IPRoyal Review
IPRoyal can’t really compete with the leading proxy providers in pool size or quality. But it sure can in price – especially if you’re eyeing flexible proxies for small to mid-scale use.
Use the code PROXYWAY30 to get a 30% discount.
IPRoyal offers a wide variety of products for social media managers, web scrapers, and various other hustlers on a budget. They’re priced aggressively enough to cause serious headaches for IPRoyal’s competitors, and for you to consider the company as your provider of choice. $7 for 1 GB of residential proxies and no monthly commitments? That’s a pretty good deal.
But low prices always carry compromises. What will IPRoyal’s be? And will its products pack enough punch to justify the provider over Dataimpulse, Smartproxy, or even premium competitors like Bright Data? Let’s find out.
If you’ve come from Google, you may be interested in IPRoyal’s Pawns.app. We compare it with similar services here.
News about IPRoyal
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By Adam Dubois
- Provider News
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- Provider News
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General Information
IPRoyal started out in late 2020. It initially focused on renting IP space to other companies, but the attention quickly shifted to selling proxies directly to customers. Today, the provider offers four different proxy networks that cover all IP types.
IPRoyal runs its own residential proxy pool via a bandwidth-sharing app called Pawns. In a few years, the provider has managed to grow the network to several million IPs. This is an impressive feat, and it also lets IPRoyal claim that the proxies are sourced ethically.
IPRoyal used to be among the most affordable services, in line with Storm Proxies and PacketStream. It also put much focus on sneakerheads, with special datacenter plans and residential proxy endpoints for stores like Nike.
After a price hike in 2022, IPRoyal nears closer to mid-range providers like Smartproxy. Still, small users remain the company’s main audience, even if it wouldn’t mind selling you terabytes of residential traffic for a large project or reselling. In fact, the provider has been inching upmarket every year, giving up entry-level customers to its daughter project MarsProxies.
According to the CEO Karolis Toleikis, IPRoyal’s ambition is to grow into a top three provider in the near future. Considering that its traffic use increased 10 times comparing 2021 and 2022, and then over 2.5 times a year later, the company is on the right track.
IPRoyal Proxy Networks
IPRoyal sells all four main types of proxy servers:
- Datacenter proxies with more than 50 locations that come in dedicated lists.
- ISP proxies in the same format and over 30 countries to choose from.
- Residential proxies with global coverage.
- Mobile proxies based on dedicated dongles and available in 7+ countries.
We explore individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:
Datacenter
IPRoyal sells dedicated datacenter addresses that come in static lists. The provider also used to offer sneaker-optimized servers but discontinued the product after the market died down.
Features
IPRoyal’s datacenter proxies are pretty much unlimited: you can establish as many threads or send as much traffic as you like. Furthermore, they support SOCKS5, including the UDP protocol.
The number of locations is also impressive, with over 50 countries to choose from. IPRoyal has been consistently adding new locations throughout the years.
There are only two issues: you can select one country per plan (or get a randomly chosen assortment), and some countries may have few or no IPs available at times. For example, IPRoyal had no Canadian or Singapore proxies in stock when we checked.
The format is a simple IP list optimized for variety. You can refresh it for free once per month or keep the same proxies during the whole subscription period.
Pricing Plans
IPRoyal’s datacenter proxies use a subscription-based pricing model. You can get a monthly plan, pay every two months (5% off) or three months (10% off).
The provider charges only for the number of IPs you get. Unlike some alternatives, the pricing isn’t impacted by location, traffic, or target.
You can choose any number of proxies you want, starting from five IPs. IPRoyal doesn’t show in advance how many addresses are available, but it’ll inform you if you try to buy too many. The pricing stops scaling at 100 proxies – but even then, IPRoyal remains among the cheaper providers until 300-500 IPs.
Performance Benchmarks
#1: Download speed
We tested 10 IPs using DigitalOcean’s 100 MB NYC benchmark.
#2: Performance with popular targets
We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.
