Best proxies for scraping Cloudflare-protected sites in 2026

Cloudflare sits in front of a significant share of the internet. Their bot management documentation makes clear they are not passive about it: IP reputation scoring, TLS fingerprinting, JavaScript challenges, and behavioral analysis all run before your request hits the origin server. That means the datacenter proxy that worked fine on a Nginx-fronted site will fail instantly here, and even residential proxies get burned if the subnet has a bad history.

I run scraping infrastructure for price monitoring and competitive intelligence across Southeast Asia. Most of the targets I deal with sit behind Cloudflare. Over the past two years I have tested, rotated through, and occasionally cursed at most of the major proxy providers. This list is what I would hand to someone starting fresh in 2026, not a repackaged affiliate list written by someone who has never opened a proxy dashboard.

This guide is for operators, developers, and researchers who need to collect data from Cloudflare-protected sites at scale. it assumes you know what a rotating residential proxy is and that you are operating within the legal and terms-of-service limits applicable to your jurisdiction and targets. if you are newer to this space, check the proxyscraping.org blog for foundational guides before diving into provider comparisons.

how I picked

• IP type matters most. Datacenter IPs are flagged heavily by Cloudflare’s threat score system. I only list providers with residential or ISP proxy options. a datacenter-only provider is not useful here regardless of price.
• Subnet cleanliness. a residential pool sounds good until you realize you keep hitting the same burned /24 blocks. I looked at observable block rates across test targets using uniform scraping patterns.
• Rotation flexibility. Cloudflare catches sticky sessions quickly on high-protection targets. providers need to support per-request or short-interval rotation.
• Geographic coverage. some Cloudflare challenges are geo-gated. you need coverage in the US, EU, and increasingly Southeast Asia.
• Pricing transparency. I only list providers with public pricing. anything requiring a sales call before revealing a number is a red flag for operators managing tight margins.
• Scraping-adjacent features. some providers now bundle headless browser layers or CAPTCHA-solving APIs. those are worth factoring in if you are building a full pipeline.

the picks

Bright Data

Bright Data is the largest residential proxy network by pool size, sitting above 70 million IPs globally. for Cloudflare targets specifically, their residential proxies work well, but the more useful product for heavy Cloudflare scraping is their Scraping Browser, which handles TLS fingerprinting and JavaScript challenge execution natively. I have used both. the residential proxies are reliable and the pool is genuinely large, so burned IPs get replaced quickly. the Scraping Browser is slower and more expensive per request but avoids the arms race of fingerprint evasion that you fight manually with a plain proxy.

pricing is not cheap. residential proxies start around $8.4/GB on pay-as-you-go, dropping to roughly $5-6/GB on committed monthly plans. the Scraping Browser is billed per CPM (cost per thousand pages) rather than bandwidth. it adds up fast at scale.

• pro: largest residential pool, genuinely diverse subnets
• pro: Scraping Browser handles JavaScript challenges without manual fingerprint work
• pro: granular geo-targeting including city and ASN level
• con: pricing is among the highest in the market
• con: dashboard and API surface area is complex, onboarding takes time

pricing: residential from ~$8.4/GB pay-as-you-go. committed plans reduce this. Scraping Browser separate pricing. link: brightdata.com

Oxylabs

Oxylabs competes directly with Bright Data on pool size and has a cleaner product surface. their residential network is around 100 million IPs (their claimed figure, though effective unique IPs in active rotation are lower). for Cloudflare targets I have had comparable success rates to Bright Data on most targets, with slightly better performance on US and European ecommerce sites specifically. they also offer a Web Scraper API that handles Cloudflare challenges at the infrastructure level rather than passing the challenge through to you.

the residential proxy pricing starts at $8/GB on pay-as-you-go. they have a minimum spend requirement on most plans which makes them less ideal for small-scale testing before committing. their support is responsive for enterprise accounts; slower for smaller ones.

