Residential, mobile, datacenter or ISP proxy: what is the difference?

Target sites make this distinction through the IP’s ASN (autonomous system number) and IP reputation databases. That is why the proxy type drives both success rate and cost. This article gives a short definition of each type, one comparison table and a decision flow in the form “if the target is X, use Y”. The detailed two-way comparisons live in separate posts; you will find the links in the relevant sections.

What separates the proxy types?

Every IP block on the internet belongs to an autonomous system (AS) and is announced by that AS over BGP. RFC 1930 defines an AS as a group of networks under a single routing policy. IP reputation services sort each ASN into classes such as “home ISP”, “mobile carrier” or “hosting/cloud”.

When a site sees your request, this is one of the first signals it checks. A request from a hosting ASN gets a different risk score than a request from an ordinary home user. The proxy type decides which box you land in. Protocol (HTTP or SOCKS5) and rotation are separate decisions that do not depend on the type.

ASN is not the only signal. Sites also look at the IP’s reverse DNS record, whether it has appeared on abuse lists, the request rate from that IP and whether the browser fingerprint matches the IP’s location. So the right type will not rescue a misconfigured client. The type gets you past the first filter; headers, cookies and request pacing decide the rest.

What is a residential proxy?

A residential proxy sends traffic out through an IP assigned to a home internet subscription. The IP belongs to a consumer ISP’s ASN, and the target site sees it as an ordinary household connection. At WeProxy, residential addresses are sourced through a consent-based SDK partnership program: participants join knowingly and can leave at any time.

The rotating residential IPv4 proxy exits from a pool of 100M+ IPs, offers country, city and ZIP targeting, and works over HTTP and SOCKS5. The same pool supports sticky sessions: when you add a session ID to the username, the exit IP stays fixed for up to 24 hours. Because exits come from real devices, a single device can go offline mid-connection; occasional one-off 502 errors are normal for this type.

Residential is not the right answer for every job. Downloading large files from a weakly protected target through residential inflates cost under per-GB billing for no gain. If the target does not block hosting IPs, doing the same job over datacenter is faster and more predictable.

What is a mobile proxy?

A mobile proxy sends traffic out through a mobile carrier’s 4G/5G network. Carriers put most subscribers behind CGNAT and share public IPv4 addresses among them (RFC 6598 defines the 100.64.0.0/10 range reserved for that layer). Since many real users can share the same public IP at once, sites are more cautious about blocking mobile IPs.

WeProxy has two mobile options. The mobile 4G/5G proxy (real SIM) runs on a SIM, rotates the IP on demand, is offered over HTTP and is listed in TR, US, GB, NL, PL, AT, IE and AU. The rotating mobile IPv4 proxy is pool-based, supports HTTP and SOCKS5 and holds a sticky session for up to 60 minutes. Latency on a mobile network depends on radio conditions; speed is not this type’s main advantage.

The value of a mobile proxy is the carrier identity the IP carries. If the target does not expect that identity, for example when you crawl a desktop web page, residential does the same job with a wider choice of locations.

What is a datacenter proxy?

A datacenter proxy exits through a server IP in a data center. The IP is registered to the ASN of a hosting or cloud provider. This gives low latency, high bandwidth and a stable connection; on the other hand, hosting ASNs are easy to classify in reputation databases, and sites with aggressive bot protection return 403 or CAPTCHA more often.

The rotating datacenter IPv4 proxy offers 10M+ IPv4 addresses, ASN and city targeting and 99.9% network uptime, and works in sticky and rotating modes. If you need a fixed address, the static datacenter IPv4 proxy gives you a dedicated IP, a fixed ASN and location, and unlimited bandwidth. This model is practical for API and partner integrations where you must get an IP whitelisted.

What is an ISP proxy?

An ISP proxy is a static proxy hosted in a data center whose IP block is registered to an internet service provider. When the target site checks the ASN, it sees an ISP instead of a hosting company; because the infrastructure sits in a data center, speed and stability are close to datacenter. This is why the industry also calls ISP proxies “static residential”.

At WeProxy, the static ISP IPv4 proxy is offered in the US and keeps the same IP for up to 30 days. If you need an ISP-type static IP in Türkiye or Europe, look at the static residential IPv4 proxy: its IP type is listed as ISP IPv4, it covers TR, US, DE, FR, NL, ES, GB, IT, CA, AU and HK, and traffic is unlimited on every IP.

Proxy types comparison table

The table puts the four types side by side on the same criteria. The “trust” row describes the risk score the target gives the IP at first glance; no type guarantees you will not be blocked.

All WeProxy packages have no thread or concurrent session limit. Authentication on HTTP and SOCKS5 works with both username/password and IP whitelist. Prices differ noticeably between types; current starting packages are listed on each product page.

How do you check which type an IP belongs to?

