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Short answer: Oxylabs is the strongest all-round pick for a business, with a 20M+ mobile pool, city and carrier targeting and a proper KYC check. Decodo (the new name for Smartproxy) is the value pick with real pay-as-you-go, SOAX suits local targeting, IPRoyal rents dedicated 4G and 5G ports, and Rayobyte is the cheapest for US-only work. Whichever you pick, get its IP sourcing in writing before you sign.
Rotating mobile proxies used to be a niche scraping tool. Now they are a routine business utility for ad verification, SEO monitoring, social media work and brand protection. The reason is the IP address: carriers share and rotate mobile IPs across thousands of subscribers, so a request through a mobile proxy looks like someone on their phone. A datacenter IP often gets flagged on the first request.
We would still buy mobile proxies from five providers, and each one is best at something different. Three names from the older version of this list are gone, for reasons worth knowing before you pick a vendor. After the picks come the legal and sourcing checks to run before any of this goes into production.
The short version
- Best overallOxylabs. Large pool, precise targeting, a vendor that vets its customers.
- Best valueDecodo. Pay as you go, with IP diversity close to Oxylabs.
- Best for local checksSOAX. City and ISP targeting, one rate for mobile and residential.
- Best stable IPIPRoyal. A dedicated 4G or 5G port by the day or month.
- Best US budgetRayobyte. The lowest per-GB price, on a mostly US network.
- SkipAny provider that will not explain, in writing, where its mobile IPs come from.
What mobile proxies are and when to use them
A mobile proxy sends your request out through an IP address that a mobile carrier (Verizon, T-Mobile, EE, Vodafone and so on) has assigned to a real device. Those IPs rotate through the carrier’s pool, so at the network level the traffic is hard to tell apart from people browsing on their phones. That makes mobile proxies useful for checking ads the way real users see them, watching competitor prices without getting fingerprinted, and testing geo-restricted content from inside a country.
They’re slower than datacenter proxies and cost several times more per gigabyte, so save them for jobs where the mobile fingerprint changes the result. The prices below are median rates from Proxyway’s proxy market research; for server-to-server work, datacenter IPs do the job for a fraction of the cost.
| Proxy type | Where the IP comes from | How often sites flag it | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenter | Cloud and hosting providers | Often | About $0.54/GB |
| Residential | Home broadband connections | Rarely | About $3.75/GB |
| Mobile | Carrier 4G and 5G networks | Very rarely | About $4.38/GB |
How the five providers compare
Prices are each provider’s own list rate for mobile proxies, checked against its pricing page. Per-gigabyte rates drop as the monthly commitment grows, and promotions come and go, so treat the column as a starting point for small plans rather than a quote.
| Provider | Best for | Entry price | Try before you commit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxylabs | Precise targeting | $30/mo for 4GB | Free trial through sales |
| Decodo | Pay as you go | $8/GB list, often discounted | 14-day money-back |
| SOAX | Local accuracy | $200/mo; US traffic $3/GB | $5/GB sandbox, no subscription |
| IPRoyal | Dedicated ports | $6.80/GB, or $130 per port a month | 1-day test plans |
| Rayobyte | US on a budget | $250/mo for 200GB | 500GB for $250 on a first order |
Why three familiar names are gone
- GeoSurf shut down in December 2023 after a long legal dispute with Bright Data, and sent its customers there.
- Bright Data has closed its mobile proxies to new customers. Its mobile product page now redirects to its other proxy types, and existing contracts carry on.
- NetNut is offline. The FBI, working with Google and others, seized its domains in July 2026 over links to the Popa botnet of more than 2 million hijacked devices.
Oxylabs
Enterprise targeting and support
Oxylabs runs one of the largest mobile pools on the market and lets you target down to city, coordinates and carrier ASN at no extra charge. It checks every customer before switching access on, and compliance teams tend to like that in a vendor.
- Best forMid-market and enterprise teams that need city or carrier targeting.
