Datacenter proxies route your requests through IPs hosted in IDC networks — low latency, high bandwidth, and the lowest cost per gigabyte of any proxy type. IPLight's datacenter product is a dynamic pool billed by traffic: IPs rotate per request and you pay only for the GB you transfer, from $1/GB with a 100GB minimum and volume discounts. Nothing is billed per IP — for a fixed, dedicated IP use static residential proxies.
Datacenter vs dynamic residential vs static residential
Two things decide the product: where the IP lives, and how you pay. Datacenter IPs belong to hosting ASNs that anti-bot systems spot instantly; residential IPs belong to consumer broadband ISPs and look like ordinary home users. Datacenter and dynamic residential are both traffic-billed; static residential is billed per IP:
| Aspect | Datacenter (dynamic) | Dynamic Residential | Static Residential (ISP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| IP origin | IDC data center | Home broadband ISP | ISP (fixed) |
| IP stability | Rotates in pool | Rotating / sticky | Fixed and dedicated |
| Detection risk | Easily flagged | Indistinguishable | Indistinguishable |
| Billing | From $1/GB by traffic (100GB min) | From $1/GB by traffic | From $3/IP/month per IP |
| Speed | Fastest (backbone) | Varies with home lines | Good |
| Best for | Public scraping, API monitoring, rank checks | Strict targets: e-commerce, social, search | Account operations, fixed identity |
What datacenter proxies are good at
Bulk public scraping
Public pages, RSS feeds and open APIs with no login wall or ASN filtering — highest throughput, lowest cost per GB.
SEO & rank monitoring
Scheduled rank checks, index monitoring and uptime probes. Traffic-based billing means you never pay for idle IPs.
API & price monitoring
Polling public endpoints for price or stock changes on low-latency datacenter lines.
Capabilities
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| IP type | Datacenter dynamic exits, rotated per request from a pool |
| Billing | By traffic: upload + download counted, 1GB = 1000MB |
| Price | From $1/GB, 100GB minimum, lower unit price at higher volume |
| Protocol | HTTP / SOCKS5 with username-password auth |
| Provisioning | Top up in the console and start immediately; balance drawn per GB |
| Companion | Pair with a VPS (from $3/month) to host your scrapers |
Quick start
# Python requests through the datacenter gateway (username/password)
import requests
proxies = {
"http": "http://username:password@gateway-host:port",
"https": "http://username:password@gateway-host:port",
}
r = requests.get("https://target-site", proxies=proxies, timeout=15)
print(r.status_code, len(r.content))
Generate and copy the gateway host, port and credentials from the console's dynamic proxy page. Billing is per GB, so your code keeps no IP list — rotation happens at the gateway.
FAQ
Datacenter vs residential proxies: what is the difference?
Both are billed by traffic (per GB). The difference is where the IP lives: datacenter exits sit in IDC networks, so they are fast, cheap and easy for anti-bot systems to spot; residential exits are home broadband lines belonging to consumer ISPs, indistinguishable from real users. Use residential for strict targets (e-commerce, social, search) and datacenter for public pages and open APIs.
Are datacenter IPs static?
No. Our datacenter product is dynamic: IPs rotate from a pool and you pay only for the GB transferred, not per IP. If you need a fixed, dedicated IP that stays with you, use static residential (ISP) proxies, which are billed per IP per month.
How is the datacenter proxy billed?
By actual traffic — upload plus download counted — from $1/GB, with a 100GB minimum purchase and lower unit prices at higher volume. Usage is visible per day in the console and deducted from your balance.
When should I pick static residential instead?
Pick static residential for a fixed identity that stays online ($3/IP per month, billed per IP). Pick dynamic datacenter for high-volume scraping of public pages where throughput and cost per GB matter more than ASN reputation.
Can I use datacenter proxies for account registration?
Not recommended. Registration and login create a long-term association between an account and an IP; if that datacenter IP gets flagged, the account suffers. Use static residential (ISP) or dynamic residential proxies for account-based workflows.
Is this the same as a VPS?
No. A datacenter proxy only forwards traffic (you get a gateway, port and credentials). A VPS (from $3/month) is a full remote server where you deploy your own scrapers. Most teams run the scraper on a VPS and send traffic out through proxies.
Do the math first
For high-volume jobs against lenient targets, datacenter proxies are usually the best value. Run the one-minute test above to be sure.
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