What’s an Instagram Proxy and Where to Get Them?

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What Is an Instagram Proxy?

An Instagram proxy is a proxy server optimized specifically for Instagram. Nowadays, that means two things:

1. The IPs are mobile or at least residential. Datacenter Instagram proxies are long past their glory days, and you won’t accomplish much with them.
2. The IPs won’t be banned when you start using them. This part is much harder to ensure with peer-to-peer residential proxies, where all users share the same pool. Still, with networks spanning millions of residential IP addresses, the odds are pretty good for you.

Otherwise, Instagram proxies are the same as your regular proxy IPs. You can find them on most sites of proxy providers that offer proxies for sneaker copping, Youtube, Craigslist, and so on.

Why Use Proxies for Instagram

• Manage multiple Instagram accounts – if you or your business needs more than a few Instagram accounts, proxies are a must. Otherwise, Instagram will quickly flag your IP address, and you won’t be able to do much.
• Build a following – this will still include managing multiple Instagram accounts, though you won’t have to put in so much work. Honestly, it isn’t the fairest way to get famous or get some sweet brand deals, but you do you, right?
• Scrape Instagram – Instagram contains a lot of valuable information. You can scrape Instagram hashtags, photos, followers, or even whole profiles. Just keep in mind that Instagram is against this practice and will go out of its way to stop you.
• Unblock Instagram – if your school, workplace, or country are not big fans of Instagram use, you have an easily accessible solution. While there are other options, like VPNs, Instagram proxies do a great job, too.

Which Types of Proxies for Instagram Work Best

From best to worst:

• Mobile proxies (4G proxies) – Instagram trusts these IP addresses the most: first, because it’s a mobile app; and second, because hundreds of mobile devices share the same IP address. However, mobile proxies are very expensive and hardly sustainable if you need many accounts.
• Residential proxies – both rotating and static residential IPs will do. Rotating proxies will be better for Instagram account creation; static residential IP addresses work well for account management.
• Dedicated proxies – private datacenter proxies dedicated specifically for social media. Cheaper than both mobile or residential, more expensive than shared ones. Not the best choice for Instagram bots, but still useful for running scraper Instagram accounts.
• Shared proxies – don’t use these IP addresses for Instagram. You’ll never be sure if the proxies haven’t been blocked already, and these are still datacenter IPs.

Tips and Tricks to Becoming an Instagram Proxy Master

1. Consider your needs. If you only want to run two or three Instagram accounts with your Instagram bot, then maybe you don’t need proxies at all. The same goes for a VPS – they can help you run hundreds of accounts, but you don’t always need one.
2. Choose your automation tool. There are many different Instagram bots out there. Jarvee is always a popular pick, but you can also get Storyvoter, Ninjagram, or IGMassViewing, to name a few. Instagram automation software is as important, or even more important than proxies.
3. Start slow. If you’re growing Instagram accounts, let them “warm up” for a while before you do anything with them. Then, gradually start increasing the number of follows; you won’t be able to get 400-1000/day anymore, but one to two hundred is still possible.
4. Mind your actions. Don’t run your fake Instagram account round the clock. Instead, use it within a certain timeframe, like 12 hours, because that’s what humans do. Run your accounts in shifts. In the same way, don’t follow, unfollow, or comment at the same time every day – it’s a sure way to get shut down.
5. Try things out. Check if your Instagram proxies work with trial Instagram accounts and play around with the settings of your Instagram bot. Get used to the process.
6. Don’t stop learning. If you’ve been running multiple Instagram accounts with no issues until now, it doesn’t mean things won’t change. The platform constantly updates its algorithms, and the game starts all over again. You can read forums like MPSocial and BHW to stay up to date with Instagram automation and Instagram bots.

And as always, never settle for bad service.

The Best Residential Proxies for Instagram

1. Smartproxy

Affordable residential proxies for Instagram automation.

Smartproxy is our editor’s choice, and for good reasons – its residential proxies showed the best response time on Instagram. It has a large rotating residential proxy network that allows targeting 195 locations and doesn’t share subnets. The IPs come from both desktop and mobile devices. Smartproxy offers great customer support and plenty of content on Instagram automation. The proxy provider is simple to use and doesn’t cost much for what you get. All in all, it’s no wonder why Smartproxy is such a popular choice for social media automation and sneaker copping.

But Smartproxy isn’t perfect for everything. These are still peer-to-peer residential IPs: you can create sticky sessions up to 30 mins, but they will rotate. You also can’t target the IPs by carrier or ASN, but that’s not a must.

Features:

• 40 million peer-to-peer residential IPs 
• 195 locations
• Rotation every request, sticky sessions up to 30 mins 
• Unlimited connections and threads
• Whitelisted IP & user:pass authentication 
• Sub-users 
• API & browser extension

Pricing: From $12.5 for 1 GB. 3-day refund available.

