How Much Do Proxies Cost for Copying: Budget Calculation for 10-100 Accounts in 2024

Cloaking is a technique for showing different content to platform moderators and real users. For arbitrageurs working with Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, or Google Ads, quality proxies are not an optional expense but a critical infrastructure. The wrong choice of proxies leads to account bans and loss of advertising budgets. In this article, we will analyze the real cost of proxies for cloaking, compare types of proxies by price and effectiveness, and show how to calculate the budget for different scales of work.

The main question that concerns arbitrageurs is: "How much will I spend on proxies per month when working with 10, 50, or 100 accounts?" The answer depends on the type of proxy, geography, traffic volume, and the level of risk of bans on a specific platform.

Types of Proxies for Cloaking and Their Cost

There are three main types of proxies in the cloaking market, which differ significantly in price and application. Understanding these differences is critically important for accurate budget calculation.

The key difference in payment models: residential proxies are charged by traffic (how many gigabytes you have used), while mobile and datacenter proxies are charged for renting an IP address for a specific period with unlimited traffic. This fundamentally affects the final cost depending on your working model.

For cloaking in Facebook Ads or TikTok Ads, professionals usually combine types of proxies: mobile for critical operations (ad launch, moderation), residential for farming and warming up accounts, and datacenter for auxiliary tasks (checking creatives, analytics).

Residential Proxies: When the Price is Justified

Residential proxies are IP addresses of real home users provided by internet service providers. For advertising platforms, such IPs appear completely legitimate, which is critically important for cloaking. The cost of residential proxies ranges from $5 to $15 per gigabyte of traffic, depending on the provider and geography.

Factors affecting the cost of residential proxies:

• Geography: Proxies from the USA and Western Europe cost $10-15 per GB, while Asian GEOs cost $5-8 per GB. For cloaking, proxies from the same country where the ads will be shown are usually needed.
• IP Pool: Providers with large pools (10+ million IPs) charge a premium of 20-30% on the price but offer less risk of overlaps with other users.
• Targeting: The ability to choose a specific city or provider (ISP targeting) increases the cost by 30-50%, but is critical for local cloaking.
• IP Rotation: Static residential IPs (one address for a long time) cost 40-60% more than rotating ones, but are necessary for long-term work with accounts.

When residential proxies justify their price: registration and warming up of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok accounts; passing moderation of advertising accounts; working with high-risk verticals (gambling, nutra, crypto); farming accounts in premium GEOs (USA, Canada, Australia, UK).

The typical monthly expense for a mid-level arbitrageur (20-30 Facebook Ads accounts): 15-25 GB of residential traffic, which amounts to $105-375 per month depending on geography and farming intensity.

Mobile Proxies: Premium Segment for Facebook Ads

Mobile proxies use IP addresses from mobile operators (3G/4G/5G), which advertising platforms trust the most. This is the most expensive type of proxy for cloaking: from $50 to $150 per IP per month with unlimited traffic.

Why are mobile proxies so expensive? IP addresses from mobile operators are dynamic and are used simultaneously by thousands of real users. When an advertising platform sees a violation from a mobile IP, it cannot block the entire IP (this would block thousands of legitimate users), so it only bans the specific account. This gives mobile proxies a huge advantage for cloaking.

A critically important point for cloaking: you cannot work with a large number of accounts simultaneously on one mobile IP. The recommendation from professionals is a maximum of 3-5 Facebook Ads accounts per mobile IP with rotation. This means that to work with 30 accounts, you need at least 6-10 mobile proxies.

Budget calculation for mobile proxies for cloaking:

• 10 Facebook Ads accounts: 2-3 mobile IPs × $80 = $160-240/month
• 30 Facebook Ads accounts: 6-10 mobile IPs × $80 = $480-800/month
• 100 Facebook Ads accounts: 20-30 mobile IPs × $80 = $1,600-2,400/month

Many arbitrageurs use mobile proxies only for critical operations (campaign launches, settings changes, moderation), while switching to residential proxies for routine work. This reduces expenses by 40-50% without a significant increase in risks.

Datacenter Proxies: Budget Option with Limitations

Datacenter proxies are IP addresses from servers in datacenters, not from home users. They are 10-50 times cheaper than residential proxies ($1-5 per IP per month), but advertising platforms easily recognize them and treat them with increased suspicion.

For cloaking in Facebook Ads or TikTok Ads, datacenter proxies are practically useless for direct work with accounts—the risk of bans is too high. However, they find application in the cloaking ecosystem for auxiliary tasks:

• Parsing and analytics: Collecting data on competitors, checking ad impressions, monitoring positions—tasks where speed is more important than anonymity.
• Creative testing: Checking how your landing pages and redirects look from different GEOs before launching campaigns.
• Working with APIs: Automation through Facebook API, TikTok API—platforms are less strict with datacenter IPs when working through official APIs.
• Low-risk platforms: Some ad networks (Yandex.Direct, Google Ads for certain verticals) are more lenient towards datacenter proxies.

Types of datacenter proxies by price and quality:

ISP proxies (Internet Service Provider) are a hybrid of datacenter and residential proxies. Technically, these are server IPs, but registered to internet providers, so platforms perceive them as residential. They cost $15-30 per IP, which is 2-3 times cheaper than mobile proxies, but suitable for less critical operations in cloaking.

