Shared vs Dedicated Proxies: Which Model Fits Your Team?
Every proxy purchase also settles a usage model. Does your team draw on a pool that other customers use too, or hold addresses nobody else touches? Shared pools keep the cost per gigabyte down. Dedicated IPs give one team sole control of an address and its reputation.
Marketing and e-commerce teams rarely need one answer for every job, because the right model shifts with the workflow. Below we compare them and explain where our datacenter and residential tiers fit; both run on shared pools. Either way, keep the work legitimate and inside each site’s terms of service.
We write these guides for e-commerce, marketing and agency teams that pay for proxies by the gigabyte.
Shared pools suit volume monitoring
A shared proxy draws on a pool of IPs that several customers use at the same time. Splitting the cost of that pool is what makes shared access economical, and it suits price trackers and rank monitors well.
Rotating residential and mobile services are built as shared pools. A large pool spreads your requests so widely that any one IP handles a small fraction of them before it is swapped out. What you give up is control: you can’t see what other users do on the same pool, and on a small pool their habits can affect an IP’s reputation.
Dedicated IPs suit sessions and accounts
With a dedicated proxy, sometimes called a private proxy, the provider sets aside one or more IPs for a single customer. Nobody else sends traffic from them, so their reputation is built by your team’s activity alone, and speed holds steady because no other account shares the bandwidth.
Providers that offer dedicated addresses usually sell them as datacenter or static ISP IPs, because logged-in sessions and account work lean on an address that is both fixed and exclusive.
The two models side by side
The table sets out the trade-offs. In practice one question decides it: does the workflow need control and a steady address, or the lower cost of a big pool?
| Consideration | Shared pool | Dedicated IP |
|---|---|---|
| Who uses the IP | Several customers at once | Your account only |
| Cost | Lower | Higher per IP |
| Reputation | Shaped by everyone on the pool | Shaped by your team alone |
| Performance | Varies with pool demand | Predictable, no contention |
| Suits | Large read-only collection | Stable sessions and account work |
Matching the model to the job
- Shared fits large, read-only collection where cost matters and rotation already spreads your traffic thinly — tracking competitor prices across a catalogue, or checking rankings for a long keyword list. See price monitoring.
- Dedicated fits work that needs a stable address whose standing depends on you alone: logged-in sessions, or running a specific company account in line with the platform’s terms. On our plans, a sticky session is the way to keep one IP through that kind of task.
A caveat for managers: no proxy model can promise how a platform will treat an account. Platform terms always apply, and your team remains responsible for following them.
How each model is billed
Every plan we sell draws on a shared pool and is billed per gigabyte, so you pay for the data your team moves rather than for idle addresses. Dedicated IPs, where providers offer them, are usually priced per address instead. When one of your tasks needs a steady IP, a sticky session holds a pool address for the length of that session.
To cost a monitoring workflow, start with the proxy calculator, read each tier’s rate on the pricing page, then buy now from $3.50/GB.
Match the pool to the workflow
Every pool is billed per GB and run from the same dashboard, so one team can keep low-cost volume work and high-trust checks side by side.
High-volume collection from unprotected sites, automation, SEO tools
Market research, ad verification and geo-accurate checks on protected sites
Phone-first platforms, app and mobile ad testing
Hard targets where every failed request is costly
Covering several markets in one report? MIX packages combine multi-country residential traffic in a single order. Agencies buying on behalf of clients can apply for the reseller programme.
Get your team running
Per-GB pricing from $3.50 · 55+ countries · instant delivery · 30-day validity · no traffic logs · 24/7 human support
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1
Size the job
Pick a proxy type in the proxy calculator and enter the gigabytes you expect to use to see the order total.
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2
Order and pay
Choose the pool on the proxies page and pay by card through Stripe or in crypto through Cryptomus. Each order is billed per GB and does not renew on its own.
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3
Share access
Credentials appear in the dashboard as soon as payment clears. Add them to each tool with a login or an IP whitelist, then send one test request before the real job starts.
Questions team leads ask
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