In the recent past, you could choose between the very few proxy services on the market. The story is quite different today; we have many companies that offer a plethora of useful proxy features.
Most of them are over-the-top expensive, but even so, you can still find outstanding proxy services for quite an affordable price.
Is Smartproxy one of them?
In my in-depth Smartproxy review, you’ll find out every little detail about this service.
Ready when you are!
Smartproxy Short Overview:
If you don’t have time to read the entire thing, here are some key points:
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| A legitimate proxy provider | Expensive |
| Offers a large pool of proxies | Limited targeting options |
| Big monthly commitments | |
| Not suited for solopreneurs and small companies | |
| Doesn’t support the SOCKS protocol |
Top Smartproxy alternatives
| Provider | Our Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Proxyland | 4.7 | Check Price |
| Luminati | 4.0 | Check Price |
| Smartproxy | 3.7 | Check Price |
What is Smartpropxy and How Does It Help You?
Smartproxy is one of the biggest proxy service providers on the market.
They’ve been around since 2018, and they’re one of the most well-known and trusted companies.
Smartproxy offers two types of proxies:
- Residential proxies
- Datacenter proxies
Residential proxies are by far one of the best proxies as they have a wide range of usage. These types of proxies offer IPs of the real physical devices. Because of that, they are almost impossible to detect and block.
On the other hand, datacenter proxies are artificial IPs created at datacenters. They are usually much cheaper and faster than residential proxies. However, datacenter proxies are easier to detect and block.
Although Smartproxy offers more than 40 million residential IPs in over 150 countries around the world, they are limited on the city targeting.
They only offer city-specific proxies in 8 major cities: New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston, Miami, London, and Berlin. They also don’t support the SOCKS protocol.
But on the plus side, no matter which price plan you choose, you will grant access to the whole proxy pool of more than 40 million proxies. They also charge per bandwidth, so you won’t pay as much if you go overboard.
Smartproxy’s proxies can help you in multiple different use cases, such as:
- Scraping
- Ad Verification
- SEO monitoring
- Data collection
- Price comparison
- Link testing
- Travel fare
- Brand protection
- Cybersecurity
- Managing Social Media Accounts
- Online shopping
How Smartproxy Works?
Smartproxy is relatively easy to use. To create an account, you have to go to their official website (smartproxy.com) and click on ‘Access dashboard.’
Skip the Login information and click on the ‘Register’ button below.
After answering the question on how their proxies can help you, you will need to type in your email address and create a strong password.
Once you have your account, you’ll need to choose between residential or datacenter proxies, and you can get started with Smartproxy.
Smartproxy Features
Smartproxy offers a handful of useful features, and I’ll go over the main ones:
Proxy Rotation
Smartproxy offers automatic rotation or sticky sessions for up to 10 minutes.
You’ll have to set the parameters:
- Proxy Location: Random IP or Geo-targeting
- The session type: Rotating or Sticky
After that, you can access the targets you need.
Locations
Smartpoxy offers more than 195 locations around the world. You can use their services from every country and almost every major city.
Moreover, they recently covered all of the USA states. However, not all geo-locations are available for datacenter proxies.
Unlimited Concurrent Connections
Smartproxy doesn’t limit concurrent connections. You can send as many connection requests as you need.
Proxy API
This feature enables you to manage your account without the need to log on to their website. You can do anything you would typically do through your dashboard – create and update user accounts, get the information about your subscription or get traffic usage reports.
IPv4 Proxies
Smartproxy offers millions of IPv4 addresses. They also support HTTP and HTTPS protocols, which is a must-have.
Money-Back Guarantee
Smartproxy offers a 3-day money-back guarantee, which almost no proxy service offers. However, it is important to mention that it doesn’t apply to users who have used more than 20% of their plan’s traffic.
24/7 Customer Support
One of the most outstanding Smartproxy features is actually their customer support. Their CS is available for any kind of problem at any time of the day via e-mail or live chat.
Other great features of Smartproxy:
- Fresh, real IPs
- Static IP addresses for up to 30 minutes (residential proxies)
- Shared Private Proxies
- Chrome and Firefox extensions
- Ability to manage proxy addresses and endpoints
- IP whitelisting
- Ability to buy additional GB for your price plan, etc.
Smartproxy Costs and Pricing Plans
Smartproxy offers several different price plans:
As you can see, Smartproxy is quite costly.
Also, after you purchase any of the plans, the service will create an auto-renewal monthly subscription. That means that each month the service will automatically charge you for their services.
There are many proxy services that offer the same level of quality for far less money. One of such services is Proxyland.
For comparison’s sake, Proxyland’s pricing plans are five times cheaper than Smartproxy’s.
Is Smartproxy Legit?
From what I’ve read on Trustpilot and other reputable sites, Smartproxy is a legitimate and safe company.
Nevertheless, if we take into consideration their limits we previously mentioned, the prices are simply too high.
Top Smartproxy Alternatives
While Smartproxy is one of the best proxy services currently on the market, it seems like they are charging you a hefty fee for their name too.
There are many proxy service providers that are as good as Smartproxy but cost way less.
Unfortunately, many of them are not so popular because services such as Smartproxy have been dominating the market for quite some time.
For example, using a service such as Proxyland will save you quite a lot of money. They offer the same products and features as Smartproxy but are five times cheaper.
With Proxyland, you’ll have:
- Pay as you go option
- No obligations for big monthly commitments
- Affordable price plans which are suitable for individuals and smaller businesses too
- A large pool of residential IPs (more than 10 million proxies)
- IP whitelisting option
- Sticky sessions
- Authentication via user and pass
- Proxies available in almost any country in the world
- Wide range of features for different use case scenarios
- Easy to use and set up a dashboard
- Unlimited concurrent connections
- 99,99% network uptime
- The ability to see error logs and data consumption
| Provider | Our Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Proxyland | 4.7 | Check Price |
| Luminati | 4.0 | Check Price |
| Smartproxy | 3.7 | Check Price |
Smartproxy Pros and Cons
To summarize, here are some ups and downs of Smartproxy:
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| A trusted and legitimate company | Expensive |
| Access to the whole proxy pool with any price plan | Not suited for individuals and small businesses |
| Limited city targeting | |
| Doesn’t support the SOCKS protocol | |
| Big monthly commitments | |
| No pay-as-you-go option | |
| Their target groups are big corporations |
Final Verdict
All in all, Smartproxy is known for its safety and undeniably top-notch services.
However, Smartproxy has its limitations, and it’s quite clear that they’re selling their brand at this point.
The main problem here is that people who need a proxy service for individual use cannot afford it. Not to mention small businesses with limited budgets.
Be that as it may, I recommend you try one of the alternatives, such as Proxyland. They offer the same quality as Smartproxy, but for much less money.