Pros & Cons
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- Free trials
- Browser extensions
- Large residential proxy pool
- Ethical proxy sourcing
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- Inconsistent residential proxy location targeting in testing
Decodo Specs
| # of Residential IP Locations | 195 |
| # of Residential IPs | 115000000 |
| Accepts Cryptocurrency | |
| Browser Extension | |
| Free Trial | |
| Mobile Option | |
| Pay-as-You-Go | |
| Protocols Supported | HTTP |
| Protocols Supported | HTTPS |
| Protocols Supported | SOCKS5 |
| Support Types | Email, live chat, support website |
Decodo, formerly known as Smartproxy, is a proxy service provider aimed at small to medium-sized businesses, but it has top-notch features that individual customers may want, too. While Decodo’s pricing structure isn’t quite as streamlined as you'll find with Soax, its prices are affordable. In addition, we're impressed with Decodo’s array of add-on features, like its Chrome browser extension and social media management browser. We also commend the company for its stated commitment to ethical residential proxy sourcing. Soax has lower prices and a larger residential IP pool, but Decodo's browser extension and other add-ons make it equally worthy of consideration, depending on your needs. Accordingly, Decodo earns our Editors' Choice award for individuals and small businesses alongside Soax.
How Much Does Decodo Cost?
Like Soax, Decodo offers tools for small and medium-sized businesses. One example of this is Decodo’s Site Unblocker, which allows customers to extract web data without building an in-house web scraping client. Decodo also offers a custom tool for managing multiple X/Twitter accounts, a Chrome proxy extension, an add-on for Firefox, and a free desktop application for testing proxies. Decodo accepts a wide range of other payment types, including AliPay, credit cards, Google Pay, and several types of cryptocurrency. Keep in mind, though, if you pay with crypto, you won’t be able to get your money back if you’re unhappy with Decodo’s services. I’ll break down the refund policy details later in this review.
Datacenter Proxies
Decodo’s datacenter proxy pool consists of more than 500,000 dedicated and shared proxies. According to Decodo’s website, the majority of the proxies (more than 400,000) are dedicated datacenter proxies located in the United States. The remaining shared datacenter proxies are located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Israel, Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Dedicated datacenter proxies are best for activities that require a private IP address that will be used repeatedly for tasks like managing multiple social media profiles or ad performance testing. Decodo charges customers per IP for this proxy type. On the low end, Decodo charges $5.55 for three IPs each month. For 200 IPs, Decodo charges $270 monthly. Enterprise clients can purchase up to 2,000 dedicated datacenter proxies for $2,300 each month. The proxies come with unlimited traffic and support HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols.
Decodo’s shared datacenter IPs are appropriate for market research, price comparison, and SEO-related tasks. On the website, the company notes that these IPs may not work with websites protected by advanced anti-bot systems. The proxies support HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols.
You can pay for these proxies by buying traffic or by paying for IPs and traffic. Paying per gigabyte starts at $30 monthly for up to 50 gigabytes, and goes up to $950 monthly for up to 2,000 gigabytes. Enterprise customers can get up to 4,000 gigabytes for $1884 per month, or choose to contact the sales department for a custom quote. Paying per IP address is also an option, and appropriate for companies that require a certain number of IP addresses each month. On the low end, 100 IPs is $3.50 per month, and on the high end, 4,000 IPs is $105 per month.
Static Residential Proxies
If websites are blocking your datacenter proxies, maybe it’s time to give Decodo’s static residential proxies a try. The company sources the IPs from residential ISPs such as AT&T, Orange, and Verizon. Dedicated ISP proxies are best for any tasks that require a fixed IP address, like managing multiple e-commerce stores or monitoring competitors’ performance on social media platforms. Shared ISP proxies are available too, and are good for buying high-demand items online, like concert tickets and sneakers, or for web scraping. All of Decodo’s static residential proxies support HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols.
Decodo’s dedicated static residential proxies start at $9.99 per month for three IPs, and go up to $500 per month for 200 IPs. Enterprise clients can purchase up to 2,000 IPs for $4,000 per month.
