Roam
Residential proxy pricing, compared

Residential proxy pricing,
with the fine print left in

Most comparison pages cherry-pick a headline number and call it a day. Here is the honest version: the real 2026 rates for the major rotating-residential providers, plus the catches — promo clocks, volume floors, monthly caps — that decide what you actually pay. Roam isn't the lowest sticker price on this page, and we'll show you exactly where it wins and where it doesn't.

Where Roam lands: a flat $2/GB pay-as-you-go rate at any volume, no subscription, and a balance that never expires. Buy in bulk and top-up bonus credit takes the effective rate to $1.50/GB at $100 and $1.20/GB at $300 — the meter never changes, the wallet just holds more than you paid in. Cheaper on paper than Decodo; pricier on paper than PacketStream or a promo — but flat, predictable, and without a plan cycle. Datacenter ($0.80/GB), mobile 4G/5G ($9/GB) and static residential ($4/IP/mo) share the same wallet.

Rotating residential: the 2026 field

ProviderRotating residentialModelCommitment for best rateBalance expiryFree trial
Roam$2/GB flatPay-as-you-go$1.20/GB on a one-off $300 top-up — no plan, no monthly spend, and the credit never expiresNever300 MB
Decodo (ex-Smartproxy)$4/GB PAYGPAYG or monthly$2.75/GB at $275/mo; $2.00/GB only at 1 TB/mo ($2,000)Monthly cycle100 MB
PacketStream$1/GB flatPay-as-you-go$1/GB flat, $50 minimum purchaseNo expiryNo
Proxy-Cheap$1.50–$0.78/GB promoPAYG top-upThree promo tiers (−50/−60/−70%); $0.78 needs 51 GB+, but self-serve top-ups are capped at 50 GB/moMonthly top-up7-day $1.99 (ISP)
Rayobyte$3.50/GB → $0.50Tiered plans (no PAYG)$0.50/GB only at 5 TB+; $3.50 at entryTieredYes (on signup)
Infatica$4/GB PAYGPAYG + monthly$2.60/GB at 1,000 GB ($2,600/mo); $2.08 on annual billing at 12,000 GBPlan-based$4 7-day trial
NetNutSeized by the FBI / DOJ / IRS-CI on 3 July 2026 — no longer available seized

Competitor pricing verified 14 September 2026 from each provider's official pricing page, with every figure tied to the residential product panel it sits under (these pages carry five or six separate product ladders) and independently re-derived a second time. Prices change often — always confirm on the provider's site before buying. NetNut status per the DOJ seizure notice and reporting.

Read the fine print

A lower number on the pricing page is not always a lower bill. Here is what the sub-$2 rates on this table actually require:

Proxy-Cheap's $0.78/GB is a promotion you may not be able to buy. It's marked “−70%” against a ~$2.60/GB base and requires the 51 GB+ tier — yet their FAQ caps self-serve residential top-ups at 50 GB per month. The tiers you can actually reach are $1.50/GB (−50%) and $1.20/GB (−60%), and promotional rates can revert.
Infatica's advertised "from $0.30/GB" is not a residential rate at all. On their pricing page that $0.30 ladder sits in the Shared Datacenter panel. Residential is $4/GB pay-as-you-go, reaching $2.60/GB only at 1,000 GB per month, so at the entry price it is double Roam's flat rate.
Rayobyte's $0.50/GB needs 5 TB+ per cycle. Entry pricing is $3.50/GB, there is no pay-as-you-go option on their pricing page, and the cheap rate is a quote-only enterprise tier. Credit to them for loud, certified ethical sourcing.
PacketStream's $1/GB flat is genuinely cheap. It's a peer-to-peer network with a $50 minimum purchase and fewer targeting/enterprise controls — a real option if raw price is all that matters to you. The $0.10/GB figure on their site is what they pay people who share bandwidth, not a rate you can buy at.
Decodo's committed rates need $275–$2,000+/mo. The polished $2.00–$2.75/GB tiers exist, but only if you pre-commit monthly spend; PAYG is $4/GB.

Why teams pick Roam anyway

One flat rate, no games

$2/GB at any volume. No promo clock that resets, no floor you have to hit, no monthly minimum. Buying in bulk earns bonus credit — +33.3% at $100, +66.7% at $300, so you pay an effective $1.50 or $1.20 per GB — but that is a one-off choice, not a plan you have to keep feeding. Skip it and the rate is still $2/GB.

Balance never expires

Roam is a wallet, not a plan. Top up once and spend it over weeks or months — nothing resets at the end of a cycle.

Sourcing you can reason about

After the NetNut seizure, network stability is a purchasing criterion. Roam runs a commercial, pay-as-you-go network — not a consumer-device botnet that can vanish overnight.

When a rival is the better call

If raw price per gigabyte is the only thing that matters and you can live with fewer controls, PacketStream at $1/GB flat is honestly cheaper — still slightly under our $1.20 bulk rate, though it wants $50 up front before you can start. If you'll commit thousands per month, Decodo or Rayobyte enterprise tiers can beat $2/GB. Roam is built for everyone in between: no commitment, no expiry, no fine print.

Sources — every price above was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 14 September 2026:
Bright Data · Oxylabs · IPRoyal · SOAX · Webshare · Decodo · Infatica · PacketStream · Proxy-Cheap · Rayobyte

FAQ

Which residential proxy provider is cheapest in 2026?

On the sticker price, PacketStream ($1/GB flat), Proxy-Cheap on promotion ($0.78/GB) and Rayobyte at terabyte volume ($0.70/GB at 1 TB, $0.50 at 5 TB) sit below Roam's $2/GB. Each comes with a catch: promotions revert and Proxy-Cheap's best tier needs more volume than its own 50 GB monthly cap allows, and Rayobyte's cheap rates are quote-only enterprise tiers with no pay-as-you-go entry. Infatica, often cited at $0.30/GB, is not actually cheaper: that rate is a shared-datacenter product and its residential pay-as-you-go is $4/GB. Roam's $2/GB is flat at any volume with no subscription and a balance that never expires, and bulk top-ups bring the effective rate to $1.50/GB at $100 and $1.20/GB at $300 — without a plan to maintain, which is often cheaper in practice than a promo or an unreachable floor.

Why isn't Roam the absolute cheapest?

Because Roam meters everyone the same: a flat $2/GB, no commitment, no expiry, no promo clock. Volume is rewarded on the wallet instead — a $300 top-up earns +66.7% bonus credit, an effective $1.20/GB — so you can buy down the rate without signing up to a monthly plan. Sub-$1 rates elsewhere usually require large monthly spend, a time-limited promotion, or terabyte-scale volume to unlock.

What happened to NetNut?

On 3 July 2026 the FBI, DOJ and IRS Criminal Investigation — with Google, Lumen and the Shadowserver Foundation — seized NetNut (tracked as the “Popa” botnet) and hundreds of its domains. Its residential pool was built from roughly two million consumer devices co-opted through hidden SDKs. NetNut is no longer an available provider. If you're migrating off it, see our NetNut alternative page.

Does sourcing matter when I choose a provider?

More than it used to. The NetNut takedown showed that how a network gets its IPs is a legal and operational risk, not a footnote. A network built on a botnet can be seized overnight and take your workloads with it. In 2026, stability and sourcing sit next to price in the decision.

NetNut alternativevs Decodo

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