The question
Providers lead with a "from" price. I wanted to know how far it is from what a usable gigabyte costs at the volume you actually buy, so I built ProxyTicker, a price index for residential proxies. This post covers one number from the November 2026 report: the gap between the two.
How I measure it
Once a day I read each provider's public pricing page. I only use list prices. Coupons and prices agreed with sales are not counted, and VAT is never added.
The "from" price is the lowest per-GB price on a provider's list, whatever volume that tier requires. The effective price is what a usable gigabyte costs when you buy the same volume every month: the price of the tier for that volume, with the smallest plan or minimum deposit and any traffic that expires unused counted in. A provider's gap is its effective price divided by its own "from" price. The median gap is the median of those ratios; with an even number of providers I take the lower of the two middle values. Medians include only providers whose terms I have fully verified: 31 of them as of Nov 10, 2026.
What I found
For the median provider, a 50 GB buyer pays 1.72× its own advertised "from" price (as of Nov 10, 2026, across 31 providers with fully verified terms).
The gap depends on volume:
Median gap by monthly volume: 2.40× at 5 GB, 1.72× at 50 GB, 1.17× at 500 GB and 1.00× at 1,000 GB. The smaller your volume, the further the "from" price is from what a usable gigabyte costs you.
The median hides the spread. At 50 GB, 10 of 31 providers have a gap of 2× or more.
Traffic that burns
Part of the gap is traffic that expires unused. This count uses a different base: all 35 active residential providers, at 50 GB a month, including those whose terms I haven't fully verified, so it is not a part of the 31 above. Of these, 15 have a finite expiry on unused traffic, and 11 of them expire it within 31 days. For 4 providers I haven't confirmed it yet.
What the data doesn't show
- These are public list prices as a US visitor sees them. Discounts, coupons and negotiated deals are not included.
Full report: proxyticker.com/reports/2026-11. The rules are on the methodology page. The data is open under CC BY 4.0, with its git history in https://github.com/proxyticker/proxy-pricing-data
I run ProxyTicker. Visit links on the site are or may become affiliate links.
Drafted with AI help; the data and conclusions are mine.
