Getting started with Residential Proxies

Learn about Bright Data’s Residential proxies, how to