Smartproxy Review
Great proxies, affordable pricing plans, and fantastic 24/7 customer support make Smartproxy an attractive choice for most tasks.
Try Smartproxy Residential Proxies for free.
Smartproxy often appears among the top choices in our proxy lists. Historically, it was a stripped down version of the premium providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data – similarly performant but missing a feature here and there.
In 2024, Smartproxy is able to stand head-to-head with them, while still managing to compete with cheaper services like IPRoyal. This is no small feat – and one of the reasons why the company received our Best Value Provider award, four years in a row.
In this review, I’ll try to show what makes Smartproxy one of the best proxy services today – and whether you should choose it over the competition. Let’s go!
News about Smartproxy
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By Adam Dubois
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General Information
Smartproxy was founded in 2018 by “a group of four international entrepreneurs”. It started out in reaction to premium proxy providers like Luminati (now Bright Data) and GeoSurf, which were only accessible to business customers and had cumbersome onboarding procedures.
The company first resold addresses from others. Nowadays, it has a diverse pool that combines proxies from various sources. According to Smartproxy, they’re carefully vetted, but the provider doesn’t go into much detail about the topic.
Smartproxy built its business on residential and rotating datacenter proxies. At the time, they managed to fill a gap between premium providers and cheap yet mediocre services like Storm Proxies. The IPs performed well while costing less than the high-end counterparts. It also helped that Smartproxy heavily invested into customer experience: quality documentation, responsive support, and user-friendly interface.
This, along with some targeted marketing efforts, allowed Smartproxy to quickly sweep up many of the sneakerheads, Instagram managers, and small-time scrapers that were looking for affordable residential addresses. While its website is still heavily oriented towards these audiences, the company has been gradually expanding its reach.
Today, Smartproxy can be considered one of the largest proxy providers, probably the third after Bright Data and Oxylabs. Rotating proxies remain the backbone of its service, but there are now more products to choose from, including several web scrapers.
Smartproxy Proxy Networks
Smartproxy sells access to all major types of proxy servers:
- Datacenter proxies in shared, dedicated, and pool-based formats.
- ISP proxies, which come in a dedicated list or a large rotating pool.
- Residential proxies with global country coverage.
- Mobile proxies from real people’s devices around the world.
You can also choose to buy a proxy API. It integrates as a proxy server but handles unblocking and JavaScript rendering remotely.
We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:
Datacenter
Datacenter proxies are Smartproxy’s entry option. They’re made for cost-efficient web scraping when your target doesn’t care about IP reputation or precise location targeting.
Smartproxy offers three datacenter products:
- A list of shared IPs with customizable traffic and ability to rotate.
- A list of dedicated proxies in the US.
- A large pool of rotating proxies in the US and Europe.
Features
The three proxy networks are pretty distinct in terms of features.
Smartproxy’s dedicated proxies – like most dedicated datacenter proxies – give you pretty much unlimited access to the IPs. They’re also the only proxy type to support full SOCKS5 – including the UDP protocol. However, there are two big caveats: the proxies don’t rotate and the only available location is the US, with no option to specify particular cities.
The 100,000-strong rotating proxy network gives you a lot of disposable IPs that you can simplify rotate away. Its choice of locations includes multiple major European countries like Germany and the UK. If necessary, you can keep the same IP for 30 minutes.
Smartproxy’s shared proxies bring even more locations, namely Australia and Israel. They come in a list by default, but you also get an endpoint that automatically rotates the proxies for you. It’s possible to choose where exactly you want the IPs to be located when buying a plan. (For instance, 56 proxies in the US, 32 in Australia, and the remaining 12 in Germany.)
Pricing Plans
All three options use a subscription-based pricing model that automatically renews every month. The rotating proxies charge for traffic use, dedicated proxies – IPs, while the shared proxies combine both formats.
Smartproxy offers a broad range of pricing plans. Their entry threshold is small, but the plans scale to thousands of IPs and terabytes of traffic. Naturally, the more you buy, the cheaper it gets.
If your rotating plan outgrows its traffic allowance, Smartproxy provides an option to top up without moving on to the next tier. There’s one gotcha: the price for a gigabyte always remains at its most expensive rate of $0.7. All shared plans start with 50 GBs of traffic, but it’s very cheap to get more: a gigabyte literally costs fractions of a cent.