- Price$30/mo for 4GB, down to $3.50/GB
- Pool20M+ IPs in 140+ countries
- TrialFree trial, requested through sales
- TargetingCountry to city, coordinates, ASN
The good
- Precise targeting at no extra charge
- Sticky sessions last up to 24 hours
- Near the top for unique IPs in independent tests
The bad
- No pay-as-you-go; every plan is monthly
- KYC is strict, and some applicants are turned away
Oxylabs suits a business that will run mobile proxies every day and wants the paperwork to match. Plans start at 4GB a month and scale to hundreds of gigabytes at $3.50/GB, with unlimited concurrent sessions on every tier.
The catch is the onboarding. The trial goes through a sales form, and Oxylabs says it approves about three in four KYC applications. That is a feature if you care about who else shares the pool, and a delay if you need traffic today.
Key features
- Targeting by continent, country, state, city, coordinates or carrier ASN, all included in the price.
- A new IP on every request, or the same one held for up to 24 hours.
- Unlimited concurrent connections, even on the entry plan.
Decodo
The value pick, formerly Smartproxy
Decodo is Smartproxy under the name it adopted in April 2025, with the same network and products. It sells mobile traffic by the gigabyte with no subscription required, and independent testing put its IP diversity alongside Oxylabs.
- Best forSmall and mid-sized teams that want pay-as-you-go without giving up quality.
- Price$8/GB list, often discounted to $4
- Pool10M+ IPs on 700+ carriers
- Trial14-day money-back guarantee
- TargetingCountry, state, city, carrier
The good
- A real pay-as-you-go option
- Carrier-level targeting on every plan
- Rotating or sticky sessions
The bad
- Promotional prices come and go, so check at checkout
- The maximum sticky session length is not published
Start with Decodo if you don’t yet know how much mobile traffic a project needs. Buy a gigabyte, run the job, and move to a monthly plan once the usage settles. List prices fall from $8/GB to $5.50/GB at 100GB, and enterprise volume goes lower.
Its pricing page often shows a large discount on top of those list prices. Plan around the list price and treat any promotion as a bonus. Promotions on proxy sites change often and rarely come with notice.
Key features
- Traffic sold by the gigabyte, with no monthly commitment.
- Targeting by country, state, city or a specific carrier.
- A new IP on every request, or a sticky session of the length you choose.
SOAX
One rate for mobile and residential
SOAX charges the same per-GB rate for mobile and residential traffic, with prices set by country tier. It targets down to city and ISP, which suits local checks in a specific market.
- Best forTeams that need local accuracy and use both mobile and residential IPs.
- Price$200/mo plan; US traffic $3/GB
- Pool33M+ IPs, 195+ locations
- TrialNo free trial; $5/GB sandbox
- TargetingCountry, region, city, ISP
The good
- The same rate for mobile and residential
- Cheaper traffic outside the priciest countries
- ASN and ZIP targeting on larger plans
The bad
- Tiered credit pricing takes a while to decode
- Credits expire after 60 days, and refunds are rare
Understand the pricing before you buy. SOAX sorts countries into three tiers, and the US sits in the most expensive one: $3/GB on the $200 Builder plan, against $1.20/GB for tier three countries. At the enterprise level, US traffic drops to $0.85/GB.
If you only want to test, the Sandbox sells credits at $5/GB with no subscription. Use them within 60 days, because unused credit expires.
Key features
- Targeting by country, region, city and ISP, plus ASN and ZIP on the Scale plan and up.
- Mobile and residential traffic cost the same per gigabyte.
- A new IP per request, or sticky sessions of up to 60 minutes.
IPRoyal
Dedicated 4G and 5G ports
IPRoyal sells mobile proxies two ways: rotating traffic by the gigabyte, or a dedicated 4G/5G port rented by the day or month with unlimited sessions. A dedicated mobile IP at this price is rare, and it helps when a long-running job needs one stable address.
- Best forSmall businesses that want a stable mobile IP for days or weeks.
