Key Points about Social Media Proxies
- Social media proxies are optimized for platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.
- Nowadays, social media proxies are mostly mobile and ISP (static residential) – they’re the hardest to block. You can also use residential proxies; they’re cheaper but much slower.
- The main use cases include multiple account management and creation, unblocking as well as scraping.
- Don’t use free proxies with social media – they’ll likely be blocked on popular platforms.
Learn more: What Are Social Media Proxies?
Tips and Tricks for Using Proxies for Social Media
- Consider your needs. Before sticking to a proxy service subscription, choose the right proxy type. Some proxies are more expensive than others and work with different use cases. For example, mobile IPs are the hardest to block but are costly.
- Search for a reliable proxy service. If you don’t want to damage your reputation or get into legal trouble, do your research before acquiring proxies. Legitimate proxy providers are transparent about how their proxies are sourced. A reliable service vets its customers and monitors proxy use.
- Respect the website’s guidelines. There are three critical guidelines you should know before automating your actions. Every website has instructions (a robots.txt file) to manage bot traffic. This is especially relevant for scraping – it shows what pages you can scrape. You should also read platforms’ terms of service, which sometimes include policies that prohibit you from certain automated activities. And most importantly, don’t scrape data behind a login. This can get you into legal trouble.
- Use an antidetect browser for multiple account management. If you’re a social media marketer and need to manage (or create) multiple accounts for your clients without a risk of blocking them, pair your proxies with an antidetect browser. It will spoof your digital fingerprint. This isn’t the fastest approach but definitely the safest.
- Don’t use too many IPs with one account. A good practice is up to 5-8 accounts per mobile IP.
How We Chose the Best Social Media Proxy Providers
To make a list of the best social media proxy providers, we tested a dozen services for the latest Proxy Market Research. We dwelled into the size and quality of each provider’s proxy pool, among other aspects. Here are the results of the top five social media proxy providers.
Where to Buy the Best Social Media Proxies
1. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)
Best value social media proxies.
Try 100MB for free.
Residential proxies
- Advertised pool: 115M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN, ZIP targeting
- Rotation: Every request, customizable sessions up to 24 hrs
- Starts from: $4 for 1 GB. Pay as you go available
Mobile proxies
- Advertised pool: 10M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN, ZIP targeting
- Rotation: Every request, customizable sessions up to 24 hrs
- Starts from: $4 for 1 GB. Pay as you go available
ISP proxies
- Formats: Shared, dedicated list, rotating pool
- Countries: 16 in four continents
- Rotation: Available in all formats, optional
- Starts from: $4.7 for 10 shared IPs ($0.47/IP), $10 for 3 dedicated IPs ($3.33/IP), or $3 for 1 GB
General info
- Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, QUIC over UDP
- Authorization: Credentials, IP whitelist
- Extras: Sub-users, management API, browser extension, proxy checker
- Support: 24/7 via live chat, Discord, or email
- Trial: 100 MB for residential mobile proxies. 14-day refund available
Decodo offers great value for anyone who needs social media proxies. Over the years, we’ve recognized its services to have the best overall user experience: 24/7 customer support via most communication means, an extensive backlog of guides on social media automation, and an easy-to-use dashboard.
Decodo’s mobile IP network is one of the fastest. The proxy pool has 10 million IPs from 130 locations worldwide and over 700 ASNs. It also offers 55 million rotating residential IPs from 195 different locations worldwide that you can target up to the city level.
You can also get shared (pay-per-IP or pay-per-GB) and dedicated ISP proxies. Both pay-per-IP and dedicated services are static, while pay-per-GB ISP proxies provide access to a large rotating pool of addresses.
However, despite all the praises, we seem to find downsides in every service. And Decodo is not an exception. Its mobile proxies don’t support city-level targeting.
For more information and performance tests, read our Decodo review.
2. SOAX
Mobile proxies with flexible filtering options.
Use the code PROXYWAY35% to get 35% off.
Residential proxies
- Advertised pool: 155M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN targeting
- Rotation: Every request, 10 s-60 min, strict sessions
- Other features: Browser optimized mode, look-a-like rotation
- Starts from: $90 for 25 GB ($3.6/GB)
Mobile proxies
- Advertised pool: 33M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN targeting
- Rotation: Every request, 10 s-60 min, strict sessions
- Starts from: $90 for 25 GB ($3.6/GB)
General info
- Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, QUIC over UDP (resi & mob only)
- Authorization: Credentials, IP whitelist
- Extras: Reporting API
- Support: 24/7 via live chat
- Trial: Paid ($1.99)
SOAX’s proxy services have been gradually improving yearly – today, the provider can easily compare to other premium services. It has a user-friendly dashboard with an onboarding wizard for newbies. Customer support is available via live chat, email, phone, and Telegram, and typically responds within five minutes.
SOAX offers a pool of 30M mobile and 155M residential proxies in most countries. You can filter these IPs by country, region, city, and ASN, combining multiple filters at once.