In a broader context, Smartproxy’s prices look good. It charges less than most premium competitors until enterprise levels of scale, no matter which option you consider.
Performance Benchmarks
#1: Infrastructure performance (rotating proxies)
We ran 50,000 connection requests using Smartproxy’s US-filtered rotating proxies. Our computer was located in the US. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.
#2: Download speed
We tested 10 rotating IPs using Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn benchmark.
#3: 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 the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.
Residential
Rotating residential proxies are Smartproxy’s flagship service made for accessing strict websites. It comprises a pool of 55 million monthly IPs borrowed from real people’s devices. To give you some context, this is among the larger proxy networks on the market, at least looking at advertised numbers.
Pool Size & Coverage
The residential proxy pool covers all countries in the world. You get precise filtering tools out of the box, which allow specifying a city and even ZIP code (though only in the US).
Features
Smartproxy’s residential proxies can rotate with every connection request, and you can also establish sticky sessions. They last up to 30 minutes (if you keep making requests at certain intervals – otherwise, the connection drops) and then change the IP address automatically.
Smartproxy imposes no limitations on concurrency, meaning that you can make as many parallel requests as you like – or your hardware can handle.
Integration & Use
Smartproxy’s residential proxy network uses gateway servers. They route requests through the closest load balancer before reaching the end user’s device.
You actually get two integration formats: endpoints with different port numbers and a single backconnect gateway.
Endpoints are the preferred method used in Smartproxy’s setup widget. They give you slightly different addresses based on the country you choose, and then generate ports for sticky sessions. This way, you don’t need to modify the username to target particular locations.
The endpoint approach also supports city targeting, though it’s not always consistent. Major cities like New York have their own designated ports (city.smartproxy.com:21000, 21001, etc.), but smaller designations still add a username parameter: gate.smartproxy.com:10001:user-USERNAME-country-us-city-kansas_city.
The backconnect entry always sticks to the same gateway, and you can filter IPs by appending parameters to the username. This method is more flexible, but it may not be compatible with scenarios where credentials can’t be used. It’s also the only means to use location targeting with SOCKS5.
Pricing Plans
Smartproxy’s residential proxies used to have the highest starting price out of the provider’s three proxy networks, but now you can pay as you go. It’s not cheap compared to competitors like Dataimpulse but beats most premium and mid-range alternatives. So, these residential IPs can be a viable choice for small projects that need quality addresses.
To avoid getting stuck between pricing tiers, Smartproxy allows topping up each plan at the same rate per gigabyte. This is limited to 80% of the plan’s worth, at which point it makes sense to simply buy a bigger plan.
The proxies can be a solid option for large projects, as well. Smartproxy scales very competitively into hundreds of gigabytes, and some premium options fail to catch up even at a terabyte of data.
Performance Benchmarks
We last tested Smartproxy’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.
#2: IP quality
We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.
Smartproxy’s IPs were among the least abused, both in all locations and only the US. There were also very few proxies classified as frequent abusers, which suggests that the provider’s residential network is clean.
#3: Infrastructure performance
This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.
#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.
Mobile
Pool Size & Coverage
Smartproxy advertises one of the larger mobile proxy pools on the market. It includes IPs in most countries around the world.
The product has particularly generous filtering options: you can choose not only a city, ASN, but also the desired device operating system. One caveat is that ASN and city filters can’t be used together – this is to keep the IP pool reasonably large.
Features
The mobile proxy network supports several rotation options: IPs can change with every connection request, or they can last up to 30 minutes before rotating. This isn’t guaranteed and depends on the end user’s availability. Once they go offline, you automatically get a new IP address – there’s no option to wait until the same IP returns.
Smartproxy doesn’t limit how many requests you can make at once, making these proxies a solid choice for large-scale web scraping, such as for ad verification purposes.
Integration & Use
Smartproxy’s mobile proxy network uses gateway addresses that route your requests to the end user and then the target website. You can choose from two integration formats:
1) Country endpoints. This is the default method that uses different gateways for countries and ports for sticky sessions. It’s handy when your software fails to support credential-based authentication.
2) Backconnect gateway. You get one address and port that never changes. Any filters, such as country or sticky session, are added as parameters to the username. This approach is more flexible but also harder to use.
In reality, the distinction isn’t always clear. For example, Smartproxy sometimes adds parameters to country endpoints when you choose cities. In addition, the backconnect method is necessary for country targeting with the SOCKS5 protocol.
