Node4 vs Proxy-Cheap
Proxy-Cheap publishes low headline prices, several of them marked promotional. This page compares the two on price per unit, IP ownership, bandwidth and protocols. Their figures are quoted from their public pricing page on the date shown, with the promotional ones marked; ours are read from our own catalog.
Proxy-Cheap figures read from their public pricing page on 5 October 2026. Prices change on both sides, so check before you buy.
Price comparison
| Product | Node4 | Proxy-Cheap |
|---|---|---|
| Residential, entry | $2.49/GB at 3 GB | $1.50 / GB promotional at 3 GB+; list $2.99 / GB |
| Residential, ~50 GB | $1.39/GB at 50 GB | $0.78 / GB promotional at 51 GB+; list $2.60 / GB. They also publish $1.20 / GB at 4 GB+ |
| Residential, top of ladder | $0.49/GB at 5 TB | not published their published ladder stops at 51 GB+ |
| Datacenter IPv4, entry | $1.49 at 5 proxies | $1.75 / proxy Dedicated plan, month-to-month; $1.66 on 3 months, $1.49 on a 12-month prepay. They also list Basic at $1.42 and Premium at $4.79 monthly ($3.50 on 12 months); their page does not say how the three plans differ beyond price |
| Datacenter, volume | $0.75 at 1,000 proxies | not published |
| Shared datacenter | $0.20 at 25 proxies | IPv6 from $0.18 / proxy IPv6 only, not comparable to IPv4 shared. $0.15 needs 500 proxies |
Feature comparison
| Feature | Node4 | Proxy-Cheap |
|---|---|---|
| Owns its datacenter IP blocks | Yes: blocks we own and announce | Not stated on their datacenter or pricing page |
| Datacenter bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| IPv6 proxies | Not offered | Yes, from $0.18 / proxy (10+); $0.15 at 500+ |
| Mobile proxies | Not offered | Static from $23.98 / proxy on 12 months ($39.51 monthly), both marked 10% off; rotating $5.99 / GB |
| Protocols | HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 on every product | HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 |
| Residential targeting | Country, state, city | Country, city |
| Free tier | Yes, no card required | Not published; a paid 7-day plan is listed instead |
The structural differences a price table hides
Their residential rates are marked promotional against a higher list price on their pricing page; ours are the standing rates read from our catalog. Their page does not state what a promotional plan renews at, so before comparing, check the renewal figure in their checkout rather than the banner.
On datacenter, Node4's IPv4 datacenter, shared and rotating products run on IP blocks allocated to us, so subnet spread and range resting are handled in-house. Proxy-Cheap's pricing page does not say where its ranges come from. That is not evidence of worse addresses; it is a question to settle with the tests in the checklist below.
Their catalog is wider in address families as well as products: IPv6 datacenter proxies and mobile proxies exist there and not here. IPv6 is the cheapest thing on their page, and some target sites do not serve IPv6 at all or treat it differently from IPv4, so confirm that your specific targets respond usefully over IPv6 before you build on it. Our pool is IPv4 only.
The remaining mechanics: both providers bill datacenter per proxy per month (ours includes bandwidth in the monthly price rather than metering it), and both speak HTTP(S) and SOCKS5. On Node4 you have one credential for every product on your account, and IP whitelisting is a complete alternative to it on every product including residential, though a whitelisted residential connection carries no username and therefore no targeting. Residential targeting rides in our proxy username as hyphenated segments down to state and city; their page lists country and city. A location with no live exits is refused, never quietly substituted.
Where Proxy-Cheap is the better choice
Their residential price is lower than ours at the sizes most buyers start at. Choose them, or another provider, if any of these applies.
- You buy residential at 100 GB a month or less. Their promotional $1.50/GB at 3 GB+ and $0.78/GB at 51 GB+ both beat our rates at those sizes ($2.49/GB and $1.39/GB).
- You need IPv6 datacenter proxies (from $0.18) or mobile proxies, static or rotating. We sell neither and have no substitute for either.
- You want a vendor with many third-party reviews. We are new, and reviews of Node4 are scarce.
