The 6 Best Sneaker Proxies to Cop Your Grail in 2023
Yeezys, Air Jordan’s, Adidas – all well-known brands, and all well known for their limited edition sneakers. These are no regular sneakers you just go to a shop and buy. If you do go to a shop, you’ll stand in lines lasting for hours to get your hands on a pair, if there will be any left. So what then, you just go online and order a bunch?
Nope. Not gonna work that way. Most people and companies buy shoes in bulk with proxies and sneaker bots. The competition against bots is tough, especially for those who want to start a business and cop sneakers.
So what should you do? Fight fire with fire, of course! By using sneaker proxies and bots yourself, you’ll be on top of the sneaker game, as well. Here are the sneaker proxy providers that will help you win.
The Best Proxies for Sneaker Bots – Quick Summary:
- Smartproxy – best residential proxies for sneaker bots.
- Oxylabs – best premium proxies for buying in bulk.
- Bright Data – quality residential & ISP proxies for serious cooks.
- Proxydrop – non-expiring residentials for individual sneakerheads.
- NetNut – best ISP proxies for resellers.
- PacketStream – cheap residential proxies that still perform well.
What Are Sneaker Proxies?
Sneaker proxies are middlemen IP addresses optimized specifically for buying sneakers from the most popular online shoe stores. They’re used with sneaker bots to cop limited releases before they become unavailable.
How to Choose the Best Proxies for Sneaker Bots
No matter which brand you’re targeting, if you want to buy the best proxies for your bot, look for the following:
- Residential or ISP proxies – datacenter proxies used to be a good choice for copping sneakers. Not anymore. We explain why below.
- Proxies near the store’s server – for example, if the seller is located in the US, you’ll need proxies from the States – ideally NY, Virginia, or Chicago. This will make your connection faster.
- Proxies that can hold the same IP address – residential proxies need to rotate because of the way they work. Many shoe stores use queue-based systems, so make sure your proxies can keep the same IP address for at least 10 minutes.
- The fastest proxies you can get – speed is no longer king, but it remains very important. Try to get as fast proxies as possible.
Residential vs Datacenter Proxies for Sneakers
In the past, datacenter proxies were the main choice for sneakers: they’re cheap and very fast. But they also come from commercial hosting companies and can’t hide this very well. Many of the shoe sites have implemented strict security measures. They quickly spot a datacenter IP and ban it, sometimes taking down a whole subnet. Nowadays they’re more often used as CAPTCHA proxies, to collect tokens.
Residential proxies use the connections of real people. Shoe stores don’t want to ban potential customers, so they’re much more reluctant to stop your bot.
Of course, not everything depends on proxies – sneaker bots often have even more impact. (Try asking SNKRS botters about it.) But proxies still make a big difference.
What about ISP Sneaker Proxies?
ISP proxies, or static residential proxies, are actually a great choice for sneakers. They’re like datacenter proxies, only registered with consumer internet service providers. So, they’re fast, hard to block, and don’t need to rotate – a win for copping. Should you move on to them and forget the other proxy types?
Not exactly. ISPs have a few issues: they’re hard to get, expensive, and you can’t generate unlimited IPs like you can with residential proxies. Both types work, and their effectiveness varies by release. Considering this, it’s a good idea to mix both types. Or at least try out each and see what works for you.
To learn more, you can read this comparison of residential and ISP proxies.
How to Use Sneaker Proxies?
- Get multiple IPs – the more proxies you have, the fewer chances you have to get blocked and therefore – win against the heavy competition.
- Use one IP for one task – some websites allow only one IP address to buy a pair of sneakers, and it’s a good way to avoid getting blocked.
- Collect CAPTCHA tokens – most shoe sites will require you to complete CAPTCHAs. Good sneaker bots let you watch Youtube videos or use a Gmail account to get one-click CAPTCHAs.
- Monitor releases – assign a few proxies to constantly watch for an incoming drop. Your cook group should inform you about the release, but it’s a good safety measure.