Pricing Plans
You can get Smartproxy’s mobile proxies by subscribing to a plan, which start from $15 ($7.5/GB). A plan lasts for a month and updates automatically. Or, you can pay as you go at a fixed rate of $8/GB.
Like most similar products, this one charges for traffic, otherwise giving you full access to the proxy network.
Compared to the broader market, Smartproxy’s rates are below average throughout most of the pricing range. All in all, you get a good deal for the package.
Performance Benchmarks
We last tested Smartproxy’s mobile proxies in March 2024.
#1: Pool size & composition
We ran 280,000 requests over 14 days using the unfiltered pool and country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.
* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.
#2: Infrastructure performance
This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had computers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.
The mobile proxies had a high success rate overall, but there were hiccups in individual locations like Brazil or India. The same thing was apparently with response time: though fast in the Global pool, it slowed down when testing the same locations individually. Smartproxy’s routing logic may have been at fault here.
#3: 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.
The proxies performed well with popular websites, though not as good as Smartproxy’s residential service. They were also half as fast – but that’s often the case with mobile IPs.
Smartproxy Web Scraping APIs
Proxy networks aside, Smartproxy offers four web scraping APIs. You can pass them an URL, and the APIs will return its contents without fail. You won’t have to worry about managing proxy networks or overcoming website protection mechanisms.
Web Scraping API is Smartproxy’s general-purpose scraper – it can extract any page without structuring the output. The other three have parsers for specific website groups, namely search engines, e-commerce stores, and social media networks.
Features
Smartproxy’s scrapers are rich with features. You can select any country, specify a device type, add custom headers, and pass on cookies with a session ID for multi-step scraping.
The general-purpose API accepts any URL you send it. Smartproxy’s specialized APIs use a parametrized request structure, meaning you can simply enter a search query, ASIN, or hashtag without forming URLs yourself. They also have target-specific parameters like domain language or co-ordinates for localized Google results.
In addition, Smartproxy has built specialized scrapers for various properties of major targets. For example, there’s an endpoint optimized for Google ads, Amazon product pages, or TikTok hashtags.
All three tools integrate as an API or proxy server. The first method works over an open connection, or you can fetch results via webhook with an option to send batch requests.
Pricing Plans
Performance Benchmarks
We last tested Smartproxy’s APIs in January 2023, for our research on web scraping APIs.
Test #1: Google
We made 10,800 requests to Google SERP pages over a week, one request per minute. This served both to test the API’s stability, as well as its ability to open Google.
Smartproxy’s SERP scraper performed flawlessly with Google: it returned nearly all of our requests, and enabling data parsing had no effect on the response time.
Test #2: Amazon
We made 1,000 requests to Amazon product pages with data parsing enabled.
Amazon posed no challenge as well. The scraper was even faster compared to Google, despite Amazon having much bigger page sizes.
Test #3: Photo-focused social media network
We made 500 requests to the website’s GraphQL endpoint and 500 more requests fully rendering pages with the headless parameter.
The results with social media were also perfect. One weak spot was response time with JavaScript rendering enabled – it slowed down the scraper significantly.
How to Use Smartproxy
Registration
To register with Smartproxy, you’ll need to enter an email and password, select a use case from a provided list, and then verify your email address. Alternatively, you can sign up with your Google account.
Smartproxy does have a KYC procedure, but you only need to interact with someone if you trigger the provider’s safeguards. It’s possible to access the dashboard without verifying an email address, but you won’t be able to buy anything until you do.
Dashboard
Smartproxy’s dashboard includes all the necessary functionality to manage proxies yourself. You can:
- add money to the Smartproxy wallet,
- buy and upgrade plans,
- authorize access to proxies,
- set up the proxy server,
- create sub-users,
- track your traffic use,
- and contact customer support.
Most of the controls are separated by service. There are sections for datacenter, residential proxies, and web scraping tools which lead to individual products. For example, to reach mobile proxies, I’d need to click on the Residential proxies drop-down and select them from the available options.
You can get a quick overview of your services on the dashboard’s main screen: see your current plan, top targets, and traffic use. However, it’s once again dedicated to one product at a time, requiring you to open different tabs for other services.
There are introductory tutorials and guidance all around to help you get acquainted. However, they don’t feel overbearing.