- Their residential promotions change; check their page directly before you buy from anyone.
Where Node4 is the better choice
We compete on what the price includes and on who controls the infrastructure. Choose Node4 if you want any of these.
- Dedicated IPv4 datacenter proxies from the operator of the blocks, with bandwidth included in a flat monthly price.
- A lower month-to-month price than their Dedicated datacenter plan: $1.49 against $1.75, and a tie with its $1.49 12-month prepay. Their Basic plan lists $1.42; compare its terms with theirs before deciding.
- Residential at volume: from 250 GB a month our rate ($0.75/GB) is below their lowest published $0.78/GB, and our 5 TB rate is $0.49/GB.
- Residential rates that are standing list prices stepping down with volume, not promotional rates against a higher list. Prices can still change; the date this page was checked is shown above.
- Residential targeting down to state and city (their page lists country and city), with a location that has no exits refused rather than substituted.
Switching from Proxy-Cheap: what changes
The mechanical work is small; the risk is in the assumptions your code inherited from the old provider. Take these in order.
- 1
Check what you are paying now
Look up your current renewal price rather than the price you signed at, and compare that figure against any alternative, ours included. Staying put is a legitimate outcome of reading this page.
- 2
Endpoints
Static IPv4 proxies swap one host-and-port list for another, taken from our dashboard's Proxies page. Rotating and residential products use fixed gateway hostnames such as gw-rotating_datacenter.node4.io (one endpoint, rotation handled server-side), so code that cycles through a proxy list gets simpler rather than ported across.
- 3
Credentials and whitelisting
You get one Node4 credential for every product on your account. On every product you can skip credentials entirely by registering your source IPs on the whitelist; on residential that also means an untargeted exit. If you are coming off their IPv6 product, note that both our pool and our whitelist are IPv4: your machines connect to us over IPv4.
- 4
Targeting and sessions
Username-embedded targeting syntax never transfers between providers. Ours is hyphenated segments (country, state, city, session) with two-letter country codes and lowercase city names. Rebuild your username generator from our docs, then re-measure session stickiness on our gateways instead of assuming the old provider's rotation timing still holds.
Before you cancel anything
- Keep both subscriptions overlapping for at least one realistic production run.
- Verify exit geography and IP classification through both providers with the same third-party lookup: run whois on your exit IPs and check how an IP-type database classifies them. Datacenter addresses we sell as our own blocks should trace to consistent allocations; residential exits, anyone's, should register to consumer ISPs.
- Re-run your true workload, not a smoke test. Success against your actual targets is the only number that matters.
- Feed each product an impossible targeting request and confirm it fails loudly rather than exiting somewhere unexpected.
- Reconcile both providers' bandwidth meters against your own logs for an identical job.
- Check the renewal price of any promotional plan in the checkout flow before you rely on the headline figure.
- Treat every uptime number as a target unless a contract says otherwise; ours explicitly is one: 99.9%, with no SLA behind it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Node4 cheaper than Proxy-Cheap?
It depends on the product and the volume. On IPv4 datacenter proxies our $1.49 entry beats their Dedicated plan's $1.75 month-to-month and matches its $1.49 twelve-month prepay; their Basic plan lists $1.42, below our entry rate. On residential they are cheaper at small and mid volumes: their promotional $1.50/GB at 3 GB+ and $0.78/GB at 51 GB+ both beat our rates at those sizes. From 250 GB a month up we are cheaper, and our 5 TB rate of $0.49/GB is below their lowest published rate.
Why not match their residential price?
We price the ladder to reward volume rather than to win the entry size: our rate falls to $0.79/GB at 100 GB and $0.49/GB at 5 TB, which is below their lowest published rate. Their $0.78/GB is marked promotional against a $2.60 list price on their page; what a plan renews at is not published there, so check it in their checkout.
Do you sell IPv6 or mobile proxies?
No. If you need either, Proxy-Cheap sells both and we do not.
How current are these prices?
Their figures were read from their public pricing page on the date shown at the top of this page. Both providers change prices, and several of theirs are promotional, so check both before deciding.