What Are Datacenter Proxies? The Low-Cost Pool for Volume Work
Datacenter proxies are the volume pool. When a job means many requests to sites that do not look closely at where traffic comes from, they deliver speed at a low rate. Their IP addresses sit in data centres and are registered to cloud or hosting companies rather than to home broadband lines, and the dedicated, high-bandwidth hardware behind them makes them quicker and lower-cost than the other proxy types.
This guide covers the jobs they suit, the route a request takes, and how they compare with residential proxies. As with any pool, use them legitimately: publicly available data, within each target site's terms of service.
We write these guides for e-commerce, marketing and agency teams that pay for proxies by the gigabyte.
In this playbook
Jobs datacenter proxies handle well
Pick datacenter when speed and cost lead and the target is lightly defended. Typical team uses:
- High-volume collection from public, unprotected pages.
- Bulk automation.
- Uptime and availability checks.
- API testing.
- SEO tooling.
If a job needs geo-accurate data from a protected site, or a trusted address for account work, the comparison in datacenter vs residential proxies shows when to switch.
What happens to a request
The request goes to the proxy gateway, which sends it on from an address inside a hosting provider's network. The site replies to that address, and the proxy passes the reply back to you. Data-centre links are fast and uncongested, so latency stays low and throughput high, which is what lets a team run many requests at once.
The weak spot is the network itself. A site can read the address's ASN and see a hosting provider rather than a consumer ISP, so well-defended targets often look harder at datacenter traffic than at residential.
Strengths and trade-offs for a team
Strengths: the lowest price per request of our pools, high speed, and steady performance for automation, testing and crawling on sites that do not inspect the network closely.
Trade-offs: less trust on well-protected targets, where residential, mobile or ISP addresses do better. Mixing is normal: datacenter for most unprotected work, a higher-trust pool only where results call for it. The table compares all four pools.
| Proxy type | IP source | Trust | Speed | Typical price/GB | Typical team use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenter | Cloud and hosting ranges | Lower | Very fast | from $3.50 | High-volume collection from unprotected sites, automation, SEO tools |
| Residential | Household lines from consumer ISPs | High | Medium | from $3.99 | Market research, ad verification and geo-accurate checks on protected sites |
| Mobile (4G/5G) | 4G/5G carrier networks | Very high | Medium | from $4.50 | Phone-first platforms, app and mobile ad testing |
| Residential Premium | Curated pool of real-user IPs | Very high | High | from $6.50 | Hard targets where every failed request is costly |
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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