How do residential proxies work?
When you connect directly to a website, your device's IP address is visible to that site. A proxy sits in the middle: your request goes to the proxy first, the proxy forwards it to the target using a different IP, and the response travels back the same way.
With a residential proxy, that forwarding IP belongs to a genuine home internet connection assigned by an ISP like Comcast, AT&T, or Verizon. The website therefore sees a legitimate residential address in a real city, not a recognizable server range.
The typical flow looks like this:
- Your application sends a request to the Nefo proxy endpoint.
- The proxy assigns a residential IP that matches your chosen location.
- The request reaches the target website from that residential IP.
- The page or API response returns to your application unchanged.
Residential proxy vs direct connection
| Characteristic | Residential proxy | Direct / datacenter connection |
|---|---|---|
| IP origin | Real ISP-assigned home IP | Your own IP or a hosting provider range |
| How sites perceive it | Ordinary household visitor | Single repeated visitor or known server |
| Location control | Choose country, state, city or ISP | Fixed to your physical location |
| Best for | Localized, large-scale public data | Everyday personal browsing |
| Session options | Rotating or sticky sessions | One static session |
Rotating and sticky residential proxies
Residential proxies usually offer two session modes:
- Rotating sessions assign a new IP for each request, which spreads many requests across many addresses.
- Sticky sessions keep the same IP for a set time, which is useful when a task needs a consistent identity across several steps. Nefo sticky sessions last from 1 minute up to 24 hours.
HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5 are supported, so residential proxies work with browsers, scrapers and most networking libraries. See how sticky sessions work.
What residential proxies are used for
Companies rely on residential proxies for legitimate, data-driven work:
- Localized results: See exactly what a shopper in a specific US city sees, including regional pricing and inventory.
- Price and market monitoring: Track competitor prices and product availability across regions.
- Ad verification: Confirm that ads render correctly and are not being served fraudulently.
- SEO monitoring: Check how search rankings differ by location.
- Reliability at scale: Distribute lawful public-data collection across many IPs so a single address is not overloaded.
Residential proxies are legal to use for these purposes. What matters is how you use them: always respect each website's terms of service, applicable laws, and personal-data regulations, and only collect information you are permitted to access.
Residential proxies at Nefo
Nefo sells residential proxies by the gigabyte: 5 GB for $4.50, falling to $0.53/GB at 10 TB, and the bandwidth never expires. The network covers 227 countries and territories, 22,417 cities and 14,252 ISPs, with HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5 and rotating or sticky sessions. Because billing is by bandwidth, you pay for what you use rather than a fixed pool of IPs. See current plans on the pricing page or create an account to test a small amount first.
Key takeaways
- A residential proxy routes requests through real ISP-assigned home IPs.
- Websites see an ordinary residential visitor rather than a data-center server.
- You can control location and choose rotating or sticky sessions.
- Common lawful uses include market research, price monitoring, ad verification and SEO checks.
- Nefo residential bandwidth starts at 5 GB for $4.50 and never expires.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Using residential proxies for legitimate purposes such as market research, price monitoring and lawful public data collection is legal in most jurisdictions. You remain responsible for following each site's terms of service and applicable laws. See the acceptable use policy.
A VPN routes all of your device's traffic through one server, usually a datacenter IP, mainly for privacy. A residential proxy routes specific application requests through real home IPs and lets you choose location per request, which suits data collection. See proxy vs VPN.
Basic familiarity helps. Most tools accept a proxy host, port, username and password, so if you can configure a browser or a script's network settings you can use one. The docs walk through setup.
Nefo residential proxies start at $4.50 for 5 GB ($0.90/GB) and fall to $0.53/GB at 10 TB. Bandwidth never expires, so you can start small and top up later.
They come from real consumer internet connections whose owners agreed to share bandwidth. Read where residential proxy IPs come from for how to judge sourcing.