Bright Data Too Expensive? Cheaper Residential Alternatives (Tested 2026)

Why everyone keeps asking about Bright Data alternatives

I have been doing overseas data collection for two years. The first time I used Bright Data it was because of the name — you cannot argue with their coverage. But when the bill came, residential traffic at roughly $8/GB stung. For a small team scraping US and EU sites, that number compounds fast. So I started hunting for alternatives, and not just cheaper ones — ones that actually work.

Why residential proxies cost what they cost

Residential IPs are not cheap to source. Providers pay real users for bandwidth, keep compliance paperwork, and run the infrastructure to rotate millions of IPs. That cost is legit. The part you overpay is the brand premium: the same network, resold under a famous logo, can cost 2-3x.

Cheaper does not mean worse — here is how to judge

• IP purity: are these real residential IPs or recycled datacenter sneaking in?
• Coverage: how many countries and cities, not just the country count on the homepage.
• Success rate: the only number that matters for scraping. Ask for real measured numbers.
• Support response: when an IP block spikes at 2am, do they answer?
• Is it authorized? Official resellers can be far cheaper without cutting quality.

The categories I actually tested

I split alternatives into two buckets. Direct big brands (same price tier as Bright Data) and authorized resellers. The reseller route surprised me: ProxyHub, as an official Kookeey reseller, gives the same residential network from $0.5/GB — about 60-70% less than the flagship price, with no fake 'unlimited' claims.

Same network, same residential IPs — a reseller can be 60-70% cheaper simply because it does not carry the brand tax.

Ballpark price tiers (not exact quotes)

• Flagship direct brands: $$$, ~$8/GB residential.
• Mid-tier residential: $$, roughly half that.
• Authorized resellers: $ and below, from $0.5/GB, same underlying network.

How to avoid the traps

1. Always take a free trial first — do not buy blind.
2. Measure success rate on YOUR target sites, not the vendor demo.
3. Read real reviews, not the top affiliate posts.
4. Ignore "unlimited traffic" hype; check per-GB and concurrency limits.
5. Confirm it is an official partnership if price looks too good.

My takeaway

If your work is mostly US and EU collection, you do not need to pay the brand tax. ProxyHub (official Kookeey reseller) starts at $0.5/GB with 190+ countries tested. Grab the free Telegram trial, run your own benchmark, and decide with real numbers — that is the only honest way to compare.