Best Datacenter Proxies 2026: Real Tested Comparison

I have personally tested a number of datacenter proxy providers over the last few years, and the goal was always the same: find a reliable option for every budget. My view is simple. Datacenter proxies should not cost a fortune, and there should be an entry-level option for everyone. Because of the nature of the IPs, they cannot be undetectable or as good as residential or mobile proxies. Datacenter proxies are built for easy, repetitive tasks. That is why fraud-score tests like Scamalytics or IPQS are mostly pointless here, and why this guide compares the things that actually matter: real IP counts, real pricing, and the fair usage limits providers do not always advertise.

Quick Answer: What Makes a Datacenter Proxy Provider Worth Buying in 2026

The best datacenter proxies in 2026 are the ones that combine an honest IP count, a per-GB or unlimited pricing model rather than per-IP, and a clearly documented fair usage limit. A standard pool of 10,000 to 15,000 IPs covers almost every realistic workload. Anything above that is a bonus, not a requirement. Country targeting should be a standard feature. Pools advertised in the hundreds of thousands or millions rarely hold up when measured against independent data, as the ProxyWay 2026 proxy market research shows.

Key takeaways

1. Advertised IP pools are often inflated. Independent testing shows the largest real unique USA pools sit around 50,000, not millions.
2. Per-GB and unlimited pricing almost always beats per-IP pricing for the buyer. Per-IP is usually a way to charge more for the same usage limits.
3. Almost every unlimited datacenter plan has a fair usage limit. The honest providers document it. The rest just block or throttle you without warning.
4. A pool of 10,000 to 15,000 IPv4 addresses with country targeting handles the large majority of datacenter use cases.
5. Suspiciously cheap, very large pools are a botnet and stability risk, not a bargain.

How This Was Evaluated

This comparison combines two sources. The unique IP counts come from the ProxyWay 2026 market research report, which measured unique USA IPs returned across 70,000 connection requests over seven days, at 10,000 requests per day. The pricing and fair usage limits come from each provider's own published pricing pages and fair usage policies, read directly and quoted where the wording matters. Observations on stability, pricing models, and pool inflation are based on hands-on work testing providers over several years. Where a number could not be verified from a primary source, it is marked as not disclosed rather than estimated.

Why Advertised IP Counts Do Not Match Reality

Advertised datacenter pool sizes are frequently inflated, and the ProxyWay data exposes the gap. Even allowing for a margin of error, and even if the real numbers ran 10 percent higher, the measured unique USA counts do not come close to the advertised figures.

DataImpulse advertises 90 million Ips. That figure may represent the total ever present on the network across its lifetime, but it is far from current reality. A correct analysis counts only the active or available Ips, not every address that ever touched the network. DataImpulse does hold the highest number of unique Ips in this test, but the real figure does not exceed 100,000.

An industry leader like Oxylabs measures at roughly 21,000 unique USA Ips. When a provider claims numbers far higher than that, treat the claim with suspicion rather than excitement.

One metric ProxyWay mentioned only briefly deserves more weight: whether the Ips are Ipv4 or Ipv6. A datacenter pool should contain only Ipv4 addresses. Ipv6 belongs in a separate product. Some sites are reachable over Ipv6, but mixing Ipv6 Ips into a datacenter pool and selling the combined count is a way to inflate numbers, not a feature. CatProxies keeps Ipv6 proxies as a distinct product for exactly this reason.

The Hidden Cost of Suspiciously Large, Cheap Pools

A provider promising 50,000 to 100,000 unlimited datacenter Ips for around $40 a month is a warning sign, not a deal. The 10,000 to 15,000 IP range is the realistic standard. When a provider with no registered business, no proof of owning servers, and no guarantee they control their Ips offers far more than that, something is wrong.

