What the Cheapest Residential Proxies Give Up: Expiry, Refunds, Targeting and Concurrency
Every headline residential price comes with conditions: minimum purchases, 30-day expiry, no-refund terms, unstated targeting. We take apart the lowest offer from six providers.
The lowest number on a residential proxy pricing page almost always has strings attached. Sometimes you have to buy thousands of gigabytes at once. Sometimes it's a sale that ends. Sometimes the traffic expires in 30 days, or the purchase can't be refunded. The lowest price per GB is rarely your lowest cost.
This guide takes the cheapest residential offer from six partner providers and lists what you accept in exchange. Prices are from official pricing pages, checked on 2026-10-05 (711Proxy on 2026-10-06); a few feature details come from the providers' pages as we read them on 2026-10-27. Confirm everything before buying.
The trade-offs in one table
| Provider | Lowest listed | What you have to buy | Expiry | Refunds | Targeting / concurrency (as stated) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proxy-Seller | From $0.3/GB | Qualifying volume not listed | Not listed | Only non-working proxies, within 72h | Claims 220+ locations; concurrency not listed |
| 711Proxy | $0.57/GB | 5,000 GB + 250 GB bonus for $3,000 | Never expires | None on residential once ordered or used | Country, state and city; unlimited threads |
| Thordata | $0.65/GB | Not listed | Not listed | First purchase, within 7 days, ≤30% and ≤2 GB used | Rotating or sticky sessions; concurrency not listed |
| DataImpulse | $1/GB | No minimum; from $5 | Never expires | First intro plan only, 7 days; none on crypto | 195+ countries; concurrency not listed |
| Novada | $1.3/GB | 1 TB for $1,300/mo | 30 days | Full refund within 24h if unused | Country, state and city (free); unlimited concurrency |
| Webshare | $1.40/GB | "At volume"; threshold not listed | Not listed | Within 2 days with low usage | Not listed |
"Not listed" means the official pages we checked don't say. It isn't evidence the feature is missing. Ask before you buy.
Trade-off 1: Minimum purchase
The lowest rate usually belongs to the largest tier.
- 711Proxy's $0.57/GB means paying $3,000 up front for 5,250 GB: 3,000 ÷ 5,250 ≈ $0.57. The small regular plan is 5 GB for $15, or $3/GB.
- Novada's $1.3/GB is the 1 TB plan at $1,300 a month. The entry tier is 25 GB for $50, or $2/GB.
- Proxy-Seller's $0.3/GB is a "from" price and Webshare's $1.40/GB is a volume price. Our data doesn't include the volume at which either applies.
Only DataImpulse sells its headline rate with no minimum: $1/GB from a $5 purchase.
Trade-off 2: Expiry
Whether unused traffic disappears decides your real rate.
- Novada: traffic is valid for 30 days, and card payments auto-renew. Buy the 1 TB plan and use 600 GB, and your effective rate is 1,300 ÷ 600 ≈ $2.17/GB, well above the $1.3 headline.
- 711Proxy Enterprise and DataImpulse: traffic never expires, so nothing is wasted. With 711Proxy, though, $3,000 sits prepaid in a proxy balance until you use it.
- 711Proxy regular plans last 30 days, with unused traffic carried over when you renew.
Trade-off 3: Refunds
The cheaper the plan, the stricter the refund terms tend to be.
- 711Proxy: no refunds on residential once ordered or used. Test thoroughly on a small plan before committing to the $3,000 pack.
- Proxy-Seller: no standard trial; refunds only for proxies that don't work.
- Thordata: first purchase only, within 7 days, and only if you've used no more than 30% and no more than 2 GB.
- DataImpulse: only the first $5 intro plan is refundable, and never crypto payments.
- Novada: full refund within 24 hours if unused; nothing once you've started.
- Webshare: within 2 days, if usage is low.
Trade-off 4: Promotions end
Thordata's $0.65/GB is a sale price; the regular price is $1.05/GB. At 100 GB a month that's 100 × 0.65 = $65 on sale against 100 × 1.05 = $105 at regular price, a $40 monthly gap. An annual budget built on the sale price is likely to overrun.
Trade-off 5: Targeting and concurrency are often unstated
For localized scraping or high-concurrency jobs, these matter more than a few cents per GB. Two providers spell them out:
- Novada: country, state and city targeting, with city-level free; its pricing page describes residential as "unlimited concurrency."
- 711Proxy: country, state and city targeting; sticky sessions default to 5 minutes and run up to 180 minutes; "unlimited threads."
For the other four, our data doesn't state city targeting or concurrency limits. If your job depends on either, get an answer in writing before you pay.
Other conditions worth reading
- 711Proxy states it isn't available in mainland China, and its terms may require KYC and ban crypto or NFT trading use.
- Webshare's pricing page lists card payments only. DataImpulse, Thordata, Novada and 711Proxy all accept Alipay.
- Unusually cheap residential traffic deserves a question about where the IPs come from. Our piece on the NetNut takedown explains why sourcing matters.
Which trade-off can you live with?
| Your situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Small or irregular usage | DataImpulse: no minimum, no expiry |
| Large, steady usage, already tested | 711Proxy Enterprise |
| Fixed monthly volume, city targeting needed | Novada, on the tier that matches your usage |
| Price-driven, comfortable re-budgeting later | Thordata, budgeted at $1.05 |
| Learning the ropes before spending | Webshare's free datacenter proxies, then a small residential plan |
The pattern across all six: the cheapest offer suits buyers who already know their volume and have tested the provider. If you don't know your usage yet, pay a little more per GB for flexibility, then move to the bulk tier once the numbers are clear.
For an overview of prices across proxy types, read the cheapest proxies price comparison. Once you've bought, check whether each proxy IP is clean before putting it to work.
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