Pros & Cons
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- Large residential proxy pool
- Easy-to-use dashboard and browser extension
- CCPA and GDPR compliance
- Security vulnerabilities program
- Free trial
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- Pricey
- Privacy policy indicates off-site customer data collection
- Restrictive Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements
Bright Data Specs
| # of Residential IP Locations | 195 |
| # of Residential IPs | 400000000 |
| Browser Extension | |
| Free Trial | |
| Mobile Option | |
| Pay-as-You-Go | |
| Protocols Supported | HTTP |
| Protocols Supported | HTTPS |
| Protocols Supported | SOCKS5 |
| Support Types | Email, Phone, Telegram channel |
Proxies aren’t just for sneakerheads and ticket scalpers; major corporations use proxy services for tasks like market research and social media management. These companies gravitate toward proxy services with massive IP pools and trustworthy policies, like Bright Data. We like that you can try out Bright Data with a free trial, and its privacy policy is very transparent. The company’s stringent Know Your Customer approval process signals a commitment to weeding out people who use proxies for malicious or fraudulent tasks, though it may be too restrictive. The company’s prices are a bit higher than the competition, but we had good experiences with customer support and like the service's dashboard. While Bright Data has many bright spots, Oxylabs has lower prices and a very thorough privacy policy, which makes it our Editors' Choice for enterprise customers.
How Much Does Bright Data Cost?
Each proxy type offered by Bright Data has service tiers best suited for businesses, large and small, rather than individual customers. Bright Data does not accept cryptocurrency or any other form of anonymous payment, but it does accept a wide range of other payment types, including AliPay, credit cards, Google Pay, PayPal, Payoneer, and wire transfers.
Datacenter Proxies
Bright Data’s datacenter proxy pool consists of more than 770,000 IP addresses in 98 countries. These proxies are called “unlimited” on the website, but there are some limits you should know about. According to this document on Bright Data’s website, the company’s fair use policy limits each IP to 100 gigabytes of data each month. That goes for dedicated and shared proxies. If you exceed your bandwidth, you’ll incur additional charges. In the image below, you can see how Bright Data calculates your overage amounts.
This policy doesn’t seem terribly out of line to me, and the company states that it informs clients via email when they get 85% of the way through their 100 gigabyte allotment for the month, and again when they reach 100%.
Datacenter proxies are best for performing market research, scanning public databases, or accessing websites that aren’t using bot detection or proxy blockers. Bright Data offers two types of datacenter proxies: Dedicated and shared proxies. Each type supports country-level targeting and the SOCKS5 protocol. I'll break down the costs below.
Dedicated IPs
The benefit of dedicated proxies is that they can be used for as long as you want. That kind of dependability makes them great for longer-term projects such as managing multiple online accounts.
Bright Data’s dedicated IPs start at $22 monthly for 10 proxies and go up to $1300 monthly for 1000 proxies. Oxylabs’ prices are a bit lower, as the company charges $6.75 per month for 3 proxies, and $1200 monthly for 1000 IPs.
Shared IPs
Shared proxies are best for location spoofing. Your business can use them to view geo-restricted media or monitor your competition.
Bright Data’s shared IPs start at $14 monthly for 10 proxies and go up to $900 monthly for 1000 proxies. Again, Oxylabs has lower prices in this category. That company’s shared IPs are free or up to 5 proxies, $12 monthly for 10 proxies, and $750 monthly for 1000 proxies.
You can also choose to go the commitment-free route and pay 60 cents per gigabyte. This plan lets you access Bright Data’s shared pool of around 40,000 rotating proxies.
ISP Proxies
If you’re blocked by the websites you’re trying to access using datacenter proxies, your next step is to try out Bright Data’s ISP proxies. The company has more than 700,000 dedicated and shared static residential proxies, all with country-level targeting and SOCKS5 protocol support. These proxies are best for work that requires using non-rotating IPs, or for businesses that need a small number of residential IPs for product testing or website comparison projects.
Pricing for this service is a little higher than for the datacenter proxies: Monthly fees start at $18 for 10 shared IPs and $35 for 10 dedicated IPs. You can also choose the pay-as-you-go plan and pay $15 per gigabyte.