Residential
Residential proxies are IPRoyal’s flagship product and main growth driver.
Pool Size & Coverage
Between 2023 and 2024, IPRoyal’s advertised proxy pool changed from 2 million to 32 million IPs, which is quite a jump. Still, it remains around the market average, with providers like Bright Data advertising 72 million proxies and more.
The network covers all countries and offers impressive filtering options. You can choose to get IPs from a region, country, or city. ASN targeting is also available, but the provider has to enable it manually. The condition used to be (and likely remains) several thousand dollars in spend.
Features
IPRoyal’s rotation options are generous, too. It’s possible to get a new proxy with every connection request, or you can freely specify a sticky session between one second and seven days. Of course, you’re very unlikely to actually keep the same IP for that long. Need be, you can manually rotate all sessions with a press of a button.
IPRoyal has several more interesting features. One is the high-end pool. It should cut off slower and less stable proxies at the expense of fewer available IPs.
You can also request to enable IP skipping functionality – remove ISP proxies from the pool (IPRoyal serves them together with its peer-to-peer proxies), or forgo the IP ranges you define.
Integration & Use
IPRoyal uses gateway servers for accessing its proxy network. They send your request through the nearest load balancer and then the end user’s device. You actually get the option to choose which load balancer to use, but there’s little practical need to do so.
IPRoyal filters the pool by adding parameters to the password. This way, you can establish sticky sessions, specify a country, etc.
Customers that prefer to authorize by whitelisting an IP can do so using the dashboard widget. It allows customizing the proxy pool and then binds this configuration to your IP address, giving you only a hostname and port to use.
However, IPRoyal’s IP whitelisting system has one major problem: the hostname and port never change, so there’s no way to have multiple configurations for one whitelisted IP. This rules out crucial functionality like establishing several sticky sessions at once.
Pricing Plans
IPRoyal uses a pay-as-you-go based pricing model for its residential proxies. You can buy any number of gigabytes you wish, and they’ll stay there until used.
Getting more traffic gives an increasing discount (an order of 2 GB costs 15% less/GB than 1 GB). So, it makes sense to buy as much as you need in one go to save money.
To keep your tasks going, IPRoyal gives the option to automatically top up traffic. You can choose the threshold, amount, and where the money comes from: the dashboard wallet or your bank account.
Compared to premium and most mid-range competitors, IPRoyal’s prices are cheap. Even after a significant price hike in 2022, the service costs less than SOAX, Rayobyte, or Smartproxy. IPRoyal also scales well and encourages bulk purchases, providing public rates for up to 10 TB of data.
Performance Benchmarks
We last tested IPRoyal’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.
#1: Pool size & composition
* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.
While not large, IPRoyal’s proxy network had a respectable number of IPs in major locations. Furthermore, an IP database identified most of the proxies as coming from landline or mobile connections.
In the context of other providers, however, IPRoyal’s residential network was second to last in size. Only PacketStream returned fewer unique IPs.
#2: IP quality
We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.
IPRoyal’s residential proxies had the worst results among all our tested providers – including PacketStream. The fraud score was especially bad in the US, suggesting that each IP in the pool experiences a lot of use – and maybe abuse.
IPRoyal’s success rate looked mediocre compared to the rest, but the baseline has become really high. Looking at individual country pools, the infrastructure barely failed in countries like the US or Brazil. This marks a notable improvement over 2023’s results.
The same applied to connection latency – IPRoyal wasn’t fast, but it couldn’t be considered slow, either. Overall, these residential proxies are perfectly serviceable.
#4: Performance with popular targets
We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.
How to Use IPRoyal
Registration
To start using IPRoyal, you must first fill in a registration form. It requires entering your name, surname, and phone number as personal details, and you might need to confirm the registration via your phone. Once done, you get to enter the dashboard, where you can buy and manage access to IPRoyal’s proxy networks.
