Oxylabs Review

Oxylabs Features

Oxylabs is, first and foremost, a proxy provider for scraping data. This company offers a massive proxy network, one of the biggest in this industry, alongside various data-gathering tools to help businesses and individuals get the most out of their purchase. In this section, we’ll go over its most popular features.

Proxy Network

One of the biggest reasons to purchase any of the Oxylabs products is its vast network of over 100 million IPs you can connect to. These servers are spread over 195 locations worldwide, so you can easily avoid geo-restrictions due to the sheer number of options.

You can also enable automatic rotation within an IP range to go around IP bans, CAPTCHAs, and similar measures certain services and websites use to control access. This means Oxylabs has an incredibly high success rate (nearly 100%) and reduces the potential hassle that comes with web scraping.

Mobile Proxies

There are times when you need to connect to a proxy to access mobile-optimized pages and gather data from them. Lucky for you, the Oxylabs mobile proxy network is currently 20-million strong. Just like the residential proxies, it allows for geo-targeting on the country and city levels to fully bypass all restrictions.

The service includes mobile proxies running on 3G and also fast 4G mobile networks. This proxy service also comes with an automated rotation of IP addresses to avoid potential bans and CAPTCHAs. It’s especially great for advertisers who want to check how their mobile ads are working across different networks and regions.

Next-Gen Residential Proxies

Thanks to recent advancements in AI technology and machine learning, proxy providers are now able to employ servers and routines so advanced, they appear as human users on websites. Oxylabs proxies have this capability, too.

The company’s next-gen residential proxies cover 100+ million IPs. Thanks to the smart auto-retry system, advanced HTML parsing, and dynamic behavior, you’ll have a 100% success rate when gathering structured data using this proxy product.

Rotating ISP Proxies

When you need to gather data for longer stretches, you want a service that supports extended proxy usage. With this Oxylabs product, you can stay connected to a single IP address and use any data scraping solutions for as long as you wish; the service will take care of the backend, keeping your connection stable at all times.

These ISP proxies offer the convincing nature of residential proxy networks with the speed of datacenter proxies. Connecting to such a Oxylabs proxy server makes your connection undetectable and you won’t notice any losses in connection speed.

Shared Datacenter Proxies

A more cost-effective option, shared datacenter proxies come with lower fees and a reduced number of proxy servers - 29,000 over millions in more expensive plans. These servers also support automatic proxy management and have a 99.9% uptime, but you’ll only have access to 15 locations across the US, Europe, and Asia.

Still, this service supports an unlimited number of connections to those static residential proxies, which is great for market research and basic scraping jobs across search engines like Google and Bing.

Scraper API

Moving on with our Oxylabs review, we’ll cover the other side of this service: scraping APIs. First off, there’s a web data extraction tool split into three usage-based APIs - SERP scraper, eCommerce scraper API, and web scraper.

Each of these APIs is designed to simplify data extraction. With these tools, you’ll be able to gather real-time data on Shopify and similar competitor websites; furthermore, you’ll only pay for successful results. Just like the proxy services, these tools work in over 195 regions, so you’ll be able to avoid geo-restrictions and circumvent slow JavaScript rendering.

Chrome Extension

While Oxylabs is mostly a premium proxy provider, it offers a free Chrome extension, too. What’s interesting about this extension is that it’s not tied to the Oxylabs proxy products; instead, you can use any proxy service, free or paid, and easily manage it from this extension.

Of course, if you do subscribe to Oxylabs, the extension lets you easily access all the features of this service. It’s compatible with HTTP(S) and SOCKS protocols. On top of that, there’s no limit to the number of proxies you can use with this extension.

Proxy Manager for Android

Since the company offers mobile proxies alongside various dedicated proxy services, there’s also a version of Oxy Proxy Manager for mobile, and it’s a completely free Android app.

Just like the Chrome extension, it’s compatible with all proxy providers and protocols. All you need is Android version 5.0 or newer installed on your device - even if you have a phone with a small screen, you’ll be able to fully utilize this product.

Oxylabs Pricing and Plans

Now that we’ve seen what Oxylabs has in store and covered the various reasons it’s an excellent premium proxy provider, we need to consider its pricing model. As you’ve seen so far, this company offers multiple products; therefore, the pricing varies depending on what you’re looking for.

