Mobile (4G/5G) and residential proxies are the go-to options for scraping Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, compared to datacenter IPs. See the top solutions based on our tests and follow the links to learn more from these vendors:
| Vendor | For | |
|---|---|---|
1. | The lowest response times in the ISP proxy based on our benchmark | |
2. | Proxies with free tools for social media management (e.g., Antidetect Browser) | |
3. | Mobile proxies at high volumes | |
4. | The lowest range of response time for residential proxies | |
5. | ||
The best social media proxies
| Proxy providers | Monthly price* | Traffic (GB) | PAYG/GB | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | $500 | 138 | $4.2 | $5 free usage credit |
| Decodo | $6 | 2 | $3.5 | 3 days |
| NetNut | $100 | 14 | ❌ | 7 days |
| IPRoyal | $7 | 1 | ❌ | ❌ |
| ProxyEmpire | $40 | 7 | $7 | $1.97: 100 MB residential, 50 MB mobile proxy |
*: The initial cost for residential proxies is determined from the smallest package available.
For platform-specific proxy solutions, see the following sources:
Best-practice tips for social media scraping
1. Decide the job before the tool
Think in “use-case units,” not in “number of IPs.” For instance, multi-account posting requires long-lived IP addresses, whereas high-frequency scraping necessitates rotation.
2. Match proxy type to platform risk
- Instagram, TikTok: Residential or mobile proxies (mass-scraping public profiles to minimise bandwidth burn)
- LinkedIn: Rotating residential proxies (IP rotation masks the “many-accounts-one-IP” footprint)
- Reddit, X: Static ISP and datacenter (avoid frequent re-logins and respect API-style back-off intervals)
3. Check geo-targeting depth
Country → region/state → city → ZIP code → ASN (internet provider) → carrier (for mobile) keep your traffic consistent with the account’s claimed location. However, watch the pricing fine print; City-, ZIP-, or ASN-level routing can be bundled like Bright Data or billed at a premium.
4. Confirm compliance safeguards
Reputable proxy service providers vet every customer and use case, such as social media management, social media automation, or data scraping. You can ask how residential proxies are sourced. You’ll maximise success rates while insulating your operation from lawsuits and bans.
The best social media proxy services
Bright Data
Bright Data offers 150 million residential and 7 million mobile IPs, giving marketers the breadth to run multi-account operations on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn in nearly any ZIP code. Its proxy network is well-suited for location-sensitive social media scraping.
Residential and mobile proxy networks include a shared and dedicated IPv6 IP pool. Shared proxy pools offer a random IP for every request. All pools accept HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 on the same endpoint. Residential proxies support automatic IPv6 fail-over for real and static IPs that reject mobile carrier ranges.
Mobile and residential plans are GB-based, while pay-as-you-go rates start at $4.20/GB for residential and $5.88/GB for mobile.
Decodo
Decodo‘s residential proxy network consists of a back-connect gateway with unlimited parallel ports. Its proxy service supports IPv4 and IPv6, plus ZIP, city, state & ASN filters.
Mobile proxies enable users to filter by country, city, carrier, and OS (Android/iOS). The proxy provider offers X-Browser antidetect with their proxies at no cost for multi-account social-media farming.
NetNut
NetNut sells 85 million rotating residential IP addresses, 5 million mobile IP addresses, and approximately 1 million static ISP addresses from its pool. Its residential proxies support country- and city-level targeting, while the mobile gateway lets you filter by country and carrier.
The proxy provider adds a session ID (SID) to keep the same residential IP address sticky for roughly an hour or hold a mobile IP for multi-hour sessions. NetNut’s plans start at sizeable pre-paid bandwidth tiers, so the service suits projects ready for a higher initial outlay.
IPRoyal
IPRoyal allows you to fine-tune each session: residential IPs can be locked to a single country, city, ZIP code, or even ASN, while mobile endpoints filter by country and carrier (with limited city support); ISP proxies remain at the country level.
Residential connections can persist for anything from one second to a full seven days, and mobile stickies can stretch from the five-minute default up to 24 hours. IPRoyal’s proxy makes IPRoyal a dependable, mid-scale option for social media scraping.
ProxyEmpire
ProxyEmpire offers rotating residential IPs, dedicated and rotating mobile proxies, and a lean 110k datacenter pool. ProxyEmpire’s residential pool can be narrowed down to a specific country, region, city, or even an individual ISP.
The mobile gateway, on the other hand, allows you to select a country and carrier, with city filtering available in only a limited number of locations.
You can add a custom session ID and keep the same residential or mobile IP for up to 90 minutes. All of these geo- and ISP-level filters are included at no extra cost across every ProxyEmpire plan.
What are social media proxies?
Social media proxies are purpose-built intermediary servers that mask your real IP address when you connect to social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
By routing each request through a different IP address, you can open dozens of log-ins, scrape publicly available social media data, or test ads from top proxy locations.
Why marketers and scrapers rely on proxies for social media
To automate social media tasks
On high-traffic social media platforms such as Instagram and X.com, each IP address is limited in the number of actions it can perform per hour and the number of social media accounts it can operate simultaneously.
Social media proxies assign a unique IP to every bot or browser profile, making it appear as if posting, liking, or following across large account banks is regular traffic.
Create and manage multiple social media accounts
Instagram’s risk engine records the IP address, OS fingerprint, and device IDs of every login it detects, and bursts of identical actions (such as follow/unfollow or mass commenting) from a single origin often trigger shadow bans or outright blocks.
Assigning a different proxy to each profile hides the common IP link and keeps behaviour within normal limits, dramatically reducing account suspension rates.
Data collection
Public business pages, hashtags, and ad libraries contain valuable competitive data, but aggressive scraping from a single IP is quickly throttled.
Rotating residential or mobile proxies distribute those requests over thousands of clean addresses, bypassing CAPTCHAs and “429 Too Many Requests” errors.
Bypassing geo-restrictions
Some posts, Reels, or ad creatives are visible only to users in specific regions. By selecting proxies in the required country, city, or even ISP/Carrier, marketers can view or test content exactly as local audiences do, and launch region-locked campaigns from the correct IP address.
Comments
Your email address will not be published. All fields are required.