or ping time for its tasks, it had optimal bandwidth for downloads and uploads.
On the other hand, we were not pleased with the Proxy-Cheap one, which required a higher time to download or upload less bandwidth. We noted that the moment we increased sticky time in the residential proxies, the speed would slow.
We also did a similar test with mobile proxies, which was even faster than the residential proxies. We realized with Proxy-Cheap that it slows when we have disruptors like errors, blocks, or other restrictions. But if you find a way to resolve them, the connection speed and response time will be higher.
Proxy-Cheap Customer Support
There is a live chat in this forum where you can state your query, and the system will respond to you. When we had a complex question to ask, the support team did not answer us intuitively as a person would do. We, therefore, concluded that sometimes Proxy-Cheap use bots as customer support.
Other than that, Proxy-Cheap has a contact centre where you can provide your details and email in the contact centre. Our only suggestion is that they avoid bots in answering questions. Because those bots may not understand you as a normal human being would.
The Editors Verdict
It's no secret that you will fall for the Proxy-Cheap affordable price. The company also provides quality services you will feel are undervalued. Even with the testing, if you use Captcha and errors resolver, you will get good performance. You can also download scraping, social media or sneaker APIs for efficient performances with Proxy-Cheap.
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Are Proxy-Cheap Proxies Good for Social Media?
Yes, but not the best option considering you have to increase to a higher bandwidth plan to download sizable social media files.
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Are Proxy-Cheap Proxies Good for Sneaker Sites?
Yes, but not the best option because Proxy-Cheap does not geo-target specific cities that improve connection in sneaker sites.
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Are Proxy-Cheap Proxies Good for Scraping?
Not so good with scraping because they fall under 80% rating while SmartProxy and Bright Data surpass the 90% rating mark in scraping performance.
Proxy-Cheap Alternatives
Suppose you want a top-notch proxy server with quality scraping performance, then Bright Data is your answer. But if you want to stick to a cheaper plan with higher scraping performance than Proxy-Cheap, you could use Smartproxy. When you want to find a substitute for Proxy-cheap which has unlimited bandwidth, Shifter would be your option.
Last Updated on December 12, 2023
