Smartproxy Review – All You Need To Know About It
In this comprehensive Smartproxy review, we’ll discuss Smartproxy’s proxies and features, and we’ll cover some burning topics, like:
- Is Smartproxy worth the price?
- Is there a good Smartproxy alternative?
Stay tuned to find out!
What Is Smartproxy?
Smartproxy is one of the largest proxy providers. Their high-quality service, large proxy pool, and skilled 24/7 tech support have earned them a premium status.
As always, premium is a synonym for expensive. Indeed, Smartproxy’s price points put it at the high-end of the specter.
But the real question is – is it really worth the price?
Before we answer this, let’s first see what their service entails.
Smartproxy offers:
- Residential proxies
- Datacenter proxies
Although their residential proxy network counts more than 40 million IPs, it has a huge downside: limited city targeting.
Currently, Smartproxy offers residential IPs from eight large cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, London, Berlin, and Moscow.
Many users argue this is Smartproxy’s biggest disadvantage.
Nevertheless, Smartproxy’s proxies cover every country, with most of them based in the USA.
One of Smartproxy’s advantages is that they charge based on bandwidth, not per proxy, so you have access to all 40 million residential IPs in their P2P network.
You can use Smartproxy’s proxies for various use case scenarios, including:
- Scraping data
Rotating residential proxies is the ideal solution for everyone who needs to collect data from competitors and target websites. Since you have access to the entire large proxy pool, it means that you can collect a lot of data quickly with a high success rate.
- Buying sneakers
This is where sticky (or static) residential proxies come in. Most sneaker bots run through proxies, and you can utilize the sticky sessions (up to 30 minutes) to cop sneakers by sticking with the same IP throughout the entire checkout process.
The non-rotating proxies are also useful on sites like eBay, Craigslist, and Shopify.
- SEO monitoring and SERP analysis
Smartproxy proudly mentions their so-called search engine proxies. They select the best proxies from their residential IPs network and use them to gather Google’s SERP results rapidly without IP address blocks.
The search engine proxies are easy to use – you specify your query/URL, and they return the requested data in HTML or JSON format.
Smartproxy’s proxies cover a broad domain of use cases, and these three are just a few examples.
Best Smartproxy Features
You can buy two types of proxies from Smartproxy:
- Residential proxies
Smartproxy’s residential IPs make a network of 40 million IPs that come from 195 countries, which is pretty good coverage. However, city targeting is limited to eight large cities.
Safety-wise, residential proxies are better than datacenter proxies since they consist of real IPs. If you need to appear on target websites as a real person, residential proxies are for you.
- Datacenter proxies
Smartproxy’s datacenter network consists of 40,000 IPs, and all the servers are located in the US.
Datacenter proxies are machine-generated, and they’re easily detected by spam filters, so safety is not guaranteed. However, they are cheaper and relatively fast, so they can be useful at times.
Similar to residential proxies, when you buy datacenter proxies, the entire proxy pool is at your disposal. Since you can use unlimited threads, datacenter proxies can be handy for scraping unprotected sites.
Other than the proxies, Smartproxy also offers some useful features, such as:
- Rotating or sticky sessions
Whether you opt for residential or datacenter proxies, you have the option to choose between rotating or sticky sessions.
Rotating sessions mean that your IP changes each time you send a new request, while the sticky ones allow you to retain the same address for a while – at Smartproxy, the limit is 30 minutes.
- Access to the whole IPs network
Smartproxy doesn’t charge per proxy. Instead, their pricing plans are based on bandwidth. This means that if you use their residential proxies, you can utilize the entire network and achieve results very quickly with a high success rate. The same goes for datacenter proxies.
- No connection limits
As mentioned above, you can use the giant network at your heart’s content without connection limits. The only limitation is the traffic you’ve purchased.
- Proxies rotate automatically
Smartproxy’s proxies are backconnect, which means you get a gateway IP address, and the proxies are automatically changed (rotated).
- All proxies are IPv4 and support HTTP/HTTPS
Sadly, Smartproxy’s proxies DO NOT support the SOCKS protocol (can’t use UDP), which means they’re less than ideal for traffic-intense tasks such as streaming or uploading videos.
Smartproxy Pricing
Smartpoxy asks for pretty huge monthly commitments. Also, their system works on auto-renewal, so each month, you will be automatically charged.
Whether or not you’ll spend up to $150 for 10GB each month is up to you. However, don’t forget that there are companies that offer the same level of quality and similar features (or even better) for significantly less money.
Proxyland is an excellent example – their service is up to par, and they cost five times less than Smartproxy.
More affordable proxy provider: Proxyland
If Smartproxy’s prices don’t fit your budget, with Proxyland, you get:
- 10GB for $29 – FIVE TIMES CHEAPER than Smartproxy
- More flexibility with monthly subscriptions
- No big commitments
- Similar features
- High-quality service
- Fast and reliable proxies
- Pay as you go option
Smartproxy vs. Competitors
Proxy service | Rating | Price |
---|---|---|
Proxyland | 4.8 | $2.9 per GB |
Luminati | 4 | $17.5 per GB |
Smartproxy | 3.4 | $15 per GB |
How Good Smartproxy Actually Is?
Smartproxy is one of the trusted proxy providers. Their user base is large, and there are very few complaints or negative reviews online.
However, they charge too much for basic features. Given their limited city targeting and a few other limitations (no support for the SOCKS protocol), the staggering prices don’t make sense. It’s much likely you’re paying for the brand rather than the quality.
Why You Should Try Smarproxy
- It’s a trusted and legitimate company
- Large proxy pool
- Covers 195 countries
- Access to the entire IPs network
- No connection limits
Why You Shouldn’t Try Smartproxy
- It has a few limitations (limited city targeting, not great for heavy-traffic tasks such as streaming)
- Heavily overpriced
- They ask for big monthly commitments
- Not flexible with payment plans
- No pay as you go option
- Not the best solution for small companies or individuals
The Best Smartproxy Alternative – 5 Times Cheaper
Although Smartproxy has a lot of advantages, their steep price points make them unavailable to everyone.
Proxyland is one of the best Smartproxy alternatives. Their proxies and features are in the same league, and they’re five times cheaper, which makes them accessible to anyone.
They cover more than 100 countries, and you can use their proxies for countless use cases:
More affordable proxy providers: Proxyland
5/5 25,562 users Top community pick
If you feel that Smartproxy doesn’t fit your budget, with Proxyland you have:
- Affordable proxies
- Pay as you go option
- No monthly contracts
- No big commitments
- Same fast and reliable proxies
- Similar features
- SEO monitoring and SERP analysis
- Web scraping
- Price comparison
- Ad verification and many, many more
But at 5x cheaper costs. Check out Proxyland here.
Smartproxy: Final Score
Features: Great features, with a couple of limitations. ✅
Trustworthiness: Smartproxy is a legitimate company trusted by many. ✅
Reliability: Access to the entire network of IPs, no connections limit. ✅
Inclusivity: Smartproxy is too expensive to be available to everyone – NOT for individuals or small businesses. ⛔
Price: The price for each plan is too high. ⛔
Flexibility: There isn’t much flexibility – automatic monthly subscription renewal and no pay as you go plans. ⛔
So, what’s the final verdict on Smartproxy?
Smartproxy is NOT for small businesses or solopreneurs. Their service is catered towards large companies with deep pockets that can spit up thousands of dollars a month on proxies.
If you need an affordable (but equally good) solution, check out Proxyland.