Proxies for Web Scraping, Pay per GB
Web scraping proxies spread your requests over many IP addresses so a site sees many ordinary visitors instead of one busy server. With pay-as-you-go traffic you pay only for the pages you actually download.
Why scrapers need proxies
Most websites limit how many requests one IP may send. A scraper that runs from a single server hits that limit within minutes and starts getting errors, captchas or empty pages. Rotating proxies give every request a different address, so the rate per IP stays low and the job keeps running.
Location matters too. Prices, stock, search results and even page layouts change by country. A proxy in the right country returns the page a local visitor sees.
Which proxy type to use
Start with datacenter traffic for open sites and APIs: it is the cheapest per GB and the fastest. Move a target to residential traffic when it blocks cloud IPs or answers with captchas. Keep premium residential for jobs that need a city, ZIP code or ASN.
- Datacenter: open pages, APIs, your own sites
- Residential: e-commerce, marketplaces, travel, classifieds
- Premium residential: local results and delivery zones
How to keep traffic costs low
Traffic is billed per GB in both directions, so page weight decides your cost. Block images, fonts and video, request JSON endpoints when a site offers them, enable compression and skip pages you already have. A lean scraper often uses five to ten times less traffic than a full browser.
Set it up in four steps
- Add credit and buy GB of the product you need
- Copy the gateway host, port, username and password from the console
- Set the proxy in your scraper and add a country code if needed
- Run, watch the response codes and adjust rotation or sessions
Questions about Web scraping
How many GB do I need for scraping?
Divide your monthly page count by the pages per GB. Light HTML pages of 100 KB give about 10,000 pages per GB; heavy pages with images give far fewer.
Rotating or sticky for scraping?
Rotating for independent pages. Sticky when one task needs several requests from the same IP, such as pagination with a session cookie.