Subscription Management
Smartproxy supports full self-service for each product. You can buy a plan in two ways. The first is by making a direct purchase with your credit card, PayPal, or another payment method. Alternatively, you can add money to the Smartproxy wallet first and then use it for purchases. This lets you pay as you go.
Before purchasing a plan, you can use Smartproxy’s Smart Plan Recommendation tool. It requires completing three steps: entering a target, selecting headless or non-headless scraping, and usage frequency. The dashboard then recommends a suitable plan. This tool is available for the residential proxies and scraping APIs.
Smartproxy has a separate Billing section where you can see payment history, download invoices, overview and modify all active plans. It’s also the place to top up your wallet balance.
Proxy Management
The proxy setup is pretty straightforward:
- Create a user or whitelist an IP address.
- Use a convenient widget to filter the proxy servers you need. The widget asks you to choose your preferred authentication method, set up the filtering options (location, OS), rotation time, protocol, and output format (endpoint:port or cURL formatted).
- Select how many endpoints you want to generate. Or, in the case of dedicated proxies, select your assigned IPs. Once you’re done, you can copy this list to the clipboard, export it into .csv or .txt.
Smartproxy also automatically generates code samples in cURL and multiple programming languages. You can copy-paste this into your web scraping script.
Overall, the setup procedure is well thought out. My only gripe is that you can’t set a custom password for a proxy user. The system generates them automatically.
In addition, Smartproxy offers a fleshed-out API for controlling its proxies programmatically. The API is available for every user, not only resellers. Its functions include creating and managing sub-users, setting traffic limits, viewing usage reports and subscription status, and filtering available endpoints.
If you need proxies on your web browser, Smartproxy provides browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. In the settings, you can choose a country, whether you want the proxies to be sticky or rotate, and authorize them either with a whitelisted IP or user:pass credentials.
Usage Tracking
Smartproxy’s dashboard includes visual graphs where you can see how much traffic or requests you’ve expended. You can filter the graphs by sub-user or date, and they also display statistics for each target. The timeframes are 24 hours, week, month, or custom.
Alternatively, you can fetch traffic expenditure statistics using an API call.
Documentation
Smartproxy has got the documentation part down. You’ll find a plethora of instructions covering various aspects of the service:
- a detailed start guide that explains all the concepts and features,
- an FAQ divided into multiple sections by topics,
- integration guides for major bots and automation tools,
- and configuration guides for web browsers and operating systems.
There’s also a separate hub for technical documentation with tips & tricks, code samples, and troubleshooting. Some of the content has become outdated, but the documentation is handled well in general.
For users of its scraping APIs, Smartproxy has an interactive playground to try out the service.
Hands-On Support
Smartproxy’s customer service is available round the clock via email or live chat. The main language is English, though the support can also speak Chinese – and, of course, other languages via Google Translate.
Whenever we’ve had to interact with the support agents, we received quick (think nearly instant) and competent responses. In 2020, we even gave Smartproxy an award to acknowledge its customer service. It remains excellent to this day and can be considered one of the provider’s strongest points.
Conclusion
Having read this far, I hope you can see where I was coming from in the introduction.
Smartproxy really has struck something great. The company has responsive customer support, performant proxies, and everything set up for convenient self-service.
To be fair, compared to something like Bright Data or Oxylabs, it’s nothing special. But this is without considering Smartproxy’s final ace – it somehow manages to achieve all this while keeping prices very competitive.
Of course, not everything is perfect. Some corners had to be cut, and you may find services like Smartproxy’s dedicated proxies – or in some cases, its web scraping APIs – limited.
But that’s the whole point of Smartproxy: the company focuses on the functionality that is good enough for the majority of users at the expense of some nice-to-have or niche features. And it is damn good at that.
Based on my experience with Smartproxy, I can recommend it to anyone looking for a great proxy provider.
Smartproxy Alternatives
Oxylabs is like a premium version of Smartproxy. It controls a significantly larger IP pool, and you can get specialized APIs that simplify web scraping.
Bright Data is another strong option with more features and powerful proxy management tools. It also sells proxy-based web scraping APIs and complete data sets.
SOAX offers similar features and performance to Smartproxy. The proxy pool may be smaller and less diverse, but it comes at a slightly lower price point.
Want more? View the full list of the Smartproxy alternatives.
Recommended for:
Anyone looking for a great balance between features and price.
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