Budget Calculation for Proxies: Examples for Different Scales

The real cost of proxies for cloaking depends on your working model, platform, and number of accounts. Let's analyze three typical scenarios with detailed budget calculations.

An important observation: the cost of proxies per account decreases with scale due to optimization and more efficient resource use. Professional teams use account rotation systems on proxies, allowing them to work with a larger number of accounts on fewer IPs.

Hidden Costs: What to Consider Besides the Base Price

The base cost of proxies is only part of the real expenses for cloaking infrastructure. Professionals consider additional factors that can increase the budget by 30-50%.

1. Replacement of "burned" proxies

Even quality proxies occasionally end up on platform blocklists. For Facebook Ads and TikTok Ads, the average "lifespan" of a mobile proxy is 2-4 months of active work, while residential proxies last 1-2 months. Allocate 20-30% of the budget for proxy rotation.

2. Anti-detect browsers

Proxies are useless without a quality anti-detect browser. Popular solutions for cloaking:

• Dolphin Anty: From $89/month for 100 profiles (optimal for Facebook Ads)
• AdsPower: From $50/month for 100 profiles (good for TikTok)
• Multilogin: From $99/month for 100 profiles (premium segment)
• GoLogin: From $49/month for 100 profiles (budget option)

For working with 100 accounts, add $50-100/month for an anti-detect browser.

3. Overdraft of traffic for residential proxies

If you are using residential proxies with traffic payment, it is easy to exceed the planned volume. Typical "traffic eaters": automatic video playback on Facebook, uploading heavy creatives, working with video ads on TikTok. Actual consumption can be 40-60% higher than calculated.

4. Backup proxies for critical situations

Professionals always keep 20-30% of backup proxies for emergencies: mass bans, technical problems with the provider, urgent replacement of "burned" IPs. This is insurance against downtime of advertising campaigns.

5. Testing new providers

The quality of proxies varies greatly between providers and changes over time. Allocate $100-200/month for testing alternative providers to avoid dependence on a single source.

How to Optimize Proxy Expenses Without Losing Quality

Professional arbitrageurs use several strategies to reduce proxy expenses by 30-50% without increasing the risk of bans.

Strategy 1: Hybrid Proxy Model

Do not use one type of proxy for all tasks. The optimal scheme:

• Mobile proxies—only for launching campaigns, changing ad settings, passing moderation (10-15% of working time)
• Residential proxies—for farming, warming up, routine checks (30-40% of time)
• ISP proxies—for daily campaign monitoring, analytics (40-50% of time)
• Datacenter proxies—for parsing, working with APIs, checking creatives (auxiliary tasks)

This model reduces expenses by 40% compared to using only mobile proxies for all operations.

Strategy 2: Geographic Optimization

Premium GEO proxies (USA, Canada, UK, Australia) cost 2-3 times more than Asian or Latin American ones. If your vertical allows working with different GEOs, test cheaper regions. For example, mobile proxies from Brazil or Indonesia cost $40-50 instead of $100 for the USA.

Strategy 3: Optimize Traffic Consumption of Residential Proxies

If you pay for gigabytes, every megabyte counts:

• Disable auto-loading of images and videos in the anti-detect browser for routine tasks
• Use ad-blocking extensions (paradoxically, this saves traffic when surfing for warming up)
• Upload creatives and media through a separate connection without proxies, and only publish through proxies
• Set traffic limits in the anti-detect browser (Dolphin Anty and AdsPower support this feature)

These measures reduce traffic consumption by 50-60%.

Strategy 4: Smart Account Rotation on Proxies

You do not need to keep a separate proxy for each account 24/7. Professionals use a scheme: 1 mobile proxy for 5-7 accounts with scheduled rotation. The main rule is not to work with multiple accounts simultaneously from one IP. Use task schedulers in anti-detect browsers for automatic rotation.

Strategy 5: Long-term Contracts with Providers

Most proxy providers offer discounts of 20-30% for payment in advance for 3-6 months. If you are confident in the provider (after testing for 1-2 months), a long-term contract pays off. But never pay in advance to an unverified provider.

5 Costly Mistakes When Choosing Proxies for Cloaking

These mistakes have cost arbitrageurs thousands of dollars in lost accounts and advertising budgets.

Conclusion

The cost of proxies for professional cloaking is not a fixed number, but the result of a proper balance between budget, risks, and scale of work. For a beginner arbitrageur with 10 accounts, the real budget will be $300-500/month, for an intermediate level (50 accounts) it will be $1,500-2,500/month, and for a professional team (100+ accounts) it will be $4,000-7,000/month considering all factors.

The main principle of expense optimization is a hybrid model of using different types of proxies for different tasks. Mobile proxies for critical operations, residential for farming and warming up, ISP for routine work, and datacenter for auxiliary tasks. This scheme reduces expenses by 40-50% without increasing the risk of bans.

Remember: saving on proxies for critical operations (ad launch, moderation) always costs more in terms of banned accounts and lost advertising budgets. One chain ban of 20 accounts costs more than a year of renting premium proxies for the entire team.

If you plan to work with Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, or other platforms with strict moderation, we recommend starting with testing mobile proxies for critical operations and residential proxies for farming accounts. This combination provides an optimal balance between cost and safety for most cloaking scenarios.