Pros & Cons
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- Free trials and customer-friendly pricing bundles
- Country, state, city, and ISP-level proxy targeting
- Support for HTTP(S), SOCKS5, UDP, and QUIC protocols
- Passwordless account login
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- No browser extension
- Limited payment options
- Lack of transparency on proxy sources
SOAX Specs
| # of Residential IP Locations | 195 |
| # of Residential IPs | 155000000 |
| Accepts Cryptocurrency | |
| Free Trial | |
| Mobile Option | |
| Pay-as-You-Go | |
| Protocols Supported | HTTP |
| Protocols Supported | HTTPS |
| Protocols Supported | QUIC |
| Protocols Supported | SOCKS5 |
| Protocols Supported | UDP |
| Support Types | AI chatbot |
Proxies lost their privacy tool status when VPNs became easier, more secure ways to hide internet traffic from advertisers and snoops. Modern proxy services are mostly marketed toward business clients who need a small army of IP addresses to conduct market research, scrape web data for training LLMs, test websites, and manage multiple social media accounts. Soax offers affordable, flexible pay-as-you-go plans that individual customers will like, while small to medium-sized businesses will appreciate its hyper-local targeting feature. The one drawback? We’d like to see a user-friendly browser extension. Otherwise, Soax is an excellent value and very easy to use, earning it our Editors' Choice award for individuals and small businesses.
How Much Does Soax Cost?
Soax’s simple and smart pricing stands out among the other proxy services I’ve reviewed that are aimed at consumers and small-to-medium-sized businesses. MarsProxies offers affordable, scalable pricing based on the proxy type, the number of proxies you use, and the amount of data you use each month. That kind of flexibility is valuable, but Soax offers something different: consistency. That’s because Soax offers pricing packages based on data usage for all proxy types, so if you know how much data you’re going to use each month, you know how much you’re going to pay.
I’ve created project budget proposals throughout my career, and reliable, easy-to-understand product pricing is a major factor for me when choosing a service to work with long-term. Soax’s clear and obvious pricing sets the service apart from the competition in a very positive way.
Soax offers four monthly service tiers to consider: Starter ($90), Advanced ($170), Professional ($740), and Business ($1,600). The Starter plans are best for individuals, startups, or small businesses that need to use a small amount of data each month to perform tasks like small-scale web scraping or market research analysis. If and when you outgrow the Starter plan, you’ll move your business to the Advanced plan, which doubles your traffic limits. The Professional and Business plans increase your data cap significantly, making them best for data-intensive, long-term projects. If you hit your data limit for the month, you’ll need to bump your service up to the next bundle level to continue using your proxies, or wait until next month when your data limit resets.
If you’re not ready to commit to a monthly payment yet, you can choose Soax’s pay-as-you-go model. In this tier, Residential proxies start at $1 for 4GB, Mobile proxies are $4 per GB, ISP proxies are $3.50 per GB, and Datacenter proxies are 80 cents per 5GB. Pay as you go is a good option if you know you’ll only need to use one kind of proxy. Not sure what type of proxy you need? Soax offers free trials for all proxy types, so try before you buy.
Overall, Soax’s pricing plans are a little less expensive than Oxylabs, which makes sense because, like MarsProxies, Soax is a proxy service for small businesses and individuals, rather than large, enterprise-level corporations. Soax allows you to pay for your proxies using a credit card or cryptocurrency. Those payment options aren’t quite as diverse as Oxylabs, where you can pay using AliPay, Apple Pay, a credit card, Google Pay, PayPal, or a wire transfer.
All proxy types support HTTP(S), SOCKS5, UDP, and QUIC protocols. You can create rotating or sticky sessions for an unlimited number of proxy connections. You can target IPs with pinpoint accuracy, too. Soax allows you to search for servers by country, city, and even ISP name. I haven’t seen other services offer specific ISPs for targeting before, so that’s a plus.
Soax’s proxy pool consists of 191 million datacenter, ISP, mobile, and residential IPs in 195 countries. Like other proxy services I’ve reviewed, residential and mobile IPs are the most geographically diverse, with locations around the world. Soax’s datacenter IPs come from just seven countries, though: France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The ISP proxies are limited to the United States.
It’s easy to use Soax proxies with the software you already have. For example, it integrates with Playwright and Selenium, which are open-source web app testing tools. Soax offers a library of helpful guides for using proxies with popular software and services. One missing feature: a Soax browser extension for major browsers, which is something that IPRoyal and MarsProxies both offer.
Reviews From Current Customers
As of publication, Soax has a score of 4.2 out of 5 stars on TrustPilot, a customer review website. That’s lower than some competitors, including MarsProxies with 4.8, IPRoyal with 4.6. The score may be a little low because there just aren’t as many reviews for Soax on TrustPilot. IPRoyal has more than 3,200 reviews, and MarsProxies has 204 reviews.
