We Tested 82 Residential Proxy Providers Across 142,310 Real-World Requests: October 2026 Report

In October 2026, a comprehensive report analyzed 82 residential proxy providers through 142,310 real-world requests spanning six targets over a one-month period. The report revealed that two significant changes occurred during the testing period: an alteration in the order of provider testing and unexpected improvements in Google and Amazon's performance metrics.

Overall, the average success rate across all providers rose by 4.0 percentage points from 91.5% in September to 91.5% in October, while the average latency increased by just 0.12 seconds. However, the report's analysis highlighted notable differences in performance across various targets. For instance, providers faced substantially more challenges when accessing Google and Amazon compared to other targets, with success rates dropping to 88.3% and 70.9% respectively.

The variation in performance was substantial, with a 27.5-point spread between the most and least successful targets. This discrepancy emphasized the importance of testing against specific targets rather than relying solely on generic connectivity checks. The report further noted that Amazon's performance was particularly volatile, with success rates falling below 90% on several days, including specific days when almost all providers encountered blockages.

Additionally, the top 10 providers exhibited a highly competitive landscape, with only a 1.3-point gap between the highest and lowest performers. However, the report cautioned against solely relying on headline numbers, recommending that readers consider provider request counts alongside success rates to gain a more accurate understanding of performance. For example, a 97% success rate based on only 300 requests is less reliable than a 95% rate based on 1,860 requests.

The report concluded by discussing instances of provider outages and incidents, which were logged and reflected in the rankings, underscoring the need for robust retry mechanisms and backoff strategies to ensure uninterrupted service. New providers, such as B2Proxy and Geekproxy, joined the testing this month, while some, including 711Proxy and Anonymous Proxies, exited the testing.