Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping: What Works and What Wastes Money

Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping: What Works and What Wastes Money Proxies are not magic. Slapping a proxy rotation layer onto a bad scraper does not make it good. But when your scraper is solid and you need to scale without getting IP-banned, proxy strategy matters. Here is what actually works, what costs what, and when proxies are not the answer. Proxy Types and Their Real Costs Datacenter Proxies Cheap ($0.50-2 per IP per month), fast, and the first thing most scrapers try. They come from cloud providers like AWS, GCP, OVH. The problem: most anti-bot systems maintain lists of datacenter IP ranges. If a site uses Cloudflare, DataDome, or PerimeterX, datacenter proxies get flagged before your request reaches the server. Good for: Sites without serious bot protection. Internal tools, basic APIs, public government data. Bad for: E-commerce, social media, any site behind a CDN with bot protection. Residential Proxies Real IPs from ISPs, routed through actual home connections. They look