What a residential proxy is
A residential proxy routes your traffic through a home internet connection, whether cable, fiber or DSL, so websites see an ordinary household IP instead of a server. Most providers source these IPs from peer-to-peer networks: apps on real people's devices share their connection in exchange for a free product. That gives residential networks huge pools of IPs across many countries, billed per gigabyte of traffic you push through them.
What a mobile proxy is
A mobile proxy routes your traffic through a real phone on a 4G/5G carrier network. The critical difference is carrier-grade NAT: mobile carriers share each public IP among thousands of real subscribers at once. A website that blocks one mobile IP blocks thousands of genuine customers with it, so in practice they almost never do. If you're new to how this works, start with What Is a Mobile Proxy?
Side by side
| Residential | Mobile | |
|---|---|---|
| IP source | Home broadband (cable, fiber, DSL) | Real 4G/5G mobile carrier |
| How it’s sourced | Usually P2P networks of home devices | A dedicated physical phone with a SIM |
| IP sharing | One IP ≈ one household | One IP shared by thousands (CGNAT) |
| Ban impact | Blocking one IP hits one home | Blocking one IP hits thousands of real users |
| Detectability | Low, but blockable one by one | Lowest, sites can't afford to block |
| Pricing model | Per GB of traffic | Per device or port, often unlimited |
| Session stability | IP can vanish when the home device disconnects | Stable while you hold it; rotate on demand |
| Best for | Broad geo coverage, light scraping at scale | Tough targets, multi-account, automation |
Which should you use?
- Use residential proxies when you need breadth: light scraping across many countries and cities, price monitoring at scale, or checking geo-targeted content where any household IP will do.
- Use mobile proxies when success rate matters more than per-GB price: social media and multi-account work, sneaker drops, scraping tough targets like Amazon or Google, and any automation where a ban costs you real money.
A useful rule of thumb: residential wins on coverage, mobile wins on trust. And if you're weighing proxies against a VPN altogether, see Mobile Proxy vs VPN.
Is the premium worth paying?
Mobile costs several times what the cheaper options cost, and for a good number of jobs that money buys a defence nobody is attacking. We put the honest version, including the cases where the answer is plainly no, in are mobile proxies worth it?
Frequently asked questions
Are mobile proxies better than residential proxies?
For hard targets, usually yes. Mobile carrier IPs sit behind carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT), meaning thousands of real subscribers share each IP. A site that blocks one mobile IP blocks all of them, so platforms like Instagram, Amazon, and Google treat mobile IPs with far more tolerance. Residential IPs are trusted too, but each one maps to a single household, so sites can and do block them individually.
Why are mobile proxies more expensive than residential?
Residential networks pool millions of borrowed home connections and bill per gigabyte. A mobile proxy is a real phone with a real SIM plan serving you, physical hardware and a carrier subscription. You pay more per proxy but typically get unlimited or high-cap traffic, a dedicated IP identity, and rotation on demand, which usually works out cheaper for heavy use.
Where do residential proxy IPs come from?
Most large residential networks source IPs from peer-to-peer SDKs bundled into free apps, so people share their home connection, sometimes without realizing it. Quality and consent vary by provider. A mobile proxy from a device you (or your provider) physically operate has a much cleaner supply chain: one phone, one SIM, one known IP identity.
What does PocketProxy provide?
Dedicated mobile proxies: each proxy is a real Android phone on a 4G/5G carrier, dedicated to you, with HTTP, SOCKS5, and OpenVPN access, on-demand IP rotation, and per-device pricing rather than per-GB billing.
Dedicated mobile proxies, no per-GB billing
Every PocketProxy is a real phone on a real carrier, with HTTP, SOCKS5, and OpenVPN with on-demand rotation, priced per device.