In plain English: a lot of proxy review lists are written by people who earn a commission on every sale they send. You don't have to take their word for anything. With one small order and half an hour, you can test a provider yourself, and that includes us. Here's how.
What you need
- A small budget for one test order.
- The website, or kind of website, you actually plan to use proxies on.
- Our free IP lookup tool and somewhere to jot down results.
1. Read the refund policy before anything else
You're looking for a clear answer to one question: what happens if the proxies don't work when they arrive? A provider with no refund or replacement policy at all is asking you to carry all the risk. Skip it.
2. Buy the smallest order you can
Be wary of providers that won't sell you anything until you've sat through a sales call. Look for a small starter order, somewhere around $1-10, and test it properly.
3. Check the addresses are what you paid for
Put the first 10 proxies through our IP lookup tool and look at three things:
- Is the country the one you ordered?
- If it was sold as "residential", does the network owner (the ASN) look like a home internet provider, such as BT, Comcast or Deutsche Telekom? Or is it a hosting company like AWS, OVH or Hetzner wearing a homely label?
- If it was sold as "mobile", does the lookup flag it as a mobile carrier?
Treat those flags as strong hints rather than proof. Still, if most of the 10 don't match, you already have your answer.
4. Try it on the site you care about
Pick the real site you'll be using and send 100 requests through the proxies, slowly. Then count:
- 200 replies: the page loaded.
- 403 or 429 replies: you were blocked, or told to slow down.
- CAPTCHA pages: the site is suspicious of the traffic.
There's no universal pass mark. Compare what you see with what the provider claims, and with what your project can live with.
5. Ask support a real question
Send a genuine question, such as "how do I use a sticky session with a particular country?", and note how long the reply takes and whether it actually answers you. A useful reply inside the hour during working hours is a good sign. "We'll get back to you in 1-2 business days" isn't.
6. Look around the dashboard
Can you easily:
- see how much data you've used so far?
- choose a country, or a city where one is offered?
- start a sticky session?
- copy your proxy list in 5 seconds?
If the basics are hard to find, you'll be fighting the dashboard every day.
7. Leave it running for a day
Over 24 hours, test the same proxy every 5 minutes. Note how many proxies didn't work from the start and how many dropped out partway through. A good service keeps nearly all of them answering; if lots fall over, think again.
Warning signs
- No prices on the website. Sales calls only usually means the price depends on who's asking.
- A "free trial" that needs your card and turns out to be awkward to cancel.
- Reviews that all sound alike. Look for real discussions on Trustpilot or Reddit too.
- No refund policy at all.
- No straight answer about what kind of addresses you're getting, beyond marketing words.
- Yearly payment only.
- Huge pool numbers with no breakdown by country.
How we'd like you to test us
Run this same checklist on us. Here's what you'll find: prices shown openly per GB, the same rate on every order, no contract and no minimum spend. Each order lasts 30 days and unused data doesn't carry over. If a proxy doesn't work when it arrives, tell us within 24 hours and we'll replace it or refund that part of the order. Start with the smallest order that covers your test.