• pro: massive and diverse residential pool
• pro: Web Scraper API handles Cloudflare challenges server-side
• pro: strong uptime and SLA documentation
• con: minimum spend requirements make low-volume testing expensive
• con: pricing similar to Bright Data, no obvious cost advantage

pricing: residential from ~$8/GB. Web Scraper API priced per request. link: oxylabs.io

SmartProxy

SmartProxy sits a tier below Bright Data and Oxylabs in pool size but prices more aggressively. residential plans start at around $7/GB. their 55 million IP pool is smaller but in practice I have seen block rates on Cloudflare sites that are comparable, because pool cleanliness matters more than raw size past a certain point. they offer a rotating residential endpoint with per-request rotation which is what you need for Cloudflare targets.

one thing worth noting: SmartProxy integrates reasonably well with antidetect browsers. if you are running a multi-account operation alongside your scraping, see the antidetectreview.org blog for coverage of how proxy and browser configurations interact. SmartProxy’s endpoint structure works cleanly with most antidetect browsers without extra configuration.

• pro: more competitive pricing than the top-tier providers
• pro: clean dashboard with good session control
• pro: solid US and EU coverage
• con: smaller pool than Bright Data or Oxylabs
• con: less granular ASN-level targeting

pricing: residential from ~$7/GB. entry plans around $75/month for 11GB. link: smartproxy.com

IPRoyal

IPRoyal is where I send people who are testing a scraping idea before committing to an enterprise contract. their residential proxies are priced at around $7/GB with no minimum spend requirement, which makes them the most accessible on this list for small projects. the pool is smaller, around 8 million IPs, which does mean you will hit burn rates faster on aggressive scraping. but for moderate-volume work or initial validation, IPRoyal gets the job done on most Cloudflare targets without the overhead of a large enterprise contract.

they also offer “sticky” residential sessions up to 24 hours, which is useful for workflows that need session persistence across multiple requests to the same target before rotating.

• pro: no minimum spend, easy to start small
• pro: competitive per-GB pricing
• pro: good for validating pipeline before scaling spend
• con: smaller pool means higher repeat-IP risk at volume
• con: fewer advanced features compared to tier-one providers

pricing: residential from ~$7/GB, no monthly minimum. link: iproyal.com

Rayobyte

Rayobyte (formerly Blazing SEO) has a specific advantage on Cloudflare targets: their ISP proxy product. ISP proxies are residential IPs assigned to data center infrastructure, meaning they pass ISP-level legitimacy checks while offering data center-level speed and reliability. Cloudflare’s threat scoring system looks at IP type as one signal, and ISP proxies score much better than pure datacenter IPs while being faster and more predictable than rotating residential pools.

I have used Rayobyte’s ISP proxies for targets with moderate Cloudflare protection (managed challenge, not the most aggressive enterprise Bot Management tier) and success rates are consistently high. pricing is per-IP per-month rather than per-GB, which is better economics for high-bandwidth scraping. their ISP proxies run around $3.50-$4 per IP per month on their standard plans. for a deeper look at their product, see the full Rayobyte review on this site.

• pro: ISP proxies offer a strong price-to-performance ratio on Cloudflare targets
• pro: per-IP pricing is cost-effective for bandwidth-heavy scraping
• pro: fast and reliable compared to rotating residential
• con: ISP proxies are semi-sticky, less effective on the most aggressive Cloudflare Enterprise bot protection
• con: smaller geographic footprint than tier-one residential providers

pricing: ISP proxies from ~$3.50/IP/month. residential proxies also available. link: rayobyte.com

NetNut

NetNut uses a peer-to-peer residential network with ISP-level connectivity, which means their IPs route through real ISP infrastructure rather than through VPN or proxy nodes. Cloudflare’s bot management uses TLS fingerprinting and network-level signals alongside IP reputation. NetNut’s routing approach helps with some of those signals. in testing I have found their success rates on Cloudflare targets slightly better than SmartProxy’s, though the sample is not large enough to be definitive.

their residential pricing starts around $7/GB. they target the enterprise segment more than the SMB space, and their minimum contract sizes reflect that. worth considering if you are already at meaningful scale.

• pro: ISP-level connectivity improves network signal quality
• pro: low-latency performance compared to traditional residential
• pro: good coverage across US and EU
• con: higher minimums, less suited for small projects
• con: customer support quality varies depending on account tier

pricing: residential from ~$7/GB. enterprise plans with volume discounts available. link: netnut.io

SOAX

SOAX is a residential proxy provider with a narrower pool (around 8.5 million IPs) but notable for its flexible filtering. you can target by city, carrier, and connection type, which is useful when you are trying to match the profile of a legitimate user from a specific region. for Cloudflare targets where geo-gating or regional behavioral profiling matters, that granularity is genuinely useful rather than a marketing feature. I have used SOAX for targets where I needed to match a specific mobile carrier profile in Southeast Asia, and it held up. for a more detailed breakdown, the SOAX review on this site covers the filtering interface in depth.

pricing starts at $99/month for around 8GB, which works out to about $12.4/GB at the entry level. it is more expensive than some options here, but the carrier and connection-type targeting justifies it for specific use cases.