In any case, there may not be many recent Soax customer gripes and praises to read, but I collected highlights dating back to January 2024. Customers praised the ISP targeting, the large residential IP pool, and Soax ’s customer service team. Most of the recent customer complaints either indicated that Soax’s fraud detection measures work as intended or expressed billing-related concerns.
(Credit: TrustPilot/PCMag)We’re using TrustPilot reviews to get insights into the experience of a day-to-day customer, but as with other community-generated content, stay wary of manipulation. All said, we like TrustPilot because it uses fraud detection tools to curb bot activity or other inauthentic reviews, and the TrustPilot community is pretty good at self-policing, too.
Customer Support Options
If you need help, you can contact the Soax service support team via live chat or email at support@soax.com from 6 a.m. through 6 p.m. BST. If you prefer to troubleshoot your problem on your own, you can search the Soax Help Center. Help via an AI chatbot is available 24/7 on the company’s website.
Overall, my experience with Soax’s customer service team was fine. I first contacted the team during business hours to learn more about the service and received a prompt and polite response via email. My next interaction wasn’t quite as fruitful, though that’s my fault.
I wanted to see how helpful the AI chatbot can be, so I entered questions into the chat window, thinking I was responding to an AI assistant named Soax Bot, since that’s what responded to my initial request.
However, a very long silence followed my question about the support team’s email address, indicating that I may have been conversing with a real person, and at 8:30 p.m. BST on a Tuesday, they were (rightfully) done answering my questions. Soax Bot eventually returned to inform me again of the customer support team’s business hours. When I asked if it was possible to get AI assistance, a polite and clearly human support staff member told me that one of my questions triggered messages to the human support team members, which is why a human took over. I apologized for bothering everyone and logged out. It was a pretty embarrassing experience on my part, but I’m glad to see that the Soax support staff is helpful and courteous, even after hours.
(Credit: Soax/PCMag)Other proxy services offer a few more options for 24/7 customer support. For example, Oxylabs offers round-the-clock, human-led customer support, while MarsProxies offers different ways for customers to get in touch, including via a Discord server.
Can You Trust Soax?
Trusting your proxy provider is important because, like VPNs, a proxy service can see what you’re doing while you’re online. I ask the companies behind these services about their data privacy rules because it’s a good idea to know what companies do with the personal information you give them while using the service. You should want to keep your information private and secure, even while scraping data or managing multiple social media profiles.
In addition to any personal privacy and security concerns, you should also care about how companies obtain IP addresses. Some companies use less-than-ethical methods, such as using third-party botnets for their remote IPs, so if you use a residential proxy, the actual IP owner may not know that they’re sharing bandwidth with you.
Soax appears to have taken an ethical approach to sourcing residential IPs. The company says it partners with apps that allow people to sign up and agree to share their bandwidth. I could not find information about specific Soax app partners on the company website, so I sent a follow-up question to Soax. A spokesperson replied, “At this stage, we would rather not share which apps specifically, but they're mostly VPN and connectivity apps.”
We'll take their word at face value here, but it is unusual for a company not to disclose that kind of information. Especially since the company touts transparency as a core principle. MarsProxies also did not specify which apps they’ve partnered with for proxy sourcing. Oxylabs, which is primarily for enterprise-level businesses, sources bandwidth from individuals using a bandwidth-sharing app called Honeygain.
Interview With Soax
In addition to some questions about proxy sourcing, I asked the company about its customer data collection and retention policies. The spokesperson directed me to read the company’s privacy policy. My analysis of that document and the company’s terms of service agreement follows this Q&A.
How does Soax obtain residential proxies?
We source residential proxies through partnerships with various OEMs and ODMs. (ODM stands for original design manufacturer, which are companies that make so-called “white label” products based on an existing design. OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer, which refers to companies that are contracted by a specific company to manufacture products they design. For example, Apple’s iPhone was designed by Apple, but Foxconn is the OEM building the devices.)
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For user/residential proxies, does Soax use active and informed consent for endpoints?
Yes, all residential endpoints in our network are sourced with active, informed consent. Users participate voluntarily through our partner apps, where they are clearly informed that their device may act as a proxy node when idle. Bandwidth usage is minimal, and all activity is subject to strict security controls.
We only partner with providers who meet our compliance standards. They are required to implement clear opt-in dialogs and publish privacy policies that explain how the network operates. We also conduct regular audits to ensure continued adherence to these standards.
Ethical sourcing and transparency are core principles of how Soax operates.
Does Soax operate its own proxy networks with servers in various locations?
Yes. Soax manages its infrastructure through a distributed server architecture across multiple continents.
