Node4 vs Proxy-Cheap
Proxy-Cheap competes hard on headline price and runs aggressive promotions. This page compares them with Node4 on price per unit, IP ownership, bandwidth and protocols. Their figures are quoted from their public pricing page, including which are promotional, and ours are read live from our own catalog.
Proxy-Cheap figures read from their public pricing page on 30 August 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, volume | $0.49/GB at 5 TB | $0.78 / GB promotional at 51 GB+; list $2.60 / GB. They also publish $1.20 / GB at 4 GB+ |
| Datacenter IPv4, entry | $1.49 at 5 proxies | $1.75 / proxy Dedicated tier, month-to-month; $1.49 on a 12-month prepay. Their Basic ($1.42) and Premium ($4.79 monthly, $3.50 on 12 months) are different tenancy tiers |
| 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 |
| Datacenter bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| IPv6 proxies | Not offered | Yes, from $0.18 / proxy (10+); $0.15 at 500+ |
| Mobile proxies | Not offered | Static from $24.36 / proxy on 12 months ($36.81 monthly), 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 |
The structural differences a price table hides
Proxy-Cheap's identity is the headline number, so the most important structural fact on this page is how that number is produced: their residential rate is promotional against a higher list price, while every figure in our column is the standing rate read live from our catalog. Neither approach is wrong, but they answer different questions: a promotion answers "what will my first invoice be", a list price answers "what will the twelfth one be". Evaluate any promotional provider on the renewal price, and confirm it in the checkout, not the banner.
On datacenter, the ownership question matters more the cheaper the proxy is. Node4's IPv4 datacenter, shared and rotating products run on IP blocks allocated to us, so subnet spread, prior use and reputation management are handled in-house. Proxy-Cheap's pricing page does not say where its ranges come from. Cheap datacenter IPs from an undisclosed source are not necessarily bad IPs, but you cannot know until you test them, which is what the verification section below is for.
Their catalog is wider in address families as well as products: IPv6 datacenter proxies and mobile proxies exist there and simply do not exist here. IPv6 deserves a structural note, because it is the cheapest thing on their page for a reason: a meaningful share of target sites either do not serve IPv6 at all or treat it differently from IPv4. If IPv6 pricing is what drew you to them, confirm that your specific targets respond usefully over IPv6 before you build on it. Our pool is IPv4 only, deliberately.
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, IP whitelisting is a complete alternative to username-and-password rather than an add-on, 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 genuinely lower than ours right now, and we would rather say that plainly than bury it.
- Below roughly 500 GB their residential is cheaper than ours, and at 51 GB+ their $0.78/GB beats our rate at that volume. If you buy residential in small or mid-size amounts, they win today.
- They sell IPv6 datacenter proxies from $0.18, a product we do not offer at all.
- They sell mobile proxies, static and rotating, and we do not.
- Their promotional pricing is aggressive, which is worth checking 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, not on being the cheapest number on the page.
- We own our datacenter IP blocks rather than reselling, so subnet spread and reputation are ours to manage.
- Dedicated datacenter proxies include unlimited bandwidth on a fixed monthly cost.
- Our datacenter entry price of $1.49 undercuts their $1.75 month-to-month. On a 12-month prepay they also reach $1.49, so at that commitment it is a tie.
- Our residential rate falls with volume and is not promotional, so it will not revert to a list price later.
Which should you choose?
You want dedicated IPv4 datacenter proxies from the operator of the blocks, bandwidth included in a flat monthly price, a residential rate that is a standing price rather than a promotion, or residential targeting down to state and city. Also the safer choice if you want to know today what your renewal will cost in six months.
The current residential promotional price is your single deciding factor and you accept the renewal risk, or you need IPv6 or mobile proxies. We sell neither, and we have no substitute to offer you for either.
What Node4 cannot offer you
Being straight about the gaps is cheaper than processing a refund. If any of these is disqualifying, Proxy-Cheap or another provider is the right call.
- No IPv6 and no mobile proxies. Two of their product lines have no equivalent here, and we will not sell you a mislabelled substitute for either.
- We are new. Third-party reviews of Node4 are scarce, and "trust us" is not evidence; hence the verification section on this page.
- Our residential product is a partner network, not infrastructure we own; the ownership argument on this page applies to our datacenter products.
- 99.9% uptime is a target we operate to, not a guarantee we contract to.
Switching from Proxy-Cheap: the actual work
The mechanical work of switching is small; the risk is in the assumptions your code inherited from the old provider. Take these in order.
- 1
Check what you are actually paying first
Before migrating anywhere, look up your current renewal price, not the price you signed at. If you joined on a promotion, the renewal figure is the one to compare against any alternative, ours included. It may turn out that staying put is right, and that 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_shared.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 a new username and password per service. 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; a promotional price you cancel is usually gone for good.
- Verify exit geography and IP classification through both providers using the same third-party lookup, so the comparison is fair.
- 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.
Verify both of us before you pay either
A vendor's comparison page, including this one, is an argument, not evidence. During a trial (ours is free with no card; check their current trial and refund terms on their site), every claim above collapses into things you can test in minutes.
- Run whois on your exit IPs. Addresses we sell as our own datacenter blocks should trace back to consistent allocations; residential exits, anyone's, should register to consumer ISPs, not hosting companies.
- Run exits through an IP-type database and see how they classify: datacenter, residential, or known proxy. Your targets already do this on every request.
- Check the renewal price of any promotional plan in the actual 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 commitment. On dedicated IPv4 datacenter proxies our $1.49 entry beats their $1.75 month-to-month, and matches their $1.49 twelve-month prepay. 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 rate at those sizes. Above roughly 500 GB we are cheaper, and our 5 TB rate of $0.49/GB is below their floor. We would rather set that out than claim a win we do not have.
Why not match their residential price?
Our residential bandwidth is bought from a partner network at a real per-gigabyte cost. Selling below that cost loses money on every gigabyte, and loses more the more we sell. Their $0.78 is also promotional against a $2.60 list price, so it is worth checking what you would actually renew at.
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 theirs in particular are often promotional, so check both before deciding.