• pro: granular carrier and connection-type targeting
• pro: useful for geo-specific or carrier-specific Cloudflare bypass needs
• pro: clean API and good documentation
• con: higher effective cost per GB than competitors
• con: smaller pool increases repeat-IP risk at high volume

pricing: from $99/month (~8GB). higher volume plans reduce effective per-GB cost. link: soax.com

comparison table

provider	starting price	primary strength	primary weakness
Bright Data	~$8.4/GB	largest pool, Scraping Browser	expensive, complex onboarding
Oxylabs	~$8/GB	Web Scraper API, large pool	minimum spend requirements
SmartProxy	~$7/GB	price-to-performance balance	smaller pool than tier-one
IPRoyal	~$7/GB	no minimum spend	small pool, fewer features
Rayobyte	~$3.50/IP/mo	ISP proxies, cost-effective	limited geo footprint
NetNut	~$7/GB	ISP-level routing	high minimums, enterprise-focused
SOAX	~$12.4/GB (entry)	carrier/connection targeting	expensive, smaller pool

how to choose

start with the protection level of your target. a basic Cloudflare setup (the free or Pro tier without enterprise Bot Management) will fall to most residential proxies with per-request rotation. if you are hitting enterprise Bot Management with behavioral analysis, you need either a scraping browser layer (Bright Data or Oxylabs Web Scraper API) or ISP proxies with careful session management. check whether the target returns JS challenges or managed challenges. managed challenges are harder; they indicate the site is running active bot scoring rather than just passive reputation checks.

match your volume to the pool size. a pool of 8 million IPs sounds large until you are making 500,000 requests per day, at which point the probability of re-using a flagged IP climbs fast. if you are at high volume, Bright Data and Oxylabs have the pool depth to support it. at lower volume, IPRoyal or SmartProxy will be more cost-effective and the smaller pool is not a meaningful constraint.

factor in what you are doing beyond the proxy. proxies solve the IP reputation problem but not the fingerprinting problem. Cloudflare’s TLS fingerprinting can identify common scraping stacks by their JA3 hash. if you are using a standard Python requests or Node axios setup, you may need to either customize your TLS configuration or use a product that handles it for you. for teams building antidetect workflows on top of their proxies, the multiaccountops.com blog covers the browser layer in detail. for a list of tested residential providers alongside this guide, see the proxyscraping.org blog index.

price shop at your actual volume tier. the per-GB numbers on this list are at entry-level pricing. all of these providers have significant volume discounts at 100GB/month and above. if you know your monthly bandwidth requirement, get quotes from at least two providers at your tier before committing. the pricing gap between SmartProxy and Bright Data at 50GB/month is meaningful. at 1TB/month, the gap widens further.

verdict / top pick

for most operators scraping Cloudflare-protected sites in 2026, SmartProxy is where I would start. the pricing is honest, the pool is clean enough for moderate-volume work, and the per-request rotation on their residential endpoint handles the majority of Cloudflare protection tiers without extra complexity. if you hit the ceiling, moving to Bright Data or Oxylabs is straightforward, and your pipeline logic transfers directly.

if your target uses enterprise-tier Cloudflare bot management and a plain proxy is not cutting through, go straight to Bright Data’s Scraping Browser or Oxylabs’ Web Scraper API. you are paying a premium, but you are buying out of the fingerprinting arms race rather than fighting it manually.

for high-bandwidth scraping on moderately protected targets where cost matters, Rayobyte’s ISP proxies are the best value on this list. the per-IP monthly pricing rewards high bandwidth usage in a way that per-GB pricing does not. for the right use case, it is significantly cheaper per successful request than any residential option here.

for the full Bright Data review or the full SmartProxy review with benchmark numbers, see those pages on this site.

Written by Xavier Fok

disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links. if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. verdicts are independent of payouts. last reviewed by Xavier Fok on 2026-05-19.