Thordata vs Webshare: Proxies Plus Scraping APIs, or the Easiest Starter Plan?
Thordata pairs $0.65/GB sale-priced residential with SERP and scraping APIs, Alipay and a conditional 7-day refund. Webshare offers 10 free proxies and 100 datacenter IPs for $2.99/mo.
Thordata and Webshare often show up on the same "cheap proxies" lists, but they're built on opposite ideas. Thordata is the all-in-one option: residential proxies plus a SERP API, a Web Scraper API and a scraping browser. Webshare is the easiest on-ramp: 10 free proxies on sign-up and datacenter IPs that cost a few cents each. This comparison breaks them down by the job you're trying to do.
Prices and terms come from each vendor's site and were checked on 2026-10-05. Several Thordata prices are promotional and may change. Check the Thordata and Webshare pages for current numbers.
At a glance
| Thordata | Webshare | |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | A Hong Kong company | Founded 2018, based in California |
| Rotating residential | $0.65/GB (sale; regular $1.05) | From $3.50/mo, down to $1.40/GB at volume |
| Static ISP | $0.75/IP (sale; regular $1.50) | From $6.00/mo, shared or dedicated |
| Datacenter | $0.75/IP (sale; regular $1.50) | 100 proxies for $2.99/mo (≈ $0.03 each) |
| Mobile | $2.20/GB | Not in our data |
| Scraping tools | SERP API, Web Scraper API, scraping browser | Not in our data |
| Free trial | On API products | 10 free proxies, no card |
| Refunds | First purchase, within 7 days, if ≤30% and ≤2 GB used | Within 2 days if usage is low |
| Payment | Alipay, PayPal, Visa/Mastercard/Amex | Cards only on the pricing page |
| Protocols | Not clearly stated | HTTP and SOCKS5 |
Residential: Thordata is far cheaper per GB
At list prices, Thordata's residential sale price of $0.65/GB beats Webshare's best volume rate of $1.40/GB by a wide margin, and even Thordata's regular $1.05/GB is lower. Thordata claims a 100M+ residential pool across 190+ countries with rotating or sticky sessions. Webshare claims 80M+ residential IPs across 195 countries.
The caveat is that Thordata's low prices are promotional. If you're budgeting for a long project, model it on the regular price and treat the sale as a bonus.
Datacenter: Webshare is the easiest start
If your job doesn't need residential IPs, say lightly protected public pages or testing a scraper before scaling it, Webshare's datacenter proxies are hard to beat. Ten are free. A hundred cost $2.99 a month, and annual billing saves another 30%. The dashboard is simple enough that you can have working proxies within minutes of signing up.
Thordata prices datacenter proxies per IP at $0.75 on sale. That suits a small set of fixed IPs more than a large, cheap pool.
Scraping APIs: only Thordata offers them
Teams that don't want to manage rotation, retries and parsing themselves can use Thordata's SERP API for search results or its Web Scraper API, and the API products come with a free trial. Webshare sells proxies only; the scraping logic is yours to write and maintain.
For a small team, that's a time-versus-money decision. Your own scraper on Webshare proxies is the cheapest route. Thordata's APIs are the fastest route to working output.
Trials and refunds
- Webshare gives every account 10 free datacenter proxies with no card required, which is a zero-cost way to learn proxy setup. Refunds are available within two days of payment if usage is low.
- Thordata offers a free trial on its API products. Proxy purchases can be refunded within seven days of the first purchase if you've used no more than 30% and no more than 2 GB. That window is longer than Webshare's, but it comes with a usage cap.
Payment
Thordata accepts Alipay as well as PayPal and the major cards. Webshare's pricing page lists cards only. If you don't have a card, or you prefer PayPal, Thordata is the easier checkout.
Which fits your job?
| Job | Lean toward |
|---|---|
| First time using proxies, want to try for free | Webshare's 10 free proxies |
| Simple scraping or script testing on a tiny budget | Webshare datacenter |
| High-volume residential scraping | Thordata residential (mind the sale pricing) |
| Search-result data without maintaining a scraper | Thordata SERP API |
| Paying by Alipay or PayPal | Thordata |
| You need confirmed SOCKS5 support | Webshare (Thordata doesn't clearly state protocols) |
For more low-cost options, see Cheapest Proxies: Price Comparison. For the server side of scraping, see Best VPS for Scraping.
A sensible way to start
Many teams end up using both kinds of product at different stages:
- Prototype on Webshare's free proxies. Get your scraper, parser and storage working end to end without spending anything.
- Find out where datacenter IPs stop working. If your targets accept them, Webshare's paid datacenter plan may be all you need.
- Move the hard targets to residential. When a site blocks datacenter traffic, test Thordata's residential pool on that site only, and track how much traffic each successful page actually costs.
- Consider an API for search data. If what you need is search results, try Thordata's SERP API during its free trial and compare the effort against maintaining your own scraper.
- Mind the refund thresholds. Thordata's refund depends on using 30% or less and no more than 2 GB within seven days, so keep early tests small.
This keeps spending proportional to what each target actually requires.
Stay within the rules
Proxies and scraping APIs should be used to collect public data only. Respect each site's terms of service and robots rules, follow local data and privacy law, and keep your request rate reasonable.
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