Botnets do not only feed residential proxy networks. They feed datacenter pools too. Some operators inflate their pools by layering botnet Ips on top of a small base of genuinely hosted addresses. There are documented cases of proxy sellers hosting around 10,000 Ips in their own infrastructure, then adding 50,000 to 70,000 botnet Ips to make the pool look larger, advertise it more aggressively, and appear to be the cheapest option on the market. The problem is not only that this is unfair. It is that it is unstable.

If the datacenter Ips are not hosted and the operator does not control them, instability is high. Support tends to disappear as well, because the operator reasons that the service was cheap enough to excuse the problems. Datacenter proxies do not need to be a premium product, but they do not have to be unstable and random either. Botnet-sourced Ips bring exactly those problems, and no real support to fix them.

According to Spamhaus, more than 17,000 botnets were identified in the first half of 2025 alone. The mid-2026 number is unknown, and many go undiscovered. That 17,000 figure counts only the larger known botnets, and building a 50,000 to 100,000 IP datacenter botnet does not take much effort. Treat any very large promised IP count from an unknown provider with heavy skepticism.

Why Per-GB and Unlimited Pricing Beat Per-IP

Per-GB and unlimited pricing models almost always serve the buyer better than per-IP pricing. Providers that price datacenter proxies per IP are usually optimizing for their own profit rather than customer value.

Oxylabs is a useful example because it offers both. Its datacenter proxy pricing lets a buyer pay per IP or per traffic, but the traffic option is per GB, not unlimited. Buying 1,000 datacenter Ips for a month costs $750. Buying access to the full advertised 45,000 IP pool, which is a realistic figure based on the verified data, costs $460 for 1 TB on the pay-per-traffic tier. The per-GB structure gives access to far more Ips for less money.

The open question with per-GB is what happens when a project needs more than 5 TB a month on the same IPs. Buying extra traffic is one answer. For high-load projects that move a lot of data, some argue per-IP makes sense. The better solution is a genuine unlimited plan with a clear fair usage limit, which is where most of the confusion in this market lives.

Are Unlimited Datacenter Plans Truly Unlimited

Yes and no. Bandwidth may be unlimited in the sense that there is no per-GB meter, but most providers still apply a limit once usage gets high enough. The difference between an honest provider and a poor one is disclosure. Some write the limit into the fair usage policy. Others simply stop or block the account after an undisclosed threshold.

The typical mechanism is a set amount of bandwidth that can be used without throttling. Once that allowance is passed, the connection speed throttles to keep usage fair for the provider. Because many unlimited plans also allow high or unlimited concurrent connections, the fair usage limit is what stops one buyer from sharing a single plan across ten people and hammering it. On CatProxies, an unlimited plan for around 15,000 proxies allows roughly 150 TB of unthrottled usage before fair usage applies.

Webshare publishes its limit clearly. Its fair usage policy states that each unlimited bandwidth plan is guaranteed 10 TB before throttling is enforced, and its slow proxy speed troubleshooting page notes the speed can gradually decrease to as low as 5 Mbps. A 10 TB limit on an unlimited plan is low, and worth knowing before purchase. Webshare allows 500 concurrent requests by default, raising to 3,000 or more with add-ons.

The providers that sell unlimited datacenter plans split into distinct mechanisms. Webshare throttles speed. Decodo and Oxylabs reduce concurrency or sessions. Bright Data uses overage billing and does not throttle at all. The table below documents each one.

Datacenter Proxy Comparison: Real IP Counts, Pricing, and Fair Usage Limits

The table combines the verified unique USA IP counts from ProxyWay with the actual pricing model and the documented fair usage limit for each provider. It is the core of this guide. Read it as a buying tool: a high advertised pool means little next to a low unique count, and an unlimited plan means little without a documented limit.

Sources: unique USA IP counts from the ProxyWay 2026 report; pricing and fair usage figures from each provider's published pricing and fair usage pages. Figures marked not disclosed could not be verified from a primary source.