Starting with the Oxylabs residential proxies, you can either choose monthly or annual billing, or pay as you go. The latter option has the lowest entry point, as it costs $15 per GB of processed data. If you choose to pay a renewable subscription, the pricing starts at $270 a month for the Starter account with 25 GB of data. This is the lowest Oxylabs price you can get, but even this plan nets you unlimited connections and 24/7 support.

However, if you need a dedicated account manager, you’ll need to go for the most expensive Enterprise plan, which starts at $4,500 monthly. Custom plans are also available, but you’ll need to contact Oxylabs’ sales team for a quote.

The pricing starts a little higher for next-gen residential proxies, as expected. The Starter plan is $324 a month and includes 20 GB of traffic and an adaptive parser. Upgrading to the Business plan, which is also the most popular choice at Oxylabs, adds a personal account manager to the service.

Earlier in our review of Oxylabs, we mentioned the company’s massive proxy pool includes mobile proxies, too. This service is charged separately and starts at $450 a month if you go with an annual plan. Still, you’ll get an account manager even with the entry-level plan. The first three plans come with 20 GB, 50 GB, and 100 GB of traffic, while the fourth plan starts at 1 TB and is fully customizable.

The cheapest residential proxy plans are in the shared datacenter category. As you’ll be accessing a significantly smaller proxy pool, the starting price is just $90 a month (with an annual plan) and includes 167 GB of traffic. These plans also include a proxy rotator, 24/7 live support, and unlimited sessions.

When it comes to the APIs for scraping search engines and gathering pricing intelligence, even though there are three of them with different purposes (as explained earlier in this Oxylabs proxy review), their pricing is uniform. The Starter plan is $89 a month, the Business plan $359 a month, and the Corporate plan costs $899 a month.

The main difference between these, aside from the sheer number of pages you can process each month, is the rate at which they work. If you go with the Starter plan, the rate limit is 15 results per second, while the Corporate plan increases this number to 100, ideal for scraping eCommerce websites.

Additionally, the Corporate plan gives you access to a dedicated account manager who can help with SEO monitoring and API usage.

Free Trial and Refund Policy

If you’d like to try out the Oxylabs proxy service, review the experience, and test the proxy speeds before committing with your wallet, it’s possible to apply for a free trial.

Depending on the product and whether you’re applying as an individual or a company, the exact trial terms can differ. For example, businesses can get a seven-day free trial once they’re verified, while other customers can request a trial by contacting customer support. For APIs, on the other hand, a free seven-day trial is available straight from the pricing page.

Oxylabs also offers a money-back guarantee, but you don’t really get an extensive timeframe to request it. You only have three days after you’ve completed the purchase to request a refund. This is in case you’re not fully satisfied with the service and haven’t spent over 20% of your allotted monthly traffic.

Oxylabs User Experience

While working on our review of Oxylabs proxy, we were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to use such a complex, advanced service. Each customer gets access to a custom dashboard where they can manage proxies, set up scrapers, and monitor the performance of all their tools.

The dashboard is neatly organized and all data is presented in a clear style. You can easily monitor your monthly traffic quota and access documentation, all from the same screen. Turns out, documentation is something you should bookmark, as certain proxy setups require manual inputs and a bit of coding.

Luckily, all the documentation is written in a straightforward manner, so it’s never hard to follow the instructions. After a while, you’ll be setting up proxies on your own without having to contact the support team, or email your account manager for help.

Oxylabs Customer Support

All Oxylabs customers gain access to the premium customer support that’s available 24/7.

The main channel of communication is live chat. Once you’re logged into your dashboard, you can locate the chat widget in the bottom corner of the screen. New customers can also access live chat and get all the necessary product information before making a purchase.

Certain plans also include a dedicated account manager, i.e., direct one-on-one support for all the advanced features of this service. You’ll have to use email to contact your manager, though, which is not ideal in crisis situations.

Luckily, the documentation for all Oxylabs services is readily available. Besides that and a comprehensive FAQ section, you can also access various tutorials to learn how to make use of the service to its full potential.

Conclusion

Oxylabs has been the pinnacle of the proxy industry for quite a while. As you can see, no matter how complex tools you require and how many proxies you need, chances are this company has a product for you.

We do have to agree with other Oxylabs reviews when it comes to entry price, however: Such a powerful service will never come cheap, but we were still taken aback by some of the pricing tiers that were very far from an ideal fit for small business owners.

Still, Oxylabs is a service that’s easy to recommend. Incredibly powerful, comprehensive, and at the bleeding edge of scraping technology, it is definitely one of the best choices for anyone looking for a large proxy network for data gathering.