Mobile Proxies
If your team is conducting market research, testing mobile ads, or working to improve user experience for mobile customers, it might be wise to invest in a mobile proxy service like Bright Data’s. The company’s network has 7 million mobile IPs worldwide, each supporting ASN, carrier, and mobile network targeting.
Bright Data’s mobile plans start at $8.40 per gigabyte for the commitment-free plan, or you can pay $499 monthly for 69 gigabytes, $999 monthly for 158 gigabytes, or $1999 monthly for 339 gigabytes.
Residential Proxies
Bright Data’s residential proxy pool contains more than 400 million IPs in 195 countries. You can target IPs by ASN, city, country, state, and ZIP code. It’s worth noting that Oxylabs offers the same kinds of targeting for its 175 million residential IPs.
Residential proxies are best for tasks like managing multiple social media profiles or gathering e-commerce data. The pay-as-you-go plan starts at 8.40 per gigabyte, or you can pay $499 monthly for 130 gigabytes, $999 monthly for 316 gigabytes, or $1999 monthly for 678 gigabytes.
Reviews From Current Customers
As of publication, Bright Data has a 4.3 out of five stars on TrustPilot, a customer review platform. Oxylabs has a 4.2. Not surprisingly, proxy services with a smaller-scale client base have more reviews and higher ratings. For instance, MarsProxies has a 4.8 and IPRoyal has a 4.6 on TrustPilot.
Recent five-star reviews frequently mention excellent customer support interactions. However, as with most review platforms (including the website you’re currently reading), the spicy takes offer more insight into the customer’s experiences.
Critical reviews mention frustration regarding the company’s refund policy, low-quality ISP and residential proxies, and frequent bugs encountered while using the Bright Data proxy manager. Bright Data’s customer support director even directly addressed one complaint and offered the customer their email address to arrange a support team meeting. It was a professional and polite response to a customer who clearly stated their issues with the service, and I like to see that.
A quick reminder: When a website relies on community-generated content, like TrustPilot does, the reviews and review scores can be manipulated. We look at TrustPilot reviews because the website uses fraud detection and community monitoring to spot inauthentic reviews, but that doesn’t mean the site and community are infallible.
Customer Support Options
If you need help while using Bright Data’s proxies, you can contact the support team Monday through Friday via email at support@brightdata.com, or you can access the company’s help documents. If you want more specialized support, you’ll need to buy a premium or enterprise service level agreement (SLA). To do so, contact the Bright Data sales team for a quote.
It’s clear that Bright Data’s customer support options are aimed at enterprise-level clients. Companies that cater to individuals or small businesses offer 24/7 assistance at all service levels. For example, IPRoyal, MarsProxies, and Soax customers can get help via live chat. Oxylabs caters to enterprise clients, too, but customers can get support via the company’s Discord server, in addition to AI chatbot assistance.
Can You Trust Bright Data?
A proxy, like a VPN, can see at least some of your online traffic, and it can definitely see what you’re doing when you’re using the proxy. It’s important for proxy service providers to be trustworthy and transparent. You should always question what companies are doing with the data you give them when you sign up and use their services. That’s why, before I test proxy services, I ask companies about their privacy policies. You can read Bright Data’s answers below. My analysis of the company’s privacy policy and other documents follows the interview.
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Interview With Bright Data
In addition to the privacy questions, I also ask companies how they acquire IPs. I do this because some proxy services use third-party botnets for their remote IPs. When you use one of those residential proxies, the IP could belong to someone who doesn’t know they’re sharing bandwidth with you, which is incredibly unethical.
Like Oxylabs and IPRoyal, Bright Data sources IPs from people who use its partner applications, which include gaming apps. In an emailed response, a Bright Data representative made it clear (with screenshots!) that the company requires consent from people before using their data.
How does Bright Data obtain residential proxies?
Bright Data obtains residential proxies through its SDK, which is integrated into partner applications. These SDKs are only activated after users have provided active and informed consent. Users are shown a clear consent screen, can opt out with two clicks, and receive a benefit in return for opting in. Bright Data ensures that no end-user data is collected and that all activity complies with GDPR and CCPA regulations.
For user/residential proxies, does Bright Data use active and informed consent for endpoints?
