Shifter vs Oxylabs
Looking for an Oxylabs alternative? Shifter served more live IPs in four of the five countries we tested, by about 51% in the United States, reached more networks in four of five, and answered faster everywhere, at a fraction of Oxylabs' enterprise rate. Shifter trailed only in Germany, by 5.8%.
Trusted by 50,000+ clients worldwide
Enterprise coverage without the enterprise invoice
Lowest published rate per GB from each provider. Oxylabs reaches $2.50 only on its 1 TB Corporate plan at $2,500 a month.
| Monthly volume | Shifter | Oxylabs | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $10 5 GB at $2.00/GB | $30 5 GB at $6.00/GB | 67% |
| 20 GB | $30 $1.50/GB | $100 $5.00/GB | 70% |
| 100 GB | $100 $1.00/GB | $500 125 GB at $4.00/GB | 75% |
| Best rate | $0.75/GB from 200 GB | $2.50/GB 1 TB at $2,500/mo | 70% |
Live IPs online during the test
Distinct IPs each network had live and reachable at test time, not the size of its total network. Residential IPs rotate all day, so both providers serve far more addresses across 24 hours.
Every metric, country by country
Pick a country to see the complete measurement, including the numbers that did not go our way.
| Metric | Shifter | Oxylabs |
|---|---|---|
| Requests sent | 250,000 | 250,000 |
| Live IPs during the test | 212,212 | 140,811 |
| Unique networks (ASNs) | 1,828 | 1,591 |
| Unique cities | 5,805 | 6,049 |
| Average latency | 427 ms | 752 ms |
| Success rate | 100% | 99.9% |
Shifter held 50.7% more live US IPs, 212,212 against 140,811, reached more networks, 1,828 against 1,591, and answered in 427 ms against 752 ms. Oxylabs charges more than three times the price per GB.
How we measured this
Every request opened a fresh connection through each provider's rotating residential gateway and asked an IP echo service which address it came from. Because the gateway assigns a new exit on each connection, the count of distinct addresses shows how much of the pool was reachable at that moment.
Shifter and Oxylabs received identical request counts, the same concurrency of 1,000, the same 10 second timeout and the same target, run one at a time from a single server so neither absorbed the other's bandwidth. Shifter was re-measured on 7 October 2026 with the identical method, server and settings; the Oxylabs figures come from its run on 5 August 2026.
Volumes were fixed per country and matched across both providers, from 60,000 requests in the smallest market to 250,000 in the United States, 560,000 per provider in total.
What these numbers mean
These counts are the IPs each network had live and reachable while the test ran, not the size of its network. Residential IPs rotate all day as consumer devices join and leave, so both providers serve far more addresses over 24 hours than any single test can see. The figure that constrains a crawl is how many are online simultaneously, and that is what we counted. Sample sizes differ by country, so compare the two providers within a country rather than across them.
Why use Shifter residential proxies?
A deeper pool, a third of the rate
Shifter starts at $2.00 per GB and falls to $0.75, with 41% more live IPs across the five countries. Oxylabs starts at $6.00 per GB and reaches $2.50 only on a 1 TB commitment.
A larger live pool in four of five
212,212 live US IPs against 140,811, 60,487 British against 46,394 and 45,517 Canadian against 28,783. Shifter trailed only in Germany, by 5.8%.
More networks in four of five
1,828 US ASNs against 1,591, 147 French against 93, 308 Canadian against 228 and 272 German against 183. Blocks follow networks, so spread matters more than raw address count.
Faster in every country
427 ms against 752 ms in the United States and 377 ms against 723 ms in Canada, with Shifter ahead in all five markets.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about how we benchmarked Oxylabs.
Send concurrent requests through both gateways to an IP echo endpoint, opening a new connection each time so the gateway rotates, and count the distinct addresses. Keep the request count, machine and time window identical for both. You should land within a few percent of our figures.
Because this is the number of IPs that were live at the time of the test, not a total. Advertised pool sizes count every address a network has ever seen, worldwide and across time. Residential IPs rotate continuously, so both providers serve millions of distinct addresses across a day. We measured how many were online and reachable in one country at one moment.
Very little. Shifter trailed there by only 5.8%, while reaching 272 German networks against 183, leading the other four countries on live IPs and costing roughly a third as much per GB. If your targets fingerprint by network rather than address, spread is the more useful number.
That is your call to make on support and contract terms, not something a pool test can answer. On the measurements here Shifter led on live pool in four countries and on speed in all five, and the price gap adds to that for most workloads.
Run it against your own targets
Our figures are a starting point, not a verdict. Test both networks on the sites you actually scrape, in the countries you actually need, and pick the one that wins for your traffic.