Bright Data vs Oxylabs 2026: Which Should You Choose?

Short answer: for 20 GB a month, Bright Data's pay-as-you-go rate costs $80 while its coupon runs, against $100 on Oxylabs' Basic plan. At 125 GB the two cost almost the same, $499 against $500, so choose on access and billing terms instead. Between 125 GB and 1 TB, Bright Data prices plans at 141, 332 and 798 GB, and Oxylabs publishes no rate.

Toolradar data: the directory we run tracks 11,051 tools across 343 categories as of October 2026, and both vendors have listings there, for Bright Data and Oxylabs. The prices below come from the two vendors' own pricing pages, read on October 10, 2026.

The cheapest pick depends on your monthly volume and on whether the coupon applies to you. This page compares the two at 20 GB and 125 GB, then covers the gaps in each rate card and the access rules that price tables leave out.

Quick verdict

What each vendor publishes

Bright Data prices residential proxies three ways. Pay as you go has no monthly commitment and lists at $8 per GB, which the page shows at $4 under the RESIGB50 coupon. Three monthly plans sit above it: 141 GB for $499, 332 GB for $999 and 798 GB for $1,999, each under the same 50% off badge. Above 1 TB the price is custom. Our Bright Data pricing guide covers the rest of its product line.

Divide each plan fee by the GB it includes and you get a per-GB price: $3.54 on the 141 GB plan, $3.01 on 332 GB and $2.51 on 798 GB. That arithmetic is ours, and it only holds if you use the whole allowance, because monthly commitments do not roll over.

Oxylabs prices residential proxies by volume band. Its rate card reads $6 per GB up to 5 GB, $5 up to 20 GB, $4 up to 125 GB and $2.50 from 1,000 GB. Monthly plans sit beside those bands: Starter at $30, Basic at $100 and Flexible at $500, and Enterprise starts at $2,500 a month. The plan fees match the band tops (Basic covers 20 GB, Flexible covers 125 GB), so we read them as the same tiers.

The page prints dollar amounts without naming a currency, and it says VAT may apply to plans. Usage over the plan limit is handled by contacting an account manager or topping up in the dashboard. No overage rate is published.

Cost per GB at 20 GB and 125 GB

The table uses only the published figures. Each cell is the rate times the GB, or the plan fee when a plan covers that volume.

At 20 GB the coupon rate undercuts Oxylabs' band. At list price, Bright Data's rate is the highest residential figure on either page, and Oxylabs is $60 cheaper at 20 GB. At 125 GB the coupon rate and Oxylabs' band both come to $4 per GB. The Bright Data plan, at $3.99 per GB used, sits $1 below Oxylabs' Flexible plan, which is too small a gap to decide a purchase.

The coupon decides the small-volume answer

RESIGB50 halves Bright Data's pay-as-you-go rate for three months, and that moves the break-even. At $4 per GB, pay as you go beats the plan for any month up to about 124 GB, because the plan fee divided by the coupon rate is 124.75. At the list rate, the break-even drops to about 62 GB. If the plan keeps its price after the coupon ends, it is the cheaper option in any month above about 62 GB. The page strikes out a higher rate per GB on each plan but prints no plan total without the coupon, so treat both break-evens as provisional.

Above 125 GB, the rate cards diverge

Bright Data's three plans cover the range: the 141 GB plan works out to $3.54 per GB, the 332 GB plan ($999) to $3.01, and the 798 GB plan ($1,999) to $2.51. Oxylabs publishes no rate between 125 GB and 1,000 GB, then drops to $2.50 per GB and starts Enterprise at $2,500 a month. A team that needs 300 GB can read a Bright Data plan off the page, while Oxylabs needs a quote at that size.

At about 1 TB, Oxylabs' published lowest rate sits next to a Bright Data quote, because Bright Data prices anything above 1 TB on request. At that size, get a quote from both before you compare them.

Access, KYC and billing terms

Bright Data gates its residential network behind a KYC process. The page says the review comes before you use the residential or mobile network, and that it may include a short intro video call and checks on company or personal details. Web Unlocker does not need it. Oxylabs' pricing page describes no equivalent step for residential access, but its footer links a KYC Policy, so read that policy before you commit to a launch date.