Bright Data requires active and informed consent from users before enabling its SDK. The consent process includes a clear explanation, a benefit in return for participation, and an easy opt-out mechanism. This ensures transparency and user control over participation in the network.
Example for consent screen from one of our apps:
Does Bright Data operate its own proxy networks with servers in various locations?
Bright Data owns and operates the industry’s most advanced and diverse proxy infrastructures, offering access to over 150 million IPs globally. This includes residential, data center, ISP, and mobile proxies, with full control over session management and geo-targeting.
Does Bright Data collect user data?
Bright Data does not collect end-user data from its residential proxy network. The SDK is designed to avoid collecting personal data, except for IP addresses, and the company follows strict compliance procedures to ensure privacy and legal adherence.
Analyzing Bright Data’s Terms of Service Agreement and Privacy Policy
Bright Data’s privacy policy is free of legal jargon, making it easy to read. The company is based in Israel, and as mentioned above, the company complies with the European Union’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, two of the world’s strongest data protection policies. This is great because it means you can request that the company delete the data it’s collected and stored about you by emailing privacy@brightdata.com.
Here’s a look at the types of data the company has collected from customers over the past year:
The company gets some of this info, such as a customer’s work history, from various online sources. By its reckoning, it’s public information if it’s on the open web, so it’s ripe for harvesting.
I understand that the company wants to prevent potential fraud or misuse of its services by collecting as much data as possible about its customers, but this level of collection is not something we’ve observed from other enterprise-level services, like Oxylabs. If customers were voluntarily providing the information, by, for example, entering their full career history when applying to use the service, I wouldn’t bat an eye. Collecting customer data from the open web is excessive, though, especially since that data isn’t essential for service functionality.
I always recommend giving out as little information as possible when signing up for online services. If you aren’t comfortable with Bright Data’s customer data collection policy, you can see what information the company has on you and then send a deletion request.
The company’s privacy policy doesn’t specify how long it retains customer data. Oxylabs will retain customer data for up to five years after the last contact. Bright Data also states that it will hand over your data to government, law enforcement, or other regulatory agencies, which is not unusual, but good to know.
I also took a look at the Bright Data service agreement. Basically, the company doesn’t want you to use its proxies for anything illegal, and it may keep an eye on how you’re using your data to enforce its rules. Nothing in the document stood out as particularly shady or strict.
Bright Data runs an incentivized security vulnerabilities reporting program, which is good. Oxylabs offers something similar. You can read about Bright Data’s vulnerability research guidelines on the website.
Hands On With Bright Data
Signing up for Bright Data is simple: I just entered my email address on the sign-up page and verified my identity by entering a code sent to my email address. There's no need for a secure, yet easy-to-forget password to lock down your account.
After logging in, you’ll encounter a Get Started page, which introduces you to Bright Data’s proxies and APIs. I clicked on the option to buy proxies, which opened my account dashboard. There’s also another dashboard within this dashboard, which is where you’ll track your monthly data usage. If you click the three dots at the top right, you’ll find options for downloading Bright Data’s proxy manager and browser extension.
Using the credits that came with my test account, I purchased a shared residential proxy. In the security settings section, you can set a password for the IP and create allow and block lists, which is ideal.
I selected Belgium as the target country for my residential proxies, and in the Geolocation Targeting section, I chose to target IPs at the city level. I like that you can specify a name for your proxy list, also known as your zone, and also note what the proxies are used for. This is helpful for companies that are using proxies for multiple purposes, such as social profile management and web scraping.
So far, so simple. I downloaded the Bright Data browser extension for Chrome and was able to log in and access the server details with just a click. Unfortunately, I encountered a certificate error when using the browser extension because some domains do not work with Bright Data’s test accounts. A company spokesperson told me that in order to access the web using a test account, I needed to complete the company’s Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure, and there are no exceptions to this policy, even for product testing purposes. According to the website, the verification process can take one to two business days to complete, so factor that into your project timeline.
Bright Data’s multi-step KYC process required me to submit a copy of Ziff Davis’ business registration (PCMag is owned by Ziff Davis), along with my own personal information. Just a reminder, that’s an awful lot of data to trust to a company that, in its privacy policy, states that it is collecting data about its customers from the open web without expressed consent. Because of these requirements, I didn't test this part of the service.