Shared ISP proxies are priced either by traffic or by the number of proxies. Traffic prices start at $6.50 for one gigabyte of data per month, and go up to $425 per month for 100 gigabytes. If the customer wants a specific number of proxies, they can pay $4.70 for 10 proxies each month on the low end, and on the high end, they’ll pay $600 per month for 2,000 IPs. Special pricing for enterprise clients is available.
Mobile Proxies
Unlock geo-restricted content and get around website blocks using Decodo’s pool of 10 million mobile IPs from 700 carriers in more than 160 countries. You can target the proxy locations by city, and 3G/4G/ and 5G proxies are available, all supporting HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 protocols.
Mobile proxies start at $15 per month for two gigabytes of data, and go up to $550 monthly for up to 100GB. You can also choose the no-commitment plan, which is $8 per gigabyte. Custom pricing for enterprise clients is available, too
Residential Proxies
You can target Decodo’s residential IPs by ASN, city, country, state, and ZIP code. Residential proxies are commonly used with ad tech applications or when managing multiple e-commerce or social media accounts.
The residential proxy pay-as-you-go plan is $3.50 per gigabyte. Monthly plans start at $6 for two gigabytes and go up to $225 per month for 100GB. Like the other Decodo proxy types, custom pricing for enterprise clients is available for residential proxies.
Overall, Soax’s pricing structure for all proxy types is different from Decodo’s, making it difficult to compare the two services, even though they serve similar audiences. All of Soax’s proxy services are either pay-as-you-go or billed under four different pricing tiers. I recommend that kind of pricing for business clients because it makes budgeting a lot easier. That said, Decodo’s varied pricing is similar to that found in consumer-level services such as IPRoyal and MarsProxies, so small business owners who are looking to level up their services will find this structure familiar.
Reviews From Current Customers
As of publication, Decodo has a 4.4 out of five stars on TrustPilot, a customer review platform. Soax has a 4.1. Proxy services that serve individual clients tend to 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 highlight positive interactions with customer support representatives and mention that the service is reliable. The topics of the critical reviews range from complaints alleging that the dedicated ISPs are low-quality blocklisted datacenter proxies, to concerns about the company’s refund policy, which states that crypto payments are non-refundable. The one-star reviews all have informative, polite replies from Decodo.
(Credit:TrustPilot/PCMag)Keep in mind that when a website relies on community-generated content, as TrustPilot does, the reviews and review scores can be manipulated. We examine 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 impossible to manipulate. In the case of Decodo, the reviews appear to be authentic, and customer experiences trend positive.
Customer Support Options
You can contact the Decodo support team via live chat on the website, email at support@decodo.com, or you can access the company’s help site. The company offers lots of video tutorials on YouTube, plus it has a GitHub community page and a Discord server. My brief interactions with Decodo’s customer support representatives throughout the evaluation process were very polite and helpful.
(Credit: Decodo/PCMag)Can You Trust Decodo?
Much like a VPN, a proxy provider can see a portion of your online traffic, so you need to find out if the company is trustworthy. Unlike VPNs, proxy services are not marketed as privacy tools. That’s why, before signing up, you should find out what kinds of data the company collects from you while you use the proxies and how long it keeps that information. A lot of bad things can happen if your personal details turn up in a data breach, so it’s also a good idea to find out what companies are doing with the data you voluntarily give up when you sign up to use the service, or go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) verification process.
In this section of the review, I’ll focus on Decodo’s policy statements. In addition to analyzing the license agreement and privacy policy, I’ll also look over the company’s refund policy since it was a common complaint in critical TrustPilot reviews.
License Agreement
First, I read Decodo’s license agreement. In short, don’t use the company’s proxies for illegal activities. The list of prohibited activities in the license agreement isn’t limited to lawbreaking, though. If Decodo finds out you’re using the proxies to harass or prank people, or you’re found to be violating “general ethic or moral norms,” the company states that it will take “appropriate action,” which could mean booting you off the platform, or even handing over your information to foreign or national governments. It doesn’t sound like Decodo’s messing around, which, if you’re using this service in a business setting, is what you want to see.
