Web Scraping Proxies: Choose by Site, IP Type and Billing

The four things that decide which proxy a scraper needs

IP type: a datacenter IP sits in a hosting network, a residential or static ISP IP belongs to an ordinary internet provider. Some sites return the same page to both, others treat hosting networks differently, and you only find out by testing your own target.

How the IP changes: a rotating proxy gives a new IP for each new connection, while a connection you keep open (keep-alive) keeps its IP. A session or a static IP keeps one address. Independent page fetches suit rotation; anything that depends on the previous request, such as a login or a cart, needs one address.

Location: price, stock, search results and delivery options can change by country or city. If you need to see the page as a visitor from a given place sees it, pick the country (and city, where the line supports it) before you pick the price.

Billing: traffic-billed products charge per GB, so heavy pages cost more per request; per-IP products charge per IP per day, so cost depends on how many addresses you hold, not on how many pages you fetch.

What each IP type is for, and how Proxy302 bills it

Prices and terms from the Proxy302 product facts, checked 14 November 2026. Per-GB lines are bought by traffic; per-IP lines are bought for 1, 3, 7, 30, 60 or 90 days. Static ISP stock differs by country and is shown on the order page.

• Sources:
• Proxy302 product facts and price list

Scenario by scenario: which one to try first

Public listings, news, catalogue pages that look the same from any network: try rotating datacenter first, because it is the lowest price per GB. If the pages come back different from what a browser shows, move to residential.

Prices, availability or search results by country: rotating residential with the country set in the connection, and a sticky session if one visit takes several requests. For city-level questions use the Premium line.

A logged-in account you read every day, or a dashboard you poll for weeks: one static ISP IP per account. Do not rotate under a login that you want to keep.

• Residential, ISP and datacenter compared
• Rotating vs sticky sessions

Step 1 to 5: test on your own target before you buy volume

1. Step 1: fetch 50 pages directly

   Use your normal network and record the status codes and whether the fields you need are in the response. This is your baseline.

2. Step 2: repeat through the cheapest type

   Rotating datacenter for pages that do not depend on location. Compare with the baseline: same status codes, same fields.

3. Step 3: move up only if the result differs

   If pages differ from what a browser shows or the country is wrong, run the same 50 pages through rotating residential with the country set, then compare again.

4. Step 4: confirm the exit before scaling

   Send one request through the proxy to a page that prints the exit IP, and check the country and network. Set a timeout on every request, because Requests waits indefinitely unless you set one.

   Before continuing Keep to the target site's published limits. robots.txt states a site's rules for crawlers, but per RFC 9309 it is not access authorization, so read the site's terms as well.

5. Step 5: compare the cost per valid result

   Divide the price per GB by the number of pages that came back correct per GB. A cheaper type that returns fewer correct pages can cost more per useful page. For per-IP products, divide the daily price by the pages you fetch in a day.

Python: send one request through the proxy with a timeout

import requests

proxy = "http://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT"
proxies = {"http": proxy, "https": proxy}

r = requests.get(
    "https://ipinfo.io/json",
    proxies=proxies,
    timeout=(5, 30),  # connect, read
)
print(r.status_code, r.json().get("country"), r.json().get("org"))

# SOCKS5 needs: pip install "requests[socks]"
# use socks5h:// so the proxy server resolves DNS

Example only: replace LOGIN, PASSWORD, HOST and PORT with the values shown in My assets. The proxies argument and the socks5h scheme follow the Requests documentation.

• Sources:
• Requests documentation: Advanced usage, Proxies and Timeouts

Doing this on Proxy302

Rotating residential and rotating datacenter use the gateway proxy.proxy302.com: port 2222 for HTTP and 3333 for SOCKS5, with the username and password from My assets. The protocol is chosen when you generate the proxy. Traffic is bought in GB, with no free trial, so the smallest test is 1 GB of residential traffic or one static IP for one day.

Datacenter exits are US only. Residential covers 195+ countries.

• Rotating residential proxies
• Rotating datacenter proxies
• Static ISP proxies

• Sources:
• Proxy302 product facts and price list

Web scraping proxy questions

Keep reading

Proxies for web scraping

How to choose a proxy for web scraping: type, rotation, protocol, a checklist and a gentle load on the site.

Datacenter vs residential for scraping

Start with US$0.40/GB datacenter traffic, measure on your pages, switch only failing targets to US$1.50/GB residential.

Python requests proxy setup

How to use HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies in Python requests: examples, timeouts and an IP check.

Scrapy proxy setup

Use an HTTP proxy in Scrapy with request meta, a downloader middleware or environment variables, and check the exit IP.

Rotating residential proxies

Real household IPs in 195+ countries; the Premium line adds state and major-city targeting. A new IP on every new connection, or keep sticky sessions. From US$1.50/GB, US$1.35/GB at 100 GB. HTTP and SOCKS5.

View options and pricing