2. Bright Data

Rotating residential proxies with the most features.

Bright Data is the largest proxy provider today with a pool of 72M rotating IPs worldwide. It offers every kind of proxy there is – in our case, we’re interested in Bright Data’s rotating residential IPs. With a success rate of over 99%, the provider has also shown great results in response time – 1.08s. The residential IPs come with features like country, state, city and ASN targeting. With Bright Data, you’ll get flexible IP rotation options: rotation every request or as long as your IP is available.

The drawbacks? Well, Bright Data costs a lot and choosing useful features like ASN targeting adds to the price. The whole user experience can be confusing at times. And Bright Data is very strict about compliance, so it can simply refuse to serve your use case one day. It used to have a landing page for Instagram proxies – that’s long gone.

Features:

• 72M peer-to-peer & static residential IPs
• HTTP, HTTPS & SOCKS protocols
• Country, city, ASN and carrier targeting
• Rotation every request, sticky sessions available
• Pay-as-you-go option

Pricing: From 15 for 1 GB. 7-day trial for businesses and 3-day refund available.

3. GeoSurf

Quality static and rotating residential proxies with thousands of cities.

GeoSurf is a VPN and proxy provider that sells both rotating and static residential proxies for Instagram. Its pool is small but carefully picked and maintained. We confirmed that by running extensive performance tests on the rotating IPs – the results were good, and the proxy servers stable. Sticky sessions up to 30 mins make even the peer-to-peer residential proxies suitable for account management, though you should probably pick the static option for that. GeoSurf allows choosing from over 1,000 cities for precise location targeting.

But quality proxies come at a price, and GeoSurf is one of the most expensive providers in the market. Once again, it boils down to how serious you are about Instagram marketing.

Features:

• 2.5M peer-to-peer & static residential IPs
• Over 100 countries, thousands of cities
• Rotation every request, sticky sessions for 1/10/30 mins
• Unlimited connections
• Whitelisted IP & user:pass authentication
• API, browser extension

Pricing: From $300 for 20 GB ($15/GB). No free trial, but you can get a demo session.

Read the GeoSurf review for more information and performance tests.

4. NetNut

Diverse rotating residential proxy plans.

NetNut sells both static and rotating residential proxies. While it focuses on medium-sized and large businesses,  you can get both types of proxies with as few as 1 GB of traffic. The rotating residential IPs cover over 150 countries with a pool of 10-20 million monthly IPs and showed great results in the US; the average response time was 0.86s. NetNut allows keeping the same IP for as long as it remains available or, in the case of ISP proxies, indefinitely.

However, NetNuts’ residential proxies aren’t so fast outside the US. Also, only better-paying clients get features like city targeting, access to a web scraping API, and an account manager. Finally, the provider doesn’t have premium features like ASN targeting.

Features:

• 10-20M peer-to-peer residential IPs 
• Over 150 countries (country, state and city targeting)
• Rotation every request or keep the same IP indefinitely
• Unlimited connections 
• Whitelisted IP & user:pass authentication 
• API & browser extension 

Pricing: Residential proxies start from $20 for 1 GB. 7-day free trial available.

Read the NetNut review for more information and performance tests.

The Best Mobile Proxies for Instagram

1. SOAX

Mobile proxies with flexible filtering options.

SOAX’s mobile proxy pool has 3.5M IP addresses on 3G and 4G networks with over 96% of success rate on Instagram. SOAX has very flexible filtering options: it allows selecting country and region, city, and ASN. And that’s the touchstone for Instagram account management since most social media platforms only tolerate addresses with similar parameters. SOAXs’ mobile proxies rotate from 90 seconds, 2, 6, and 10 minutes, and you can specify custom duration.

There are a few drawbacks: SOAX doesn’t support rotation with every connection request, which limits scraping potential. And its mobile proxies are quite slow.

Features:

• 5M residential, 3.5M mobile IPs
• Global locations with city & ASN targeting
• Rotation from 90 seconds to as long as the IP remains available
• Concurrent connections limited by plan
• Whitelisted IP & user:pass authentication

Pricing: Starts from $99 for 3GB ($33/GB) + 300 ports. 3-day trial for $1.99 available.

2. Rayobyte

Affordable US mobile proxies for web scraping.

Rayobyte offers mobile proxies that rotate every connection request for Instagram scraping. They run on USB dongles. This means the proxy pool may not be enough for large-scale scraping, but you’ll get many unique IPs throughout extended periods. Another bonus is the price:  it’s significantly cheaper compared to other providers. 

Rayobyte has a few hiccups because its mobile proxy service is still new. Our data show that its average response time is 7.13s. And the provider has limited features: no state, city, or ASN filters.

Features:

• Unknown pool size
• Supports HTTP(S) protocol
• Only US-based locations
• Rotation every request 
• Unlimited connections

Pricing: Starts from $50 for 2 GB ($25/GB).