Does Soax directly own its datacenter proxies, or does the company use a third-party service to host them?
Soax initially sourced datacenter proxies from ProxyWow, a proxy provider we recently acquired. These datacenter proxies are now being integrated into SOAX’s core infrastructure.
Does Soax collect user data? If so, what kind of data does SOAX collect?
We only collect soft device identifiers from residential nodes to ensure that opt-out features are functioning properly. For data collected from Soax website visitors or platform users, please refer to our privacy policy.
Analyzing Soax’s Privacy Policy and Other Documents
Soax’s Privacy Policy is pretty easy to read, though the language veers into legalese in some places. In it, Soax confirms the data privacy-related statements made by their spokesperson, plus the company states that it stores customer information like date of birth, email addresses, names, and phone numbers until you tell them to delete it. Luckily, SOAX is headquartered and incorporated in London, UK, and the company states on its Trust page that it adheres to the standards set by the European Union’s GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). That means you can request that the company delete your data. Submit your request by emailing support@soax.com.
(Credit: Soax/PCMag)I also read Soax’s terms of service agreement, and you should too. Like the privacy policy, the terms of service document isn’t hard to read and understand. The only part that caught my attention concerns the IP targeting functions. The document states that the company “DOES NOT guarantee unique IP availability for targeting below country level.” That means that though Soax advertises city-level and ISP-level targeting for some proxy types, those targets may not always be accurate. It’s good to know that information before buying tons of proxies just to target one location, and finding out that the servers are actually in a different city.
(Credit: Soax/PCMag)Like Oxylabs, Soax follows Know Your Customer (KYC) policies to keep the company and other customers on the platform safe. That means the company collects customers’ identifying information, like a photo ID and phone number, and vets everyone before they can use Soax services. If you decide to use Soax for illegal or unethical activities, Soax states that it can and will boot you from the platform. If you witness someone misusing Soax, you can file a report.
Hands On With Soax
I deeply dislike passwords. They’re hard to remember and even harder to fill in around the web, even with help from a password manager. Much to my delight, with Soax, you don’t need to create a password for your account. Instead, you sign up and login by giving the company your email address, and then you’ll log in using a multi-factor authentication code sent to your inbox.
Is it a perfect security system? Well, no. If someone has access to your email account, they can get your MFA code (and everything else), log into your account, and cause a little (or a lot) of mayhem. That scenario is less likely than your account email and a frequently used password leaking in a data breach, though, so I strongly prefer Soax’s passwordless login system.
To test the service for PCMag, I didn’t need to hand over any identifying information, but due to Soax’s aforementioned KYC policy, you may need to provide a photo ID or a phone number to prove your identity. After creating your account, you’ll visit the dashboard, which is incredibly easy to navigate.
(Credit: Soax/PCMag)The dashboard layout is excellent. I like that I didn’t encounter any upselling tactics or excessive information in the home window. It’s very easy to find your way around the dashboard, too. The left rail is a navigation hub where you access your proxy services, the web data API, scraper APIs, and a Statistics section, which shows how you’re using your allotted data. You can check to see if servers are experiencing outages by clicking on the window in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Buy the data package that works for you (I used the Pay As You Go plan for this short testing period), and then choose Proxies from the left rail. From there, you can either choose the Quick Connect option or generate a list of proxies in your chosen location. Choose the session type you need (sticky or rotating) and change the session name to something familiar, if needed.
(Credit: Soax/PCMag)Here’s something I haven’t encountered before while reviewing other proxy services: Soax allows you to optimize proxy behavior for certain use cases, such as browser-based activities like social media management. For my tests using the Chrome browser extension, I turned on web browser mode. I didn’t see a significant performance improvement while browsing in this mode.
As mentioned above, you can target proxies by country, state, city, and even ISP. For the residential proxy location spoofing test, I chose a location in Brazil.
Location Spoofing Test Results
Soax doesn’t offer its own browser extension, but it does offer helpful video tutorials for using its proxy services with popular proxy management tools. I downloaded the FoxyProxy browser extension, entered my information from the Soax dashboard, and connected to a proxy. It wasn’t the smoothest, most user-friendly experience (MarsProxies’ browser extension is hard to beat), but I didn’t have any trouble establishing a connection to a residential proxy based in Brazil.
Using Soax is a little more complicated than what your average sneakerhead or stock sniper is looking for to spoof their location, but that’s not the audience for Soax anyway. If you’re using Soax in a business setting, you’ll welcome all of the options for customizing your proxy setup.
(Credit: Browserleaks/PCMag)In its terms of service, Soax notes that ISP targeting may not be accurate, but during my testing period, it was. I was able to connect to a proxy server in Guapimirim, Rio de Janeiro, operated by Delta R Seguranca E Servicos Ltda, successfully hiding my true location in the United States.