- PriceFrom $6.80/GB, or $130 per port a month
- PoolAbout 500K IPs in each top country
- TrialNo free trial; 1-day test plans
- TargetingCountry, state, city, carrier
The good
- Dedicated ports with unlimited sessions
- Carrier choice, including Verizon and T-Mobile
- Short 1-day plans for testing
The bad
- Smaller pools per country than the leaders
- Refunds only within 24 hours, under a data cap
Rotating traffic starts at $6.80/GB for 2GB and falls to $5.20/GB at 100GB. The dedicated ports are the more interesting product: from $10.11 for 24 hours, or $130 for 30 days, with a daily data allowance of 30GB and unlimited sessions.
Test carefully inside the refund window. IPRoyal refunds within 24 hours, and only if you have used less than 100MB of rotating traffic or 500MB on a dedicated port.
Key features
- One dedicated mobile IP for a day, a month or longer, with no session limit.
- Carriers include Orange, Vodafone, Verizon and T-Mobile.
- The IP changes on a timer, or instantly when you hit rotate in the dashboard.
Rayobyte
The cheapest traffic, for US work
Rayobyte cut its mobile prices from $25/GB to between $0.50 and $1.25/GB, which makes it the cheapest provider here by a wide margin. The network runs mostly on Rayobyte’s own US carrier devices, so it suits US targets far better than global ones.
- Best forUS-focused scraping on a tight budget.
- Price$250/mo for 200GB ($1.25/GB)
- NetworkMostly US: Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T
- TrialFirst order: 500GB for $250
- TargetingCountry and city, rotating only
The good
- The lowest per-GB price in this guide
- Runs largely on its own carrier devices
- 200GB included on the entry plan
The bad
- Thin coverage outside the US
- No sticky sessions, no 5G and no ASN targeting
The price cut changed where Rayobyte fits. At $1.25/GB on the entry plan, and $0.50/GB on the first order or at enterprise volume, it now undercuts most residential proxies, let alone other mobile pools.
Know the limits before you move a workload. Proxyway’s testing found a small network weighted heavily toward the US, with little in the UK or India, and bandwidth resets every 30 days whether you use it or not.
Key features
- Most traffic exits through Rayobyte’s own Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T devices.
- A new IP on every connection, handled automatically.
- Country and city targeting on every plan.
Legitimate business use cases
These are established commercial uses, and large brands run all of them. A mobile IP matters when the target service treats phone traffic differently, or blocks datacenter ranges outright.
Where mobile proxies earn their cost
- Ad verification. Confirm programmatic campaigns render correctly by country and carrier.
- Brand protection. Find counterfeit listings and unauthorized resellers on regional marketplaces.
- SEO monitoring. Track mobile search rankings by location and device.
- Price intelligence. Watch competitor pricing in markets where prices vary by region.
- Social media checks. See whether posts and ads reach the audience they target.
Compliance and ethical sourcing
Ask where the IPs come from before you ask about price. Reputable providers use opt-in programs: a consumer app embeds the provider’s SDK, and the user agrees to share idle bandwidth in exchange for something such as an ad-free version. Some, like Rayobyte, also run their own carrier devices.
The bad version is well documented. The FBI has warned that proxy networks enroll devices through SDKs hidden in apps, free VPNs and malware, sometimes without the owner’s consent. Google’s threat team took down the IPIDEA network after finding its SDKs quietly enrolling devices, and said many providers’ ethical sourcing claims are overstated. If your provider buys from that kind of source, your traffic runs through hijacked devices, and the legal and reputational exposure is yours.
Oxylabs, Decodo, SOAX, IPRoyal and Rayobyte all publish consent and KYC policies, though most are written for their residential pools. Ask each one how its mobile IPs specifically are obtained, get the answer in writing, and check it against what the provider publishes.
Legal guardrails for business use
Using a mobile proxy for the purposes above is legal in the US, UK, EU and Australia. The risk comes from what you do through it. Breaking a site’s terms of service can lead to contract claims, and in the US the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act can still apply to anything behind a login.
