Residential proxies: how they work and when to use them
Residential proxies route your requests through IP addresses that internet providers assign to home connections, so websites see an ordinary household visitor instead of a server. They are the usual choice when a site blocks data-centre traffic or shows different content by location. You can buy residential proxy plans on Onlineselling and pay from your balance.
- Home IP addresses
- Rotating or sticky
- Choose locations
- Card or crypto
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Live from the Proxies section, including residential plans and their starting price.
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How a residential proxy works
Your tool connects to the proxy
Your browser, script or app sends its traffic to the proxy address from your plan, using your proxy credentials.
A residential IP is assigned
The proxy network routes the request through a home connection in the location you chose.
The website sees that IP
To the site, the visit comes from an ordinary household connection in that place.
The response comes back to you
The page goes back through the same route to your tool.
Rotating or sticky residential proxies?
Rotating sessions
A new residential IP per request or every few minutes. Good for collecting public pages at scale.
Sticky sessions
The same IP for a set time. Good for multi-step flows like logging in to your own test account or completing a checkout test.
Location targeting
Choose a country (and sometimes a city) so you see the site the way local visitors do.
Residential vs datacenter vs ISP proxies
| Residential | Datacenter | ISP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How sites see you | An ordinary home visitor | A server | A home-like address with server speed |
| Blocks | Rare | More common | Uncommon |
| Speed | Medium | Fast | Fast |
| Usual pricing | Per GB of traffic | Per IP | Per IP |
| Best for | Sites that block servers; local content | High volume on tolerant sites | Long sessions on one fixed IP |
Signs you need residential instead of datacenter proxies
Datacenter proxies are cheaper, so start there if they work. Move to residential proxies when you see these signs:
- Frequent blocks, error pages or CAPTCHAs on the sites you target
- The site shows different prices or content to visitors from different places
- You need results from specific countries or cities
- The target is a consumer website that expects visitors from home connections
What residential proxies are used for
Price monitoring
Track public prices and stock on retail sites in different regions.
Ad verification
Check that ads show in the right places and markets.
Local SEO checks
See local search results from the cities you target.
QA for localized sites
Test geo redirects, languages and currencies from real home connections.
Setting up residential proxies in your tool
Copy the details from your plan
Host, port and login, plus how to choose the location and session type.
Pick rotating or sticky
Use rotation for many independent requests and a sticky session for multi-step flows.
Add them to your tool
Paste the details into your browser, scraper or automation tool’s proxy settings.
Test, then scale
Check that the IP and location are right on an IP-lookup page, run a small batch and watch the success rate before scaling up.
How to keep residential proxy costs down
Residential plans are usually priced by traffic, so the cheapest residential proxies are the ones you don’t waste. Small changes in your setup can cut usage a lot.
Block images, video and fonts in your scraper when you only need the text. Cache pages you request often. Use sticky sessions only where a flow needs them, and retry failed requests carefully instead of in a tight loop.
On Onlineselling, plans are not refundable once delivered; anything not delivered is refunded, and plans renew from your balance. Start small, measure, then scale.
Measure what you pay for
The useful number isn’t the price per GB; it’s the cost per successful request. A cheaper plan that gets blocked half the time can cost more than a pricier one that works.
Track three things on every run: success rate, average response time and traffic used. They tell you whether to change the session type, the location or the plan size.
Residential proxies: FAQ
What are residential proxies?
Proxies that route your traffic through IP addresses assigned by internet providers to home connections, so websites see an ordinary visitor.
Are residential proxies legal?
Using them is legal in most countries. What you do through them must follow the law and the rules of the sites you access. This isn’t legal advice.
What's the difference between residential and ISP proxies?
Residential proxies use real home connections and often rotate. ISP proxies use addresses registered to internet providers but hosted in data centres, so they’re faster and stay the same for long periods.
Should I use rotating or sticky residential proxies?
Rotating for collecting many public pages, sticky when a task needs several steps from the same IP.
How are residential proxies priced?
Usually by traffic (per GB). The plan details in the shop show the pricing for each plan.
Can I get a refund on a proxy plan?
Plans are not refundable once delivered. Anything that isn’t delivered is refunded to your balance.
How many residential proxies do I need?
With a rotating residential plan priced by traffic, you don’t buy a fixed number of IPs; the network rotates addresses for you. Size the plan by how much data your tasks use.
Pick a residential proxy plan
Choose the location and size, pay from your balance and start small.
Use proxies only for lawful purposes and in line with the terms of the sites you access and our Terms of Service.