I’ve seen similar strong statements from companies with services marketed toward enterprise-level clients. For example, the language in Bright Data and Oxylabs’ terms of service agreements is very clear about appropriate use cases for proxies.
If Decodo finds that a customer violated the license agreement, it will suspend their access to the system. That customer shouldn’t expect a refund, either.
Refund Policy
Speaking of refunds, let’s look at Decodo’s refund policy. At first glance, I like that the policy is short and to the point, which should eliminate confusion. Take a look for yourself:
(Credit: Decodo/PCMag)Decodo’s seven factors for qualifying for a refund don’t seem to be out of the ordinary. A two-week refund window is pretty generous, actually. Storm Proxies gives customers just 24 hours to request a refund. The TrustPilot reviews mentioned cryptocurrency as a factor in not receiving a refund, but since the company clearly states that it doesn’t refund cryptocurrency in its policy, I don’t see this as a problem.
Interview With Decodo
After examining a company’s license agreement and refund policy, I interview companies about IP sourcing methods and the company’s data collection methods. I ask these questions because some proxy providers use third-party botnets for their remote IPs. When you use one of those residential proxies, the IP could belong to someone else, and they may not know they’re sharing bandwidth with you.
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Like Bright Data, IPRoyal, and Oxylabs, Decodo sources IPs from people using its partner applications. I like that in the company’s statements about ethical proxy sourcing on the website, it makes it clear that the company gains consent from informed residential internet users before using their bandwidth. Here’s a look at one of the consent screens:
(Credit: Decodo)Below are the company’s answers to my questions about proxy ownership, sourcing, and customer data collection.
How does Decodo obtain residential proxies?
We obtain our residential proxies through a network of ethically sourced, fully consented users and Decodo’s SDK, which is integrated into our partners’ apps. All users share their internet traffic and network connection voluntarily through trusted partners, who ensure that users explicitly opt in after being clearly informed about how their IP addresses will be used.
As members of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (EWDCI), we adhere to strict standards that prioritize transparency, privacy, and user control. Peers can withdraw at any time and are protected by safeguards such as encryption, secure storage, and regular audits to ensure their data is handled responsibly.
For user/residential proxies, does Decodo use active and informed consent for endpoints?
Yes, Decodo only includes residential proxies from users who have provided active, informed, and verifiable consent. All participants join the network voluntarily through partner applications that clearly explain how and when their IP address may be used. Consent is never assumed – users must take a clear affirmative action to opt in.
We ensure that our partners:
- Use transparent opt-in flows with clear on-screen consent and language
- Provide accessible privacy documentation on how their IPs will be used
- Reward users fairly for their participation
To maintain these standards, we conduct regular audits and require compliance with our internal consent and data handling policies.
We work exclusively with partners who uphold these principles. If a consent-related issue arises, we act quickly to investigate, suspend access where needed, and take appropriate corrective measures. We also inform affected users when relevant and update our oversight procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Does Decodo directly own its datacenter proxies, or does the company use a third-party service to host them?
To provide our users with the best flexibility and broad coverage, we rely on a mix of in-house datacenter proxies and trusted third-party infrastructure partners. This hybrid setup helps us scale efficiently and deliver consistent performance.
Does Decodo collect user data? If so, what types of data does Decodo collect?
Decodo processes some limited personal data that’s essential for our business operations. That is–email addresses, business correspondence, and payment information that’s required for billing and accounting purposes.
Any other user information, especially the contents of the requests, are not seen as users use a proxy through the encrypted HTTPS protocol.
We have listed all the information we collect and how we manage it on our Privacy Policy page.
How is customer data stored? How long does Decodo store customer data?
