Best proxies for scraping Instagram and TikTok in 2026
I run scraping jobs against Instagram and TikTok for client work and for my own tooling, mostly pulling public profile metadata, hashtag and post data, and price or engagement tracking for influencer campaigns. If you’re doing anything similar, whether it’s a growth tool, a research pipeline, or a monitoring dashboard, you already know the two platforms behave nothing like a static website. They fingerprint TLS handshakes, they rate-limit aggressively by IP reputation, and they push challenge pages the moment a session looks automated.
This list is for people building or running that kind of pipeline: developers, small agencies, and solo operators who need proxies that survive contact with Instagram’s and TikTok’s anti-bot systems, not just proxies that pass a generic “does it connect” test. A proxy that works fine against a plain e-commerce site can get burned in minutes against TikTok’s app-layer detection.
I picked and ranked these based on actual scraping runs against public Instagram profiles and TikTok’s web and mobile-API surfaces over the past few months, not vendor marketing pages. Below I explain how I picked, run through seven vendors I’d actually recommend, compare them side by side, and close with buying advice and a top pick.
how I picked
- IP type and pool quality — residential and mobile IP pools weighted heavily over datacenter, since both platforms block datacenter ASNs fast
- Block/challenge rate on real jobs — measured how often a session hit a login wall, captcha, or soft-block during repeated profile and hashtag pulls
- Session control — whether the proxy supports sticky sessions long enough to hold a logged-in session through a multi-page scrape
- Geo and carrier targeting granularity — city-level and, where relevant, carrier-level targeting for mobile IPs, since TikTok in particular treats geo-mismatched traffic as suspicious
- Pricing transparency — pay-as-you-go availability versus forced monthly minimums, and whether the published price per GB matches what you’re billed
- Support quality — how fast and how technically competent support was when a pool got flagged mid-run
the picks
Bright Data
Bright Data is the vendor most scraping teams end up trying first, and for good reason: its residential network is the largest in the industry by most public estimates, and its Instagram and TikTok specific scraping infrastructure (they sell dedicated “Web Scraper API” endpoints for both platforms) means you’re not building session and retry logic entirely from scratch. I’ve had the fewest hard blocks per thousand requests with Bright Data of anything on this list, particularly on TikTok’s video metadata endpoints.
The catch is cost and complexity. Their dashboard has a learning curve, and if you’re not already committing to volume, the pay-as-you-go rate stings. I’d point smaller operators toward a lower-cost pick first and graduate to Bright Data once volume justifies it. I go deeper on their full feature set in my Bright Data review.
Pros: - Largest residential IP pool in the market, strongest for high-volume runs - Purpose-built scraping APIs for Instagram and TikTok reduce custom retry logic - Compliance and KYC processes are the most mature of any vendor here
Cons: - Pay-as-you-go pricing is the most expensive on this list per GB - Dashboard and account setup take longer to learn than smaller competitors
Pricing: residential proxies start around $8.4/GB pay-as-you-go, with subscription plans bringing that down toward $4-5/GB at higher commitment tiers. Link: brightdata.com
Oxylabs
Oxylabs is Bright Data’s closest peer on scale, and in my testing the two trade places depending on the week for lowest block rate on Instagram. Where Oxylabs pulls ahead is account management: their onboarding team actually asks what you’re scraping and suggests session settings, which saved me a week of trial and error configuring sticky sessions for a login-gated Instagram scrape.
Their ISP proxy line is worth a specific mention if you need a stable IP that doesn’t rotate mid-session but still reads as a residential connection, useful for holding an authenticated Instagram session across a longer scrape without re-authenticating. I cover their tiers in more detail in my Oxylabs review.
Pros: - Comparable pool size and block-rate performance to Bright Data at slightly lower entry cost - Strong onboarding support for session and geo configuration - ISP proxy tier gives a stable IP with residential-grade trust
Cons: - Documentation is dense and assumes you already know proxy terminology - Minimum monthly commitment on most plans, less friendly to occasional small jobs
Pricing: residential plans start around $8/GB pay-as-you-go, or roughly $300/month for a starter subscription bundle. Link: oxylabs.io
Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)
Smartproxy rebranded to Decodo in 2024, and the product underneath is the same solid mid-tier residential network with a much friendlier price than the top two. This is the one I recommend to people testing a new Instagram scraping workflow before committing real budget, since the entry plans are cheap enough to run a few weeks of experiments without a large upfront spend.
Block rates were slightly higher than Bright Data or Oxylabs on TikTok specifically, particularly on high-frequency hashtag polling, but perfectly workable for Instagram profile and post scraping at moderate volume. Support response time was fast in my tests, usually under an hour on live chat.
Pros: - Lowest cost-to-entry residential plans of the larger-network vendors - Fast, responsive live chat support - City-level geo-targeting on residential IPs
Cons: - Slightly higher block rate on TikTok’s higher-frequency endpoints than Bright Data or Oxylabs - Smaller mobile IP pool than dedicated mobile proxy vendors
Pricing: residential plans start around $7/GB, with an entry bundle around $80/month for 8GB. Link: decodo.com
NetNut
NetNut takes a different architecture than the peer-to-peer residential model most vendors use, it peers directly with ISPs, which means IPs are more stable and less likely to drop mid-session. For anything requiring a held login session on Instagram, that stability matters more than raw pool size. I noticed fewer mid-scrape disconnects with NetNut than with any peer-to-peer residential provider on this list.
The tradeoff is a smaller overall pool and a pricier entry point, which shows up as slightly weaker geo-targeting granularity in some smaller markets. If your scrape doesn’t need pinpoint city targeting and does need a session that survives 20+ minutes of activity, this is a strong fit.
Pros: - ISP-peered architecture gives more stable, longer-lived sessions - Fewer mid-session drops than peer-to-peer residential competitors - Good throughput and speed on sustained scrapes
Cons: - Smaller IP pool overall than Bright Data, Oxylabs, or Soax - Entry pricing is higher relative to pool size
Pricing: plans start around $20/GB on lower tiers, dropping with volume; monthly subscriptions start near $300. Link: netnut.io
Soax
Soax’s strength is targeting granularity, they let you filter by city, ISP, and in some markets mobile carrier, which is genuinely useful when you need TikTok traffic to look like it’s coming from a specific region’s mobile network rather than a generic residential ISP. Their dashboard is also the most straightforward of any vendor here for setting sticky session duration on the fly.
Pool size is smaller than the big two, and I did see more rate-limit warnings on very high-frequency TikTok polling jobs, but for Instagram scraping at normal volumes it held up well and the pricing flexibility (pay-as-you-go with no forced monthly minimum on some plans) makes it easy to test before scaling.
Pros: - Best-in-class geo and carrier targeting granularity - Simple, fast sticky-session controls in the dashboard - Flexible pay-as-you-go options without a large minimum spend
Cons: - Smaller overall pool than Bright Data or Oxylabs - More rate-limit warnings on very high-frequency TikTok jobs
Pricing: starts around $9/GB pay-as-you-go, with subscription plans from roughly $99/month. Link: soax.com
Nodemaven
Nodemaven is a mobile-proxy specialist, and for TikTok in particular that matters: a real 4G/5G mobile IP with a clean reputation tends to read as more trustworthy to TikTok’s app-layer detection than even a good residential IP, because so much genuine TikTok traffic actually originates from mobile networks. Of everything I tested, Nodemaven’s mobile pool had the lowest challenge rate on TikTok’s app-API endpoints specifically.
It’s a narrower product than the general-purpose vendors above, there’s no large datacenter tier and the residential option is thinner, so this is a complement to a broader setup rather than a single vendor for everything. It’s also priced at a premium versus generic residential, which is the tradeoff for cleaner mobile ASN reputation. I break down their mobile pool quality further in my Nodemaven review.
Pros: - Lowest TikTok app-API challenge rate of any vendor tested, thanks to genuine mobile ASN reputation - Carrier-level targeting in several major markets - Sticky sessions hold well for authenticated mobile-app style scraping
Cons: - Priced at a premium versus general residential proxies - Thinner product outside mobile, not a good fit if you also need large-scale datacenter or generic residential traffic
Pricing: mobile proxy plans run roughly $15-20/GB depending on region and commitment. Link: nodemaven.com
IPRoyal
IPRoyal is the budget pick, and I mean that as a compliment, not a knock. Their pay-as-you-go residential pricing has no forced monthly minimum, which makes it the cheapest way to run a small Instagram scraping job or prototype a pipeline before deciding whether to invest in a bigger vendor. Performance against Instagram was solid at low to moderate volume, less consistent against TikTok’s stricter detection at higher frequency.
If you’re scraping a handful of Instagram profiles a day rather than running a continuous pipeline against thousands of TikTok accounts, IPRoyal is probably all you need, and you’ll spend a fraction of what the enterprise-tier vendors charge.
Pros: - Cheapest pay-as-you-go residential pricing on this list - No forced monthly minimum, good for prototyping before scaling - Solid performance for Instagram at low to moderate volume
Cons: - Higher block rate than premium vendors on high-frequency TikTok scraping - Smaller pool means less headroom if you scale volume fast
Pricing: residential proxies start around $1.75/GB pay-as-you-go. Link: iproyal.com
comparison table
| Vendor | Price | Primary strength | Primary weakness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | ~$8.4/GB PAYG | Largest pool, dedicated IG/TikTok scraping APIs | Most expensive at low volume |
| Oxylabs | ~$8/GB PAYG | Strong onboarding, ISP proxy tier for stable sessions | Steep learning curve, monthly minimums |
| Decodo | ~$7/GB PAYG | Cheapest entry among large-network vendors | Higher TikTok block rate than top two |
| NetNut | ~$20/GB PAYG | Most stable long-lived sessions (ISP-peered) | Smaller pool, weaker geo granularity |
| Soax | ~$9/GB PAYG | Best geo/carrier targeting granularity | More rate-limit warnings at high frequency |
| Nodemaven | ~$15-20/GB | Lowest TikTok app-API challenge rate (real mobile IPs) | Premium priced, thin outside mobile |
| IPRoyal | ~$1.75/GB PAYG | Cheapest pay-as-you-go, no minimums | Weaker against high-frequency TikTok scraping |
how to choose
Start by deciding whether you actually need mobile IPs or whether residential is enough. If you’re scraping public Instagram profile pages or post metadata through the web interface, a good residential pool from Decodo, Oxylabs, or Bright Data will get you most of the way there. If you’re hitting TikTok’s app-facing endpoints or need to hold an authenticated mobile-app-style session, a mobile-specific vendor like Nodemaven earns its premium price because the underlying IP reputation is genuinely different, not just marketed differently.
Session handling matters more than raw pool size for anything login-gated. A huge IP pool doesn’t help if your session drops every two minutes and you have to re-authenticate, which itself is a signal these platforms watch for. NetNut’s ISP-peered model and Soax’s sticky session controls are worth prioritizing if your scrape logs in and needs to stay logged in for a while.
Don’t assume proxy quality alone solves detection. Both Instagram and TikTok watch request pacing, header consistency, and behavioral patterns independent of IP reputation. Even the best proxy on this list gets flagged if you’re firing requests faster than a human could plausibly browse, or if your client fingerprint doesn’t match the browser or app you’re claiming to be. Pair a good proxy with realistic request pacing and, if you’re managing multiple accounts on either platform, a proper antidetect browser setup so your fingerprints and your proxies aren’t fighting each other.
On the legal side, scraping publicly available data sits in a gray zone that courts have addressed inconsistently. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has tracked the hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn litigation closely, which remains one of the clearest signals that scraping public profile data isn’t automatically a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violation, though outcomes depend heavily on jurisdiction and what data you’re collecting. This isn’t legal advice, read Meta’s Graph API rate limiting documentation and TikTok’s terms of service yourself, and talk to a lawyer if you’re scraping at commercial scale, since ToS violations and legal exposure are two separate risks that don’t move together.
If you’re building tooling around multiple Instagram or TikTok accounts rather than pure read-only scraping, the proxy choice interacts directly with account management, and it’s worth reading how operators handle that combination over on multiaccountops.com before you scale a single pipeline into dozens of accounts.
verdict / top pick
For most people starting an Instagram or TikTok scraping project, I’d start with Decodo. It’s cheap enough to prototype without real commitment, the pool is large enough to avoid constant blocks at moderate volume, and support is fast when something breaks. Once volume or reliability requirements grow past what Decodo comfortably handles, particularly for TikTok’s app-layer endpoints, that’s when I’d move budget toward Bright Data for general scale or Nodemaven specifically for mobile-app scraping where its clean mobile ASN reputation earns the higher price. IPRoyal remains the right call if you’re just testing an idea before spending real money on any of the above. Check the blog index for more proxy and scraping breakdowns as I keep testing these against platform updates through the rest of 2026.
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 2026-07-12.