The case most people cite is hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn. In April 2022 the Ninth Circuit ruled that scraping publicly available profiles likely did not break the CFAA. What gets cited less is the ending: a lower court later found hiQ had breached LinkedIn’s user agreement, and the case closed with a $500,000 consent judgment against hiQ. Public data isn’t a free pass.
The safe path has not changed. Honor robots.txt, which is now formalized in RFC 9309, stay out of anything behind authentication, and leave personal data alone unless you have a lawful basis. If a job touches data that could identify people, bring in your legal team first: GDPR, the CCPA and a growing list of US state privacy laws still apply, proxy or not.
Before you run a job
- Document the use case. Write down what you collect, why, and who approved it.
- Respect the walls. Follow robots.txt and never scrape behind a login.
- Rule out abuse. No credential stuffing, account takeover or anything else that is illegal with or without a proxy.
Pricing and procurement
Mobile traffic has become much cheaper. The median mobile rate now sits close to residential, and Rayobyte undercuts both. Volume still does most of the work: Oxylabs falls from $7.50/GB on its smallest plan to $3.50/GB, and SOAX’s US rate drops from $3 to $0.85. Geo premiums, concurrency caps and expiring credits all sit on top of the headline rate.
For a typical SEO monitoring or ad verification program, budget from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month once it runs at scale. Start with a 30-day proof of concept on one geography, measure the bandwidth you actually use against the value it brings, and only then commit to volume.
Build vendor risk into the contract too. Three of the eight providers in the earlier version of this guide can no longer sell you mobile proxies: one shut down, one closed the product to new customers, and one was seized. Short terms and a tested second provider cost little and save a scramble.
Before you sign
- Sourcing in writing. How the mobile IPs are obtained, and how consent is recorded.
- A real trial. Test on your own targets, in the countries you need.
- The full bill. Geo premiums, concurrency caps and overage rates, not just the headline per-GB price.
- An exit plan. Short terms, and a second provider you have already tested.
FAQs
Are mobile proxies legal?
Yes, for legitimate commercial work such as ad verification or price monitoring. A proxy does not make an illegal activity legal, and it does not remove your privacy law obligations.
Do mobile proxies get past CAPTCHAs?
They cut how often CAPTCHAs appear, because the traffic looks like ordinary phone users. Once a CAPTCHA does trigger, the proxy does nothing to solve it.
Can I use mobile proxies for affiliate testing?
Yes, it is one of the most common uses: checking that affiliate links and landing pages behave correctly for mobile users in each market. Check that your affiliate network’s terms allow it first.
What is the difference between mobile and residential proxies?
Both use real consumer IPs. Residential proxies come from home broadband, while mobile proxies come from carrier networks, rotate more often and look like phone traffic specifically.
Is Smartproxy the same as Decodo?
Yes. Smartproxy renamed itself Decodo in April 2025. The company, network and products carried over under the new name.
Why are Bright Data and NetNut not on this list?
Bright Data no longer sells mobile proxies to new customers, although its residential and ISP proxies are still on sale. NetNut’s domains were seized by the FBI, so it cannot be recommended for anything.
Bottom line
Sourcing is the part to get right. Pick a provider that will tell you, in writing, where its mobile IPs come from, keep a record of what you collect and why, and prove the value on a small trial before you commit to volume.
After that the choice is fairly quick. Go with Oxylabs for enterprise targeting and a vendor that vets its customers, Decodo to pay as you go, and SOAX for city-level checks. IPRoyal fits when one IP has to stay put for weeks, and Rayobyte when the work is all in the US and the budget is tight.
How we put this guide together
We compared each provider’s mobile proxy pricing, trial terms, pool claims and published sourcing and KYC policies on the providers’ own pages, and checked industry news and Proxyway’s independent testing for rebrands, closures and network quality. We did not run paid load tests, so pool sizes are the providers’ claims, not our measurements. The legal notes summarize public court records and standards and are not legal advice.