The Top 5 Datacenter Proxy Providers

Based on the verified IP counts, the pricing models, and the documented fair usage limits above, here is a ranked top 5. The ranking weights honest IP counts, buyer-friendly pricing, and clearly disclosed limits over raw marketing claims. CatProxies sits in this list as the value option: multiple configuration choices, per-GB and unlimited pricing with real documented limits, and fair usage policies that match the number of IPs offered.

The decision usually comes down to load pattern and budget. Constant high-volume scraping with budget to spare points to Oxylabs. A need to pay only for what is used, with the option to configure IPs and bandwidth separately, points to Catproxies Datacenter Proxies. Predictable enterprise billing with overage rather than throttling points to Bright Data.

Why Dedicated Datacenter Proxies Are Not Worth the Premium

Dedicated datacenter proxies are usually not worth the extra money, in the same way dedicated static ISP proxies are not. The assumption is that a dedicated IP is a clean, unused address that performs better. The reality is that it is still a datacenter IP, which is a lower-quality IP than a residential or mobile one. A clean datacenter IP still behaves like a datacenter IP. Paying a premium for a virgin one changes little.

Shared datacenter pools have a bad reputation when an IP is split across hundreds of users, and that concern is fair. But datacenter proxies are designed to be reused repeatedly for easy tasks that do not block IPs quickly. A shared datacenter pool is the normal model for nearly every provider, and it works for the workloads datacenter proxies are meant for. Trying to buy dedicated IPs for datacenter use rarely makes sense.

Why Datacenter Proxies Get Blocked

Datacenter proxies get blocked because well-built site algorithms recognize IPs coming from data centers and treat them as bots. A site does not want its servers loaded by a hundred datacenter IPs crawling content for no benefit to the site, so the algorithm blocks them. Large sites such as Amazon and Netflix will not tolerate 10,000 threads running across a datacenter IP range, and they will temporarily block those IPs.

This is the core limitation of the product, not a flaw in any one provider. It is also why slower, more measured request rates can still make datacenter proxies viable on some targets that would block an aggressive burst. For sites with strong fingerprinting, residential or mobile IPs are the better tool. CatProxies covers the differences in its guide to ISP vs residential proxies.

Common Misconceptions About Datacenter Proxies

“More IPs always means a better provider.”

False. The ProxyWay data shows advertised pools in the millions resolving to unique counts under 55,000. A pool of 10,000 to 15,000 well-hosted IPv4 addresses covers almost every datacenter workload. A larger advertised number often signals counting tricks or botnet padding, not better service.

“Unlimited datacenter plans have no limits.”

False. Almost every unlimited plan carries a fair usage limit. Webshare throttles after 10 TB down to as low as 5 Mbps. Decodo reduces concurrency once both a 10 TB cycle cap and a per-IP cap are exceeded. Oxylabs cuts sessions per IP after 100 GB per IP. Unlimited refers to the absence of a per-GB meter, not the absence of any limit.

“Cheaper datacenter proxies are always lower quality.”

False, with one caveat. Datacenter proxies are a commodity-grade product, so a fair price does not mean poor quality. A configurable per-GB plan can cost a fraction of a per-IP plan and deliver the same result. The caveat is suspiciously cheap, very large pools, which are usually a botnet stability risk rather than a genuine bargain.

“Fraud-score tests like IPQS and Scamalytics matter for datacenter proxies.”

False for this product. Datacenter IPs are identifiable as datacenter IPs by design, so fraud-score testing tells you little that the IP type does not already. Those tests matter for residential and mobile proxies, where the point is to blend in. For datacenter proxies, IP count, pricing model, and fair usage limits are the metrics that decide value.

How to Size a Datacenter Proxy Plan Without Overpaying

The most common request is 15,000 or more IPs, monthly and unlimited, for under $60. That is hard to offer sustainably, and most buyers do not need it. A realistic approach is to test before committing to a large monthly plan.

