Per-IP vs Per-GB Proxy Pricing: Which Is Cheaper?

Per-IP vs per-GB proxy pricing is the first choice you make when buying proxies, and it decides your bill more than any headline rate. Per-GB pricing charges for the traffic you send. Per-IP pricing charges for the addresses you hold, however much traffic they carry. The cheaper one depends on a single number: how many gigabytes each IP moves in a month. This guide gives you the formula, the break-even for every BuyProxy product, and two worked examples so you can price your own workload.

The Two Pricing Models

Per-GB means you buy bandwidth and spend it as traffic passes through a shared pool. You pay for what you use, balances do not have to expire, and you can use as many IPs as you like. Residential, premium residential, ISP rotating, mobile, datacenter and IPv6 pools on BuyProxy are priced this way, as covered in what residential proxies cost per GB.

Per-IP means you rent specific addresses for a period, such as a week or a month. The price is the same whether the IP moves 1 GB or 1,000 GB. Static ISP, dedicated IPv4, dedicated IPv6 and dedicated mobile work this way. There is also a flat-rate hybrid, ISP Unlimited, which charges a monthly price by speed with no meter.

The Formula: GB Per IP Per Month

Per-IP is cheaper when each IP carries more traffic than the break-even. Break-even GB per IP per month = price of one IP for the month ÷ price per GB of the comparable pool. Here is that number for each BuyProxy pair, using October 2026 prices.

Read it like this: if one static ISP IP would carry more than about 2.9 GB in a month, renting it is cheaper than buying the same traffic by the GB. Below that, per-GB wins. For datacenter and IPv6 addresses the break-even is tiny, so rented addresses win almost any time the IPs are actually in use.

Two Worked Examples

Example 1: 20 accounts, about 2 GB each per month

Twenty static ISP IPs for a month cost about $85.86. The same 40 GB at the ISP Rotating rate would cost about $59.60. On price alone per-GB is cheaper, because each account moves less than the 2.9 GB break-even. But per-GB gives you a rotating pool, and the reason to rent static IPs here is not volume, it is that each account keeps one fixed address. If accounts need a consistent IP, the extra $26 buys exactly that. If they do not, use per-GB with sticky sessions.

Example 2: One collection job moving 500 GB a month

At $0.99/GB on residential, 500 GB costs about $495. The 10 Mbps ISP Unlimited plan costs $78 for the month, far under the per-GB bill, if your targets accept ISP-grade IPs. If they need real residential IPs, per-GB is the only fit and the $495 is the price of that trust. The decision is no longer about arithmetic, it is about which proxy type the target accepts.

What Each Model Hides

Per-GB hidden costs

• Retries and failures. Blocked or failed requests still use bandwidth. A 30% failure rate raises your effective cost per good result by more than 40%.
• Heavy pages. Images, scripts and media inflate traffic. Block what you do not need.
• Unpredictable bills. A runaway job spends your balance faster than you expect. Set small top-ups until a job is proven.

Per-IP hidden costs

• Idle capacity. A rented IP costs the same sitting unused. Ten IPs for ten accounts that log in twice a week are mostly paid-for silence.
• Single points of failure. One flagged IP stays flagged until you replace it, while a rotating pool moves on.
• Expiry. When the rental ends, so does the IP. Per-GB balances on BuyProxy do not expire.

How to Choose in Four Questions

1. Does the target need to see the same visitor every time? Logins, seller accounts and allowlists say per-IP. Fetching public pages says per-GB.
2. How much traffic will each IP carry? Compare it with the break-even in the table above.
3. How steady is your volume? Steady and high favors flat-rate or per-IP. Bursty and unpredictable favors per-GB.
4. Which proxy type does the target accept? Pricing only matters among types that actually work. Start with which proxy type to buy.

If you are collecting data from platforms BuyProxy supports directly, there is a third model, per call: see scraper API vs proxies.

A Note on Minimums

Every BuyProxy order has a $5 minimum, whichever model you choose. For per-IP products that means a minimum quantity: for a one-month US rental, about 2 static ISP IPs, 4 dedicated IPv4 addresses or 26 dedicated IPv6 addresses. The order form sets that default for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is per-IP or per-GB proxy pricing cheaper?
It depends on how much traffic each IP carries. Per-IP is cheaper when an IP moves more than the break-even number of GB per month, which on BuyProxy is about 2.9 GB for static ISP and about 1.6 GB for dedicated IPv4. Below that, per-GB is cheaper.

Q: Which model is better for account management?
Per-IP, because each account keeps one fixed address. Account sessions use little bandwidth, so the reason to rent is consistency, not cost savings.

Q: Which is better for web scraping?
Usually per-GB from a rotating pool, because scraping benefits from many different addresses. For very high volume on targets that accept ISP IPs, a flat-rate plan can be cheaper.

Q: Do per-IP proxies have bandwidth limits?
Rented IPs are not metered per gigabyte on BuyProxy, so heavy transfer does not raise your price. Check the product page for the current terms of each product.

Q: Do per-GB balances expire?
Not on BuyProxy. Credits never expire, so you can top up once and use the balance over time.

Summary

Per-GB pricing charges for traffic and per-IP pricing charges for addresses. Divide the monthly price of one IP by the price per GB to find the break-even traffic per IP, then compare it with what your workload actually uses. Choose per-IP for identity and steady heavy use, per-GB for variety and uneven volume, and always check that the proxy type itself suits the target.

Compare every BuyProxy proxy type and pricing model →