Bright Data's billing terms add three cost rules that a price table hides. Bandwidth counts request headers, request body, response headers and response body, so each retry adds headers and request body to the bill, not only the HTML you keep. An unused monthly commitment does not roll over if the account stays active all month. And once usage reaches 100% of the account balance, the account is suspended unless funds are added, and the page recommends auto recharge to avoid it.

Which should you choose?

• About 20 GB a month, with the coupon running: Bright Data pay as you go. It costs $80 against $100 on Oxylabs' Basic plan. Once the coupon ends, Oxylabs is the cheaper of the two at this volume.
• About 125 GB a month: a tie on price. Bright Data's 141 GB plan and Oxylabs' $500 Flexible plan differ by $1, so decide on the KYC step, the billing terms, and whether you want a plan or a rate card.
• Between 125 GB and 798 GB: Bright Data, if you need a price you can read before a sales call. It publishes plan fees at 141 GB, 332 GB and 798 GB, and Oxylabs publishes none in that range.
• About 1 TB and up: get quotes from both. Oxylabs publishes its lowest rate from 1,000 GB, and Bright Data quotes above 1 TB.

Vendor rate cards change, so we re-read these pages before each update. Subscribe to Devshot for a short daily email on tools for developers.

If you need a managed scraping API rather than raw proxies, our Firecrawl review covers that route, and our web scraping tools ranking includes both vendors.

A scraper also needs somewhere to run and somewhere to store its output. Compare cheap VPS hosts and the cloud free tiers before you set the proxy budget, and price the storage step in our object storage pricing comparison. If an LLM parses the pages, price that step with our free LLM APIs list. Scheduling and delivery belong to the automation layer, which our n8n vs Zapier comparison covers.

Where each one is weaker

• Bright Data: the lowest per-GB price is a coupon that lasts three months. Its list rate is the highest residential rate on either page, and KYC gates residential use before the first GB.
• Oxylabs: no published rate between 125 GB and 1 TB, no currency named and VAT on plans, no overage rate, and a $5 welcome credit that the page does not tie to residential traffic.

Our Bright Data review covers the product in more depth, and our best residential proxies ranking covers both vendors alongside others.

FAQ

Is Bright Data or Oxylabs cheaper in 2026?

It depends on volume and on the coupon. At 20 GB a month, Bright Data's pay-as-you-go rate costs $80 with the RESIGB50 coupon and $160 at list, against $100 on Oxylabs' Basic plan. At 125 GB, Bright Data's 141 GB plan costs $1 less than Oxylabs' Flexible plan.

Does Bright Data have a free plan for residential proxies?

No free tier appears on its residential proxy page. The FREE TIER labels on Bright Data's site sit next to its API products, not its proxies. The cheapest residential entry is pay as you go at the coupon rate for three months with code RESIGB50, and the list rate applies after that.

Does Bright Data require KYC?

Yes, before you use its residential or mobile network. The page says the process may include a short intro video call and checks on company or personal details. Web Unlocker does not require it.

How much does Oxylabs charge per GB for residential proxies?

Its rate card starts at $6 per GB for small volumes and falls to $2.50 per GB from 1,000 GB. It publishes no rate between 125 GB and 1,000 GB, and the page does not name the currency.

Is the Bright Data 50% coupon permanent?

No. The page says code RESIGB50 gives 50% off residential proxies for three months. Check the plan price again before you rely on the break-even above, because the page prints no plan total without the coupon.

How we ran the numbers

We read both residential pricing pages on October 10, 2026: Bright Data residential proxy pricing and Oxylabs pricing. Every cost on this page is our arithmetic on those figures: the rate times the GB, or a plan fee when a plan covers the volume. We applied the RESIGB50 coupon only where the Bright Data page shows it. The Toolradar figure comes from its live header on the same day.

The comparison uses two volumes, 20 GB and 125 GB, plus each vendor's top published tier (798 GB for Bright Data, 1,000 GB for Oxylabs). We re-read both pages at least every 60 days.

Cite this: Devshot, "Bright Data vs Oxylabs 2026: Which Should You Choose?", October 2026. Prices verified on vendor pages, October 2026.

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