- Filter out slow IPs – this applies to residential proxies. Just before a release, run your IPs through Proxydrop’s or your bot’s proxy checker and remove addresses with high ping.
Don’t Use Free Shoe Proxies
Really, don’t. Good luck finding free sneaker proxies that haven’t been banned on shoe sites already. If you do, they’ll be too slow and unreliable for copping, anyway. Buying shoes is hard enough as it is – proxies should help with the process, not hinder it.
The Best Sneaker Proxy Providers of 2023
Smartproxy is a popular choice among sneakerheads. It offers very fast residential proxies that cover the main store locations. Each plan gives you access to 40M IPs for a month, so there’s no waiting around for restocks or having your proxies expire after one release. You can easily start using the service, and there are plenty of tutorials to help you.
Smartproxy allows paying as you go or committing to a monthly plan. Both cost less than what most specialized sneaker proxy shops can offer you. Smartproxy is reseller-friendly as well and has special plans for them.
Features
- 40M residential proxies
- No connection or IP limits
- All the main US, EU, and Asian locations
- 10 or 30 min. sticky sessions
- 24/7 customer support
- API for resellers
Pricing:
Starts from $12.5 for 1 GB. 3-day refund available.
Read the Smartproxy review for more information and performance tests.
Oxylabs is the provider to consider if you’re copping large scale or reselling. It offers 100M premium residential IPs around the world. You can target them by city and create sticky sessions up 30 minutes for long queues. The proxy server is among the best performers we’ve tried: fast, stable, with a great success rate. Oxylabs also offers ISP proxies (mostly the US) but we can’t vouch for their effectiveness.
As a premium proxy provider, Oxylabs doesn’t have the cheapest rate. But it recently introduced pay as you go, which costs on part with specialized resellers. And many serious sneakerheads consider Oxylabs a top choice for any release.
Features
- 100M residential, 100k ISP proxies
- No connection or IP limits
- Every country & most cities in the world
- 30 min. sticky sessions
- 24/7 premium support
- API for resellers
Pricing:
Starts from $15 for 1 GB. 7-day trial for businesses, 3-day refund available.
Read the Oxylabs review for more information and performance tests.
It’s almost impossible to exclude Bright Data when making these lists. It’s a leading provider with proxies for every (legal) use case – sneakers included. You can choose from a big network of residential and ISP proxies. They have many features, impeccable performance, and amazing proxy management tools. A neat bonus: credit based pricing.
That said, Bright Data has several issues, which is why we didn’t place it first. First, the service is complex to use, requiring extra software to set up things like proxy rotation. Second, it’s mighty expensive. And third, the usage terms are pretty strict. But if you know what you’re doing, Bright Data will prove to be a powerful choice.
Features
- 72M residential, 110k ISP proxies
- No connection or IP limits (for residentials)
- All countries, city and carrier targeting
- Flexible rotation, ISP proxies can be static
- 24/7 support
- Bright Data’s Proxy Manager
Pricing:
Residential proxies start from $15/GB. 7-day free trial for businesses, 3-day refund available.
Bright Data Offer
Read the Bright Data review for more information and performance tests.
Proxydrop is a specialized sneaker shop. It offers residential, CAPTCHA, and soon ISP proxies for sneaker releases – in short, everything to get a sneakerhead going. You can actually choose from three residential plans, each faster and more exclusive. The Prestige plan especially has brought some great results, and it’s unlikely to stop. What we really like is that the resi plans don’t expire, and that two of them are always available. So, you can calmly use them for restocks once the drop ends.
Of course, Proxydrop is best for individual sneakerheads. But if you are one, it’s very good at its job. We’d only like the customer support to be 24/7 (it’s not).
Features
- Residential, CAPTCHA & soon ISP proxies
- Unlimited IPs for the residential plans
- 20 locations
- Up to 30-minute rotation
- Non-expiring plans
Pricing:
Regular residential proxies start from $36/2GB ($18/GB).
Read the Proxydrop review for more information and performance tests.
NetNut is the leading vendor of ISP proxies, so it’s probably powering half the reseller market. The IPs are fast, perform well, and have more than adequate geo targeting options. Hosted in data centers, they don’t need to rotate, which can be a big plus for long drops. NetNut also offers network of residential proxies, but we’ve had limited exposure to it.
Overall, this provider is best for experienced users or those who need sneaker proxies at scale. It does offer smaller plans now (starting from 1 GB), but they are expensive. Small time cooks looking for ISP proxies might be better off with Chi Cooked, which NetNut owns.
Features
- 1M ISP proxies
- No connection or IP limits
- 30+ countries
- Static IPs
- 24/7 support
- API for resellers
Pricing:
ISP proxies start from $25/1GB for a monthly plan. Sneaker-optimized IPs might have a different rate. 7-day free trial available.
Read the NetNut review for more information and performance tests.
PacketStream is famous for its bargain residential proxies with credit-based pricing. You can get IPs for as little as $1 for a gig of traffic (as long as you buy at least 50 GB). They cover many locations and perform surprisingly well, as we found out in our market research.
However, selling proxies for such a low cost has its… well, cost. We’ve found PacketStream IP pool to be very small, despite its claim of 7 million addresses. This should be fine with popular locations like the US, not so with smaller countries. Even then, fewer proxies means a bigger chance to get an abused IP. Still, PacketStream should be fine if you want a pair or two.
Features:
- 7M residential proxies
- No connection or IP limits
- 100+ countries
- Sticky sessions (for as long as the IP is available)
- Email support
- API for resellers
Pricing:
Starts from $50/50GB ($1/GB).
Read the PacketStream review for more information and performance tests.
The Many Types of Sneaker Proxies
The term “sneaker proxies” is broad, and people look for specific releases to cop. You’ll often run into terms like Nike proxies (or SNKRS proxies), Supreme proxies, Yeezy proxies, Footsites proxies, Adidas proxies, Bape proxies, and so on.
Are there any differences between them? Kind of. Here’s what we know from our experience:
Nike Proxies
Nike punishes botting hard. So, the best proxies for Nike SNKRS will be residential and ideally unabused. In this case, the most important thing is a good sneaker bot.
Check out the best Nike proxies.
Supreme Proxies
Supreme is all about speed. It was one of the last stores to work with datacenter IPs. As of 2023, it no longer does. Go for ISP proxies or the fastest residentials you can get.
Check out the best Supreme proxies.
Yeezy Proxies (Adidas Proxies)
Yeezys/Adidas are generally well-protected and put you into a queue. So, you should get residential IPs with sticky sessions (the longer the better) or ISP proxies. IPs that rotate every request won’t work.
Check out the best Yeezy proxies.
Footsites Proxies
Footsites like Footlocker, EastBay, Champs, and FootAction use a queue system as well. The drops take time, and speed isn’t very important. So, residential IPs with long sticky sessions or ISP proxies are a perfect choice.
Check out the best Footsites proxies.
Shopify Proxies
Some providers still advertise datacenter proxies as working for Shopify. But since it implemented new anti-botting measures, it’s no longer the case. Truth be told, other kinds of proxies are having a hard time, as well. Still, ISP proxies are preferred for speed, then residentials.
CAPTCHA Proxies
These proxies are used to generate CAPTCHA tokens by watching YouTube videos with different Gmail accounts. This helps to avoid solving image CAPTCHAs during sneaker releases. CAPTCHA proxies are nearly always datacenter IPs that work with Google and YouTube.
Learn more about CAPTCHA proxies.
why do you need proxies for bots ? i have a vpn which also has server pool, so in theory vpn can also work with bots. and vpns are faster than proxies.
Hi Chris. VPNs use datacenter connections, so sneaker sites will very quickly block them – if they allow you in, at all. And VPNs aren’t faster than proxies. They use the same servers but have to further encrypt traffic.