In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to count our money. We could simply purchase the best tools and services. Unfortunately, that is not the case, especially when you work in a company with budget constraints. Compromises must be made, and we must be smart about them to get the best deal for our needs.

When purchasing proxies, many professionals and organizations are faced with a choice between unlimited IP addresses and unlimited bandwidth. Both options are great for some use cases, but providers have crafted their plans in such a way that makes you choose one. Here, I will dive deep into this compromise and define when each option is most economical.

Why we can’t have both?

Before delving into specifics, it’s useful to understand why many proxy users are faced with such a choice in the first place. It all has to do with how proxies function. A proxy is simply a device in a distant location with a different IP address that can route clients’ network requests. You send your requests to a proxy, and then the proxy server connects on your behalf.

No provider is setting up large proxy networks all over the world for the fun of it. They want to make a profit or, in the case of free proxies, steal your data (that’s another story, though). Creating a reliable proxy service costs a lot, and I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

You not only need to maintain hardware and develop software but also deal with customer support and legal issues. It all costs money, and providers are looking for effective ways to charge their customers while keeping their competitive edge. Since proxies are just intermediaries, there are not many options available for them.

• Charging per IP address used
• Charging per bandwidth used
• Charging for both

As of the time of this article, there are no big-name proxy providers that use the third option. Most probably, the reason is that it’s more difficult to market such pricing. With unlimited IPs or bandwidth, you can get more flashy headlines by simply highlighting that your proxies are ‘unlimited.’

Charging per IP address is the most popular option since the customer doesn’t need to track how much he actually uses the servers. However, many users actually lose money with such a choice because not all types of proxies and not all use cases equally benefit from unlimited bandwidth.

Types of unlimited proxies

There are many more proxy types and subtypes to consider. There might be a situation where private access, for example, might change the equation because of the price increase. However, the basic rule of choosing an unlimited proxy by type should be clear from the two main types below.

Unlimited residential proxies

Residential proxies are known to provide the most valuable IP addresses. They are run on physical household devices that use connections verified by household ISPs. Because of this, unlimited residential proxies are very often in the proxy market.

Usually, they are unlimited (unmetered) in bandwidth. Most use cases they are marketed for are not traffic-heavy since the legitimacy of IP is more important than speed. However, residential proxies have become much faster in recent years, so it makes sense to pay for IPs and not the bandwidth.

A general rule of thumb is that if you only use residential proxies to conceal your IP and won’t transfer much data, you’ll save money with ones that are unlimited in IPs. Unfortunately, these are rarely offered by providers.

Unlimited datacenter proxies

Datacenter proxies are almost the exact opposite of residential ones. They are cheap and fast but not that good at hiding your IP address. Any web server with better protection will be able to spot that you are using a connection unverified by an ISP and created virtually on a commercial server.

Unlimited datacenter proxies are best when bandwidth is unlimited because they can transfer lots of data compared to residential ones. However, most use cases with datacenter proxies require many IP addresses. You will likely spend more money on purchasing datacenter IPs than paying for the bandwidth. In most use cases, at least.

A great way to know if you are getting a good deal with unlimited datacenter proxies is to count how much you’d spend with unlimited IPs or unlimited bandwidth. If you’ll only use one IP but transfer hundreds of gigabytes per day, go with unlimited bandwidth ones and vice versa.

Does it all depend on the use case?

It might seem discouraging that there is no clear answer, but I have a second-best thing – the best strategy for making a decision. Think of your project as belonging to one of two boxes – more bandwidth or more IPs. Identify which of them should be included in your project.

Cases when unlimited bandwidth makes sense

When your task requires lots of data to be transferred, you are better off with unlimited bandwidth. Even if you still need dozens of IP addresses, choosing more unlimited bandwidth will save you more money in the end. Here are a few examples where choosing more bandwidth is clearly more economical.

• Web scraping

• Video streaming

• Anonymous Browsing

Cases when you should choose more IPs

In general, IP addresses are required to get more varied geo-locations and access different accounts from various locations. Such use cases rarely require you to transfer much data, so it’s obvious that the number of IP addresses is more important than the bandwidth you get. All of the below examples work best with a large number of IPs.

• Social media management

• Ad verification

• Bulk purchasing

Conclusion

It all boils down to efficiently using your budget. You should purchase unlimited proxies when you know that your use case will require a lot of bandwidth. In such cases, having free bandwidth is cheaper. If you only need IP addresses and will not use that much bandwidth, go for the bandwidth-limited proxies.