Many CatProxies customers start with a one-day plan, often 1 TB across 1,000 to 5,000 IPs, and complete their task without issue. They then multiply their measured usage. A buyer who used 250 GB in a day can project roughly 5 TB across a month, usually with a lower IP count than expected. Configuring exactly the IP count and bandwidth needed, rather than buying a large fixed plan, saves money over time. CatProxies supports this directly: a buyer who wants 500 IPs with 100 GB can buy exactly that, and a buyer who wants 2,500 IPs with unlimited bandwidth can buy that instead, across 92 possible plan combinations from $4 to more than $500.

Concurrent Connection Limits Explained

Concurrent connection limits, sometimes called threads, control how many requests run at once. They matter more than most buyers expect, because an unlimited bandwidth plan with a low thread cap can still bottleneck a fast job.

On CatProxies, all datacenter plans include a default cap of 1,000 concurrent connections, applied across the entire proxy list on the account, regardless of plan size or bandwidth allocation. Plans with the higher concurrency add-on receive 10 concurrent connections per proxy. A 1,000-proxy plan with the add-on therefore allows up to 10,000 concurrent connections in total. For comparison, Webshare defaults to 500 and raises to 3,000 or more with add-ons, Decodo defaults to 1,000 and offers 5,000 for an extra 40 percent of plan price, and Oxylabs allows 10,000 sessions with unlimited on enterprise tiers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best datacenter proxies in 2026?

The best datacenter proxies in 2026 are those with an honest unique IP count, per-GB or unlimited pricing rather than per-IP, and a documented fair usage limit. Based on verified ProxyWay data and published pricing, the strongest options are Oxylabs for high-volume work, Bright Data for predictable enterprise overage, NetNut for per-GB datacenter alongside a residential stack, CatProxies as the value option, and Evomi for clean per-GB billing.

How many datacenter IPs do I actually need?

Most workloads are covered by a pool of 10,000 to 15,000 IPv4 addresses with country targeting. Many projects need far fewer. Testing a one-day plan and measuring real usage is the most reliable way to size a monthly plan without overpaying.

Are unlimited datacenter proxies really unlimited?

No. Unlimited means there is no per-GB meter, but a fair usage limit almost always applies. Honest providers document it. Webshare throttles after 10 TB, Decodo reduces concurrency after combined thresholds, and Oxylabs cuts sessions per IP after 100 GB per IP. CatProxies allows roughly 150 TB unthrottled on a 15,000-proxy plan.

Why are some datacenter proxy pools so much cheaper than others?

Fair pricing reflects a commodity product. Suspiciously cheap, very large pools are different: they often layer botnet IPs onto a small hosted base to inflate the count. These pools are unstable and usually come with poor support, which makes them a risk rather than a bargain.

Should I buy dedicated or shared datacenter proxies?

Shared is the normal and sensible choice for datacenter proxies. A dedicated datacenter IP is still a datacenter IP, so the premium rarely buys meaningfully better performance. Dedicated makes more sense for residential or ISP products, not for datacenter.

Do fraud scores like IPQS matter for datacenter proxies?

Not meaningfully. Datacenter IPs are identifiable as datacenter IPs regardless of fraud score, so the test adds little. Fraud scores matter for residential and mobile proxies, where blending in is the goal.

What is the difference between datacenter and residential proxies?

Datacenter proxies use IPs hosted in data centers, which are fast and cheap but easier for sites to detect. Residential proxies use subscriber-assigned IPs that appear as ordinary users and pass more checks. CatProxies offers both datacenter proxies and residential proxies, and the choice depends on how aggressively the target site blocks datacenter ranges.

Choosing the Right Datacenter Proxy Provider

The best datacenter proxy in 2026 is the one with an honest IP count, a pricing model that charges for usage rather than per IP, and a fair usage limit it will actually disclose. Verified data beats advertised pools every time. For buyers who want to pay only for what they use and configure IPs and bandwidth independently, CatProxies offers datacenter proxies with 92 plan combinations, per-GB and unlimited pricing, and documented fair usage limits.