Getting precise and localized data is becoming difficult. Advanced proxy networks are the only thing that is keeping some companies running intense data gathering operations.
Residential proxies are in extremely high demand, and there are only a few networks available that can offer millions of IP addresses around the world.
Smartproxy is one of those networks, rapidly growing to offer the best product in residential and data center proxies.
Smartproxy Overview
Smartproxy was established as an extremely flexible proxy network to compete with old-school proxy providers that severely limit their users. It uses advanced networking techniques to offer unlimited connectivity for concurrent connection requests through the network which lets its users get the most of a huge proxy pool.
With this unlimited scalability, Smartproxy can offer the perfect connectivity solution to any digital automation efforts, including pricing intelligence and market data acquisition.
Smartproxy’s network boasts some great features:
- Unlimited concurrent connections
- An average response time of under 3 seconds
- Advanced proxy rotation
- Sticky IP sessions up to 30 minutes
- 40+ million residential IP addresses
- Access to all search engines and other data sources
- No subnetworks – very low block rate
- Precise country and city targeting
Smartproxy has 40 million IP addresses in 195 locations, including some major cities like New York, London, and Tokyo. You can get unlimited concurrent access with backconnect nodes or precise endpoints for locations or session length. Depending on your traffic needs, you can get this high class proxy service for a very affordable price.
Pros and cons
Pros
- 24/7 customer support: Smartproxy has unlimited customer support on all channels, including live chat, email, Skype and Telegram. You really don’t get this level of support on any other proxy platform, at least not on every level. Their support also does a lot to troubleshoot every problem, including script reviews, etc.
- Smartproxy supports the SOCKS protocol.
- Very good for scraping: a high number of proxies with advanced rotation means you can get a lot of data in very little time.
- API and dashboard: you can control your proxies, endpoints either by logging in on the site or by contacting Smartproxy’s proxy API, which lets you do everything without going on the site, including a subscription renewal.
- Session control: you can choose from rotating or sticky sessions,
- Subusers: create subusers with traffic limits to track multiple projects and test usage of various settings.
- Authentication in several ways: Smartproxy lets users authenticate with user:pass or via Whitelisted IP, which is very useful when your software cannot use those credentials.
- Geo-targeting: Smartproxy can target almost any country in the world and some large cities, so it is great for acquiring localized data.
Cons
- Limited city targeting: even though you can target any country, you are still limited by some cities, this is bad for some niche use cases.
User Experience
Registration
Smartproxy has a nice looking registration form where you need to state why you use proxies, the company says it does this to improve the product. A customer representative said that there are many users who scrape with Smartproxy, so you shouldn’t worry about letting them know why you need proxies, as this information lets them plan future features for users.
After you fill in the form, you get an email and can access the dashboard. This is where you can manage everything about your account.
Interface
The front page of your user dashboard is a chart with traffic usage and other statistics, for example, subuser statistics, daily usage, request amount. You can also get all of this data through the API.
The menu is very easy to understand, and you can enter IPs you want to whitelist, create subuser accounts, set limits, and, most importantly, set up endpoints for specific locations and session types. All you need to do is select two drop-down menus for session location and type, and you’re good to go.
Money-back guarantee: Smartproxy gives you 14 days to test their proxies and ask for a refund if you are having any significant issue. They only ask not to use over 20% of your plan before doing so.
Usage
Using Smartproxy is easier than traditional proxy lists, because you get access to the whole pool of proxies instantly. If you choose geo-targeting, you will only get proxies from that geographical pool of proxies. Since every IP is a real device with ISP information associated with it, the network performs extremely well. The advanced rotation also checks proxies beforehand, so disconnections and dead proxies are very rare.
This network is compatible with any software that uses HTTP/S proxies. You don’t need to change proxies manually, because network rotation takes care of that for you.
As mentioned before, you can also manage everything through an API, so you can really streamline your projects.
Proxies are anonymous and provided through endpoints, so there is real safety and comfort in using them.
Proxy prices
Smartproxy has different proxy plans based on traffic usage. There are no other limits, so you can use as many connections (IPs), locations or sessions as you want. The price per GB gets lower with every plan, too.
Micro (5GB) = $75 per month ($15 per GB)
Starter (20GB) = $200 ($10 per GB)
Regular (50GB) = $400 ($8 per GB)
Advanced (100GB) = $700 ($7 per GB)
Premium (200GB) = $1,500 ($6 per GB)
Professional (500GB) = $2,500 ($5 per GB)
Enterprise (1 TB) = $3,000 ($3 per GB)
Smartproxy’s support also told me that they can set up custom plans for users that wish to use more than 1 TB. To do that, message Smartproxy directly.
What’s more, Smartproxy recently introduced data center proxy plans which let you use a separate pool of proxies from data centers in the US and Europe. Datacenter proxies are even cheaper, as the lowest plan starts at $50.
All plans come with 3-day money back guarantee, so you can test Smartproxy without risk. The only thing you should know – do not use over 20% of your plan before asking for a refund.