The rotation ranges from 1 to 60 minutes, and there’s even a mode for the residential proxies that mimics natural IP switching. The main drawback is that the proxies may drop unpredictably, but that’s a reality of most peer-to-peer pools.
Read the SOAX review for more information and performance tests.
3. Byteful
Quality proxies for different social media needs.
Use the code PROXYWAY10 to get 10% off.
Residential proxies
- Advertised pool: 35M IPs
- Countries: 150+ with state, city, ASN/ISP, ZIP targeting
- Rotation: Every request, sessions up to seven days
- Other features: Pool size & speed filters, Smartpath engine
- Starts from: $3.25 for 1 GB. Scaling pay as you go
Mobile proxies
- Advertised pool: 6M IPs
- Countries: 100+ with state, city, ASN/ISP targeting
- Rotation: Every request, sessions up to seven days
- Other features: Pool size & speed filters, Smartpath engine
- Starts from: $4.25 for 1 GB. Scaling pay as you go
ISP proxies
- Formats: Dedicated list
- Countries: 15 in three continents
- Rotation: Static
- Starts from: $2.5 for 1 IP
General info
- Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, UDP
- Authorization: Credentials, IP whitelist
- Extras: Management API, proxy checker
- Support: 5AM-7PM European time via live chat, email, tickets, Discord
- Trial: 1 GB for residential proxies
Byteful offers a varying range of proxies, letting you choose a network based on the task. Mobile IPs are the safest option for managing profiles, ISP proxies provide stable addresses for long-term account use, and residential proxies offer a more affordable way to collect public social media data.
The provider’s proxies support precise location and ISP targeting, as well as sticky sessions for maintaining a consistent identity. The dashboard breaks down traffic by user and domain, while the activity feed shows each request’s status code, duration, and bandwidth use. This makes it easier to identify failing automations or campaigns consuming more data than expected
For more information and performance tests, read our Byteful review.
4. Webshare
Affordable ISP proxies for social media scraping.
Get 50% off your first purchase.
Residential proxies
- Advertised pool: 80M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state & city targeting
- Rotation: Every request, customizable sessions
- Starts from: $3.5 for 1 GB
ISP proxies
- Formats: Shared, semi-shared, dedicated list
- Countries: ~15 in four continents
- Rotation: Available in all formats, optional
- Other features: IP refresh interval, # of manual IP replacements, high concurrency, network priority, 0 fraud score
- Starts from: $6 for 20 shared IPs ($0.3/IP) & 250 GB
General info
- Protocols: HTTP, SOCKS5
- Authorization: Credentials, IP whitelist
- Extras: Sub-users, management API, browser extension
- Support: 6AM-6PM PST via live chat & email
- Trial: Refund available
Webshare has robust social media proxies. The provider offers complete self-service and customizable subscriptions for both residential and ISP products.
Webshare has over 100,000 ISP proxies in 7 locations. They are very fast and have a high success rate. The residential service has a pool of 80 million monthly IPs that you can filter by 195 individual locations. They’re one of the cheaper proxies in the market.
In terms of rotation, residential proxies rotate with every request with an option to customize sessions. ISP proxies, on the other hand, come in a list of static addresses, but you can rotate them for free. Additionally, Webshare has a feature where you can replace individual IPs or the whole list at an extra cost.
The drawbacks? There’s no city or ASN targeting, and the services won’t come cheap if you need extra features like network priority or IP refreshes.
For more information and performance tests, read our Webshare review.
5. Bright Data
Feature-rich proxy service for most social media use cases.
Use the code PROXYWAY60 to get 60% off all proxy plans and Browser API. New users only.
Residential proxies
- Advertised pool: 400M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN/ISP, ZIP, coordinate targeting
- Rotation: Every request, sticky sessions (customizable with extra app)
- Other features: IP protocol, OS selection, dedicated IPs
- Starts from: $4 for 1 GB. Pay as you go available
Mobile proxies
- Advertised pool: 10M IPs
- Countries: 195+ with state, city, ASN, ZIP targeting
- Rotation: Every request, customizable sessions up to 24 hrs
- Starts from: $4 for 1 GB. Pay as you go available
General info
- Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, QUIC over UDP
- Authorization: Credentials, IP whitelist
- Extras: Management API, sub-users, browser extension, Proxy Manager app
- Support: 24/7 via live chat, tickets, dedicated account manager
- Trial: No-card free trial available
Bright Data mainly targets large businesses. Over the years, the provider managed to keep premium quality and features. The dashboard is comprehensive, the customer service is available via email, and a ticket system, and you’ll get a dedicated account manager.
Bright Data has one of the largest proxy networks: 400 million residential IPs, and 700,000 thousand ISP proxies. The residential IPs cover all countries and thousands of cities with up to carrier targeting. The ISP proxies include 50 locations that you can filter by cities.
In terms of rotation, all Bright Data’s services include an open-source proxy manager, which allows you to rotate proxies however you like.
But the problems come down to money and difficulty setting up. Bright Data’s premium features cost a lot, and since it targets large-sized businesses, individuals or small businesses might find the service overpriced.
Read the Bright Data review for more information and performance tests.