Decodo retains customers' personal data only for a duration that’s reasonably necessary for the pre-defined purposes. Our data retention practices adhere to applicable regulations and consider factors such as relevant statutes of limitations, legal requirements, and the duration of the customer‘s interactions with Decodo services and/or website.
Customer data is stored securely in accordance with applicable data protection laws and regulations. Data is hosted on servers located within the EEA or in other jurisdictions that provide an adequate level of data protection as recognized by the European Commission. All data is protected using appropriate technical and organizational measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular security monitoring. Access to customer data is strictly limited to authorized personnel on a need-to-know basis, and we maintain policies and procedures to prevent unauthorized access, loss, or misuse.
Additionally, we ensure that any third-party service providers involved in data processing meet requirements through appropriate contractual safeguards, such as data processing agreements.
For any questions related to data use or privacy, our Compliance team is available at compliance@decodo.com.
Privacy Policy Analysis
Decodo’s privacy policy is well-formatted and very easy to read. The company explains, in clear terms, what data it collects from customers, when it collects the data, and how long it retains customer information. For example, this quote is from the personal data processing section: “Billing and transaction information: stored in our internal database for 7 years to comply with legal obligations, such as tax, accounting, and financial reporting requirements.
(Credit: Decodo/PCMag)As a person who has to read privacy policies for work, I appreciate the amount of information Decodo delivers in this document. If you’re planning to sign up for Decodo, you should read the privacy policy too.
Decodo’s registered address is in Vilnius, Lithuania, which means it complies with the European Union’s GDPR, one of the world’s strongest data protection policies. You can request that the company delete some of the data it’s collected and stored about you by emailing compliance@decodo.com.
Hands On With Decodo
I signed up for Decodo without any problems. The dashboard is easy to navigate, too. That said, Decodo’s pay-as-you-go feature is a little confusing. The listed price for 1GB of data is $3.50. However, when I selected this option and attempted to check out, paying $4 was the only option available because I needed to fund my Decodo wallet, and wallet tokens are only available in whole dollar amounts.
With tax, the price for 1GB of data came out to $4.27. There’s a checkbox near the checkout window for you to indicate that you understand how Decodo’s pay-as-you-go system works, indicating that other customers may have encountered questions about the pay-as-you-go pricing in the past. Keep in mind, pay-as-you-go products are self-service options, so they’re refundable. To make sure you don’t go over your wallet’s limit, you can turn off pay-as-you-go in the My Subscription section of the dashboard.
(Credit: Decodo/PCMag)After paying for the residential proxies, I navigated back to the dashboard to set up the IP addresses. Decodo allows you to create sticky sessions for up to an hour or choose rotating proxies. Designating allowlisted IPs is easy from the dashboard, too. Decodo allows residential proxy targeting at the city level, which is nice. However, Soax goes a step further by offering ISP-level targeting for its residential proxies.
Location Spoofing Test Results
After downloading the Decodo/Smartproxy browser extension, I targeted proxies in Paris in an attempt to mask my IP address and spoof my location. I connected to two proxies, and when I looked up the IP addresses using BrowserLeaks, I noted that the proxies successfully hid my IP address, but the location was a little off.
The first proxy I connected to was in Meung-sur-Loire, a French village located approximately 93 miles from Paris. The second proxy location was in Fontenay-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb. Given that Paris is a large city, I assumed I’d have access to plenty of residential proxies closer to the city. To compare, the proxy location accuracy of competing services, like Soax, was on target during my testing period.
(Credit: BrowserLeaks/PCMag)When it’s time to delete your account, email a deletion request to compliance@decodo.com. I emailed Decodo with my request, and the company representative replied and told me I had to use the same email address I used to sign up. I used a corporate alias, which is pretty commonplace, but it is not an exact match for the email address I use for communication. I cannot access the alias address, so I emailed the representative a screenshot of my subscription receipt. A few days later, the company confirmed my account was deleted.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Decodo)
Decodo
Decodo offers flexible pricing options for small to medium-sized businesses, plus well-designed, beginner-friendly tools that make using proxies painless.