Mobile vs Residential Proxies

Where each IP actually comes from

Every public IP address is announced to the internet by a network operator under an Autonomous System Number (ASN). That ownership record is public, and it is the first thing that separates the two proxy types.

A residential proxy exits through an address that belongs to a fixed-line broadband provider: a cable, DSL or fiber network serving homes. The proxy company does not own that line. It reaches the address through software running on a device connected to it, often a phone, desktop or TV box whose owner installed an app carrying a bandwidth-sharing SDK. Google's threat intelligence team described in January 2026 how one large network enrolled devices through SDKs embedded in other apps and paid developers per download (Google Threat Intelligence Group). Our article on where residential proxy IPs come from covers consent and sourcing in detail.

A mobile proxy exits through a cellular carrier. Carriers run large pools of subscribers behind carrier-grade NAT (CGNAT), which lets many devices use one public IPv4 address simultaneously. The shared address space that carriers use inside that NAT layer is defined in RFC 6598. The practical result is that a public carrier address can represent many ordinary phone users at once, and it changes as the network reassigns it.

Commercial IP databases record this difference. MaxMind's connection type database labels a network as Cable/DSL, Cellular, Corporate or Satellite (MaxMind connection type documentation), and IPinfo classifies each ASN as isp, business, hosting or education (IPinfo ASN data). A residential exit should read as a broadband ISP. A mobile exit should read as cellular. If your test shows hosting, the product is neither.

How websites score each type

No site publishes its full risk model, so treat any claim of a fixed trust rating for a proxy type with caution. What is documented is the set of inputs a site can see.

The network label is one input. A request from a cellular range arrives with the same label as millions of phones, and because of CGNAT a block on that address can also hit real customers. That raises the cost of blocking it outright, but it does not make the address immune. A residential address carries the label of a home connection, which is also ordinary, but its history depends on whatever the enrolled device and other buyers sent through it before you.

Behavior is the second input. Google documents that reCAPTCHA v3 returns a score from 0.0 to 1.0 based on interactions with a site, with 1.0 meaning very likely a good interaction, and suggests 0.5 as a default threshold (reCAPTCHA v3 documentation). The score is computed from what the session does, not only from where it connects.

The third input is consistency. A browser that claims to be a desktop on a home connection but presents mobile carrier routing, or a phone app session that jumps between countries, gives the site a mismatch to act on. Pick the network that matches the device and the story your session tells.

Who else uses the IP

This is the difference buyers notice most in practice. Most residential products are pools: you send requests to a gateway, and it assigns an exit from a large set of enrolled devices. Other customers use the same set. If someone else abused an address an hour ago, you may inherit the consequences, and you cannot see their traffic.

Pools have strengths. You can spread a job across many exits at once, and providers usually let you pick country, region or city per request. For a crawl that touches thousands of pages a few times each, that breadth is useful.

A dedicated mobile line works the other way. It is one modem or device with its own SIM, and only you route through it while you rent it. The carrier still shares the public address with its own subscribers through CGNAT, but no other proxy customer sends traffic through your device. You decide when the IP changes: by a dashboard button, an API call, a rotation link or a timer. That control is why dedicated mobile proxies are used for account work and long sessions.

The trade-off is concurrency. One line gives you one exit IP at a time. If a workload needs two hundred different IPs in the same minute, a pool fits it better than any single line.

Billing: per GB versus per line

Residential and pooled mobile products are usually metered. Providers sell traffic in GB, often with a monthly plan fee or minimum. A dedicated line is usually billed per period with data not metered, so the price is fixed whatever you transfer.

Here are listed rates from provider pages, checked on 30 October 2026. DataImpulse lists residential traffic at $1 per GB and mobile at $2 per GB on pay-as-you-go (DataImpulse pricing). SOAX lists the same per-GB rate for residential and mobile, with its Builder plan at $3.00 per GB for Tier 1 countries and a $200 monthly plan fee (SOAX pricing). ProxyEmpire's list rates run from $9.00 per GB for one pay-as-you-go GB of rotating mobile traffic down to $4.00 per GB on its 1,000 GB plan, and its pricing page applies a 50% coupon to rotating plans at the time of checking (ProxyEmpire pricing).

The next section turns those rates into a worksheet you can read at a glance.

A cost worksheet at four traffic levels

The table compares metered traffic cost against one dedicated Coronium line for 30 days. Coronium figures come from the live catalog when this page loads, so they always match what you can buy. Per-GB figures exclude plan fees and minimums, which raise the real metered cost for small volumes.

At $3.00 per GB, one 30-day German line costs the same as about 40 GB of metered traffic. A US line breaks even at about 46 GB. Above that volume, the line is cheaper; below it, metered traffic is. Our proxy cost estimator runs the same arithmetic for your own numbers.

A decision table by task

Use the table above as a starting point, then confirm with a short paid test on the exact country and carrier you need. Coronium's 24-hour plan exists for that purpose.

When residential is the better fit

Rotating residential networks are the better buy in a few clear cases, and it helps to say so plainly.

If your job needs breadth more than depth, a pool wins. Checking how a page renders in forty cities, or collecting a few hundred results from each of twenty countries, does not need any single IP for long. Renting a line in each place would cost more and take longer to set up.

If your monthly traffic is small and irregular, metered billing is cheaper. A team that moves 3 GB a month pays for 3 GB on a pool, while a line costs its full period price whether you use it or not.

If you need a country that dedicated mobile stock does not cover, a pool may be the only option. Coronium's catalog right now: 8 countries in stock today, 23 in the catalog. The live list is on our mobile proxy locations page.

Where residential is the weaker fit: anything where a shared exit can hurt you. Logging into an account, keeping a cart or checkout session alive, or running an app that expects a phone network all depend on the IP behaving consistently and on nobody else's traffic touching it. For those, compare dedicated mobile proxies by country and carrier. Our explainer on residential, datacenter and mobile proxies adds the datacenter case, and the static versus rotating guide covers how often to change the IP.

Test before you commit

Whichever type you pick, run the same three checks before moving real work onto it.

First, confirm the network label. Send one request through the proxy to an IP lookup and check that the ASN and connection type match what you paid for: cellular for mobile, a broadband ISP for residential. Our ASN lookup tool shows the holder of any address.

Second, run the actual workflow, not a speed test. Log in, browse, submit the form or run the scraper against the real target for an hour. A fast connection that triggers challenges on your target is a worse result than a slower one that does not.

Third, watch the exit over time. On a pool, note how often the address changes and whether the country stays put. On a dedicated line, rotate once and confirm the new address stays in the same carrier and region. Keep a short log of what you saw so you can compare providers on evidence rather than memory.

How we checked

Prices and plan terms were read from each provider's public pricing page on 30 October 2026 and can change; check them at checkout. Network classifications come from the MaxMind and IPinfo documentation linked above. Coronium prices, stock and break-even figures are calculated from the live catalog when the page renders. We did not run a speed or success-rate benchmark across providers, and this article does not claim one.

Frequently asked questions