You can verify in two steps that the proxy you bought really exits from the ASN you expect. First get the exit IP through the proxy, then look up that IP’s ASN. If you prefer a graphical interface, the IP lookup tool shows the same data as ASN, organization and country.

# 1) Get the exit IP through the proxy
curl -sS -x "http://USER:[email protected]:8989" https://api.ipify.org
echo

# 2) Look up the ASN and AS name of that IP (example IP)
whois -h whois.cymru.com " -v 203.0.113.10"

The AS Name column in the output decides it. If you see a cloud or hosting company, the IP is datacenter. If you see a consumer ISP, the IP is residential or ISP type; the ASN alone does not tell these two apart, but an ISP proxy keeps the same IP for days and its latency is at data center level. If you see a mobile carrier, you are on a mobile exit.

You can add the same check to the start of your automation in Python:

import requests

proxy = "http://USER:[email protected]:8989"
proxies = {"http": proxy, "https": proxy}

ip = requests.get("https://api.ipify.org", proxies=proxies, timeout=(10, 30)).text
print("Exit IP:", ip)
print("ASN check: https://weproxy.io/tools/ip-lookup")

Which proxy type should you choose?

The target decides the type, not the budget. Read the flow below from top to bottom and stop at the first line that matches:

1. If the target is a mobile app, mobile ad inventory or a flow that only trusts mobile network traffic → mobile proxy.
2. If you log in to an account on the target and the IP must stay the same for days → ISP proxy (US) or ISP-type static residential (TR/EU); if a mobile network is expected → mobile.
3. If the target is bot-protected public pages sensitive to country or city (local SERP, prices, ad display) → rotating residential.
4. If the target is your own API, a partner service or high-volume pages with weak bot protection → rotating datacenter.
5. If the target requires you to whitelist a fixed IP for access → static datacenter; if trust score matters too → ISP proxy.
6. If 403, 429 or CAPTCHA rates rise with datacenter → test the same URL list on residential with a small sample.
7. If you are not sure → run both types on the same URL list and compare success rate and traffic per successful request. New accounts start with 1 GB of free residential traffic.

For scenario-based mapping, see the web scraping, SEO proxy, social media and ad verification pages.

Which post covers your two-way comparison?

If your choice has narrowed to two types, the details are in the posts below. The summaries here only show which post answers your question.

Residential or datacenter?

The split is between trust and speed. If the target filters hosting ASNs, residential is more efficient; if it does not, datacenter is. For cost, success rate and testing method, read residential vs datacenter.

Mobile or residential?

The split is whether the target expects a mobile network identity. For desktop web flows residential is usually enough; for app and mobile ad flows mobile comes first. Details are in mobile vs residential.

ISP or datacenter?

Both are hosted in data centers and can run static; the difference is the ASN registration. If whitelisting and raw speed are enough, choose datacenter; if you need an ISP identity, choose ISP. The criteria table is in ISP proxy vs datacenter proxy.

Sticky or rotating once the type is chosen?

The type decides where the IP comes from; rotation decides how often it changes. Use sticky sessions for step-by-step flows with sessions, carts or logins; if the IP changes mid-flow, the session drops. For session-less, high-volume crawling, rotating mode spreads the load across the pool and lowers the risk of hitting per-IP rate limits.

Not every type supports every rotation mode. ISP and static datacenter only give fixed IPs; residential and rotating datacenter offer both modes. For session lengths and failure scenarios, see the sticky vs rotating proxy guide.

How does the billing model change by type?

The types differ not only in IP source but also in the billed unit:

• Per GB: Rotating residential, rotating mobile and rotating datacenter. Usage is the sum of sent and received traffic; purchased GB never expires and stays in your balance until used. Suits variable volume and testing.
• Per IP, monthly: ISP, static residential and static datacenter. For work that needs a fixed identity and whitelisting; static products have unlimited traffic per IP.
• Per port, monthly or weekly: Unlimited rotating residential port and real SIM mobile port. Removes GB accounting under constant high traffic.

In a scraping job that downloads heavy pages, the GB model grows quickly; if the same job can run on fixed IPs, per-IP billing is more predictable. Do the math on traffic per successful request, not on the number of IPs.

Which rules apply when choosing a proxy type?

A type with a higher trust score does not change the target site’s terms of use. Automation should run on the public surface the target allows, at a reasonable pace and in line with WeProxy’s acceptable use rules. If the collected data includes personal data, GDPR or KVKK obligations need separate review.

In short: choose datacenter if a hosting ASN is enough, residential if you need a home ISP, mobile if you need a mobile network, and ISP if you need a fixed IP with an ISP identity. Then set the rotation mode and billing unit according to the job’s volume. If the chosen type starts getting 403 or 429 from the target, use the proxy error codes guide to check whether the error comes from the proxy or the target before you switch IP types.