With the exception of static residential proxies, KYC isn’t obligatory. But without it your use of proxies will be limited. In the case of residential IPs, you’ll be able to access only 40% of the pool. In addition, IPRoyal will block Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other websites.
The identity verification process involves sending an ID to a third-party service called Idenfy.
Dashboard
IPRoyal’s dashboard is divided into self-contained sections for each product. They let you buy proxies, authenticate them, and track use where possible. They even have separate order histories – almost as if you were using five different dashboards instead of one.
So, you only need to leave your tab to change the account settings – or deposit money if you opt to use the dashboard’s wallet functionality.
If you add at least $200, IPRoyal enables its reseller tools: a separate tab for managing sub-users and an API for doing the same tasks programmatically. The API documentation is well maintained and supports major programming languages.
Subscription Management
IPRoyal lets you buy proxies using two methods. One is to deposit money onto the platform; the second is to create orders directly. The difference is that the former option lets you pay with Bitcoin. You can also use it to extend monthly subscriptions or top-up residential traffic without making additional money transfers.
You can track orders and generate invoices under separate proxy types. It’s possible to add a note to an order and then search by note, which is a nice touch for usability.
Proxy Management
Once you’ve bought a plan, the proxy setup procedure depends on which proxy type you get.
For example, IPRoyal’s residential proxies give you a widget with multiple options. You can choose a location (or multiple locations), rotation duration, and connection protocol. There are some extra options as well: selecting between several proxy formats, IP or DNS hostname. Once done, you can copy or download the generated list of endpoints.
With datacenter or ISP proxies, IPRoyal simply displays a list of assigned IPs.
Usage Tracking
The tab for IPRoyal’s residential proxies has a graph that shows your traffic expenditure over time. You can freely choose the start and end dates, as well as filter the graph by the websites you accessed.
Alternatively, you can download a data usage report by entering a username, date range, and your preferred data measurement unit. IPRoyal creates a CSV file that shows daily traffic use per target. It’s not the most convenient reporting format but still better than nothing.
Finally, you can opt to get automated traffic reminders by email.
API Access
IPRoyal provides API endpoints for each proxy type. They’re fully functional, letting you interact with the account, proxy servers, get location and other information.
The residential proxy API is the most fleshed out, while the mobile endpoint only lets you view remaining balance and rotate an IP.
Documentation
IPRoyal’s documentation has improved a lot throughout the years and can now be considered comprehensive. The provider offers quick-start guides, a YouTube channel, a help center, and a documentation hub. All are well made and shouldn’t leave you wanting for information.
Hands-On Support
IPRoyal answers queries 24/7 via live chat, email, and Discord. We tried contacting the support via live chat; an agent responded within a minute and competently answered as many questions as we threw at them. Color me impressed.
Conclusion
IPRoyal is turning out to be a strong mid-market option for a wide range of uses. It’s still going through growing pains: the features and user experience are already there, but the proxy pool remains relatively small and seriously abused.
Is IPRoyal the right pick for you?
It depends. The residential proxy network should be just fine for small to mid-size use. While it can’t measure up to the premium providers yet, the service is improving fast. And the upsides make a compelling case: $7/GB, non-expiring traffic, and some of the most flexible IP rotation settings I’ve seen.
For enterprises, the situation is tricky. IPRoyal may not have the steam to be the sole supplier, though you can always use it as a secondary choice.
In conclusion, you can surely try IPRoyal for most tasks today – after all, the price is right, – just be aware of the limitations.
IPRoyal Alternatives
Smartproxy has similar rates, great user experience, and residential proxies that perform better. It’s probably the main alternative that you should consider.
Rayobyte is a strong pick if you need datacenter or ISP proxies. Its residential addresses perform similarly and also offer paying as you go, but the pool is small.
Bright Data has more features, more flexibility, and it’s one of the top choices overall. Consider it if you found IPRoyal lacking and don’t mind paying more.
Recommended for:
Anyone looking for cheap residential proxies.
Use coupon PROXYWAY30 to get a 30% discount.
