A private residential proxy is a residential IP address, or a set of them, that the seller promises not to share with other customers. Sellers use the phrase for three different products. Part of a rotating pool can be allocated to you. A port can hold one exclusive address for a while and then change it. Or you can rent a static residential (ISP) address alone, which most sellers call a dedicated proxy. We sell residential proxies too, so read this as a seller's guide and check the quotes: every seller's wording and price below comes from its own pages, read on October 22, 2026.
What does "private" mean for a residential proxy?
Each seller defines the word on its own pages, and the definitions do not agree:
| Seller | Product | What "private" or "dedicated" means there | Price read October 22, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live Proxies | rotating and static residential | "Instead of one large pool shared by everyone, your IPs are unique and only shared with you" | on its pricing page |
| ProxyRack | Private Residential ports | an "Exclusive assigned IP" per port, with "new IPs on an hourly basis" and uncapped data | $19.99 a port, 15 ports for $299.99 a month |
| IPRoyal | Dedicated (Private) Residential ISP | "the IP addresses are reserved just for you", and nobody else uses them at the same time | per address, by the month |
| Webshare | static residential (ISP) | "private" shares each address with one or two other users; "dedicated" is yours alone | $0.926 private (25 IPs), $2.10 dedicated (20 IPs) |
| Evomi | static residential (ISP) | three grades, "by how many other customers have used the address": shared, private, virgin | $1.00, $2.50, $4.50 |
| HProxy | static ISP | a dedicated static IP: the exit IP is the IP you bought | $2.70/IP a month |
So "private" can mean a slice of a rotating pool, an exclusive address that changes every hour, a static address for you alone, or a static address you share with two other people. Before you pay, ask two questions: does the address rotate, and how many other customers send traffic through it.
Can a rotating residential proxy be private?
Only up to a point. A rotating pool runs on home devices that join and leave the network, so no seller can promise you one home address for weeks. Proxyway's guide to dedicated proxies put it plainly: "Residential proxies can't be dedicated by design, as they live on borrowed time." Webshare's guide says the same about standard residential IPs: their availability "solely depends on whether the IP lenders are connected to the proxy network or not".
What a seller can do is narrow who shares the pool with you. Live Proxies says your IPs are "only shared with you". ProxyRack sells ports that each hold an exclusive address, with uncapped data, and swaps it for a new one every hour. Both are rotating residential with an allocation on top.
Our rotating residential is a shared pool: each request, or each sticky session, draws an address from it. That is the right shape for scraping public pages at volume, and our residential proxies cost $0.50 for one GB, falling to $0.44 per GB at 2,000 GB+. If you need one address that stays yours, the product to buy is a static one.
What is a dedicated residential proxy?
A dedicated residential proxy is a static residential, or ISP, address that one customer rents for a period. Byteful's description is accurate: "Registered to a real ISP but hosted in datacenters." The address belongs to a consumer internet provider's network, so websites read it as a home connection, and it sits on a server, so it stays up and does not rotate.
Dedicated means nobody else uses it while you hold it. IPRoyal's page puts it as "no one will be using them simultaneously". Our ISP proxies work this way: the exit IP is the IP you bought, for a week, a month or three months, and the session never rotates on you. The longer explanation, with how websites classify these addresses, is in what is an ISP proxy.
Shared, private or dedicated: what each grade costs
Sellers that sell more than one grade of static residential address price them far apart. The chart puts each seller's grades side by side, per address per month, at the size stated in the note.
The multiple depends on how shared the cheap grade is. Oxylabs puts up to three users on a shared address and charges half its dedicated price for it. Webshare's shared tier is a seventh of its dedicated price, and its private tier, with one or two other users, sits between them. Evomi grades by history rather than by current sharing: its "virgin" grade is an address no other customer has used.
One address for one month is often the cheapest way in. Our ISP proxy costs $2.70 a month for one address, and several sellers sell a single dedicated address for $2.71 to $3.50 a month, while Webshare's dedicated plans start at 20 IPs and Bright Data's at 10. Our best ISP proxies comparison lists eleven sellers with the smallest order and the traffic each allows per address.
When do you need a dedicated address?
- Accounts whose standing depends on the IP. Social media, marketplaces and ad accounts watch where logins come from. On a shared address, other people's requests arrive from your IP, and a site that flags them sees your account on that address too.
- Allowlists. Some services, APIs and dashboards accept connections only from addresses you register. A rotating address cannot be listed; a dedicated one can.
- Long sessions. A checkout flow or a logged-in dashboard that runs for hours needs the same address for hours.
You do not need one for scraping public pages, checking prices by country, or anything that spreads many requests across many addresses. There a rotating pool is cheaper per request, and a single address would hit rate limits sooner. Our guide to rotating and static residential proxies walks through the choice.
Dedicated does not always mean unlimited traffic, either. Bright Data and ProxyEmpire allow 100 GB per address per month, and Oxylabs cuts concurrent sessions on an address after 50 GB on a shared one and 100 GB on a dedicated one, as their pages read on October 22, 2026.
How do you check what you were sold?
Three checks take a few minutes:
- Look up the network. Run the address through our IP lookup. A residential or ISP address belongs to a consumer internet provider's network; a hosting company's name means a datacenter address.
- Watch it over days. A dedicated static address stays the same. If it changes, you bought a rotating product, whatever the plan was called.
- Ask about sharing in writing. Ask the seller how many customers use the address at the same time and whether it was used before. Webshare and Evomi answer that on their price pages, which is the standard to hold the others to.
Try it before you decide
Our free proxy checker and IP lookup let you test any address at no cost. ISP proxies cost $2.70 a month for one dedicated address, and residential proxies start at $0.50 for one GB when a rotating pool fits the job better.
Sources
- Live Proxies, homepage, read October 22, 2026: its definition of private proxies.
- ProxyRack, Private Residential proxies page, read October 22, 2026: ports, exclusive assigned IP, hourly IPs, uncapped data, price per port.
- IPRoyal, dedicated residential ISP proxies page, read October 22, 2026.
- Webshare, pricing and private proxy pages and its guide "What Is a Dedicated Proxy?", read October 22, 2026.
- Evomi, pricing page, read October 22, 2026: static residential grades.
- Oxylabs, Bright Data and ProxyEmpire, ISP pricing pages, read October 22, 2026 for our best ISP proxies comparison.
- Proxyway, "Dedicated Proxies: All You Need to Know", last modified January 2022.
- Byteful, "Best Private Proxies in 2026", read October 22, 2026.
- HProxy, ISP and residential product pages and live price list, October 22, 2026.
