A proxy server sits between your team's computers and the websites they open. Each request goes to the proxy first; the proxy sends it on and hands the answer back. The website records the proxy's IP address and location instead of your office connection.
That one change is what makes proxies useful in everyday business work. This briefing covers what teams use them for, the four types we sell, and what you actually receive after ordering.
What business teams use proxies for
- Seeing a market the way local customers do. A German proxy shows the German version of a search page, an ad placement or a product listing, even when the colleague checking it sits in Brazil. Teams rely on this for local rank tracking, ad verification and regional price checks, within each site's terms.
- Keeping business accounts apart. Agencies give each legitimate client account its own consistent IP, so one client's activity is never tied to another's. Platform rules still apply in full.
- Collecting public data at a steady pace. A monitoring job that sends 10,000 requests through one address puts all of that load on a single IP. Spread across 1,000 addresses and sensibly paced, each one carries a light share, still within the site's terms and rate limits.
- Keeping your office network out of competitor research. When staff look at rival stores and landing pages, the visit shows the proxy's address rather than your company's.
The four proxy types we sell
Every proxy forwards traffic in the same way. What differs is the network the IP belongs to, and that decides price, speed and how target sites treat the visit.
| Type | Where the IP comes from | Typical team use |
|---|---|---|
| Datacenter | Hosting and cloud companies | QA of your own sites and volume checks on sites that accept server traffic, at a lower cost per GB |
| Residential | Home internet providers, from households that opted in | Local search results, ad checks and retail price monitoring |
| Mobile 4G/5G | Mobile carrier networks | Mobile versions of pages and mobile-first platforms |
| Residential Premium | Our higher-trust residential tier, including static residential (ISP) IPs | Strict sites, long sessions and one fixed IP per account |
You may see ISP proxies sold elsewhere as a plan of their own. Here, static residential (ISP) IPs come with Residential Premium. Our workflow-by-workflow comparison shows which type suits which job.
Which protocol does your tool need?
These are the protocols a proxy can use to carry your traffic:
- HTTP carries plain web traffic.
- HTTPS adds the encrypted pages that most sites now serve.
- SOCKS5 works at a lower level and carries any TCP traffic, which is why desktop apps and some automation tools ask for it. It takes a little more setting up.
Browsers, rank trackers and most data tools work happily over HTTPS; use SOCKS5 when a tool asks for it. All our proxies support all three, so the protocol never limits which type you choose.
Rotating or sticky sessions
With rotating sessions every request gets a new IP, which suits wide monitoring runs. A sticky session holds one IP for a set window, typically 1-30 minutes, which suits sign-ins and multi-step checks. Our guide to session modes explains when to use each.
What your team receives after ordering
Each order comes with four details: host, port, username and password. Enter them in a browser profile, a rank tracker, a data tool or a multi-account browser, and that tool's traffic runs through the proxy. If everyone works from one fixed office connection, you can whitelist that IP in the dashboard instead of typing a password.
Before anyone relies on the setup, open our My IP tool through the proxy. It should show the proxy's address and location, not your office's.
Questions managers ask
Do we need to install software? No. A proxy is a set of connection details that your existing browsers and tools already accept.
How is it billed? By the gigabyte of traffic, pay-as-you-go, with no subscription. See the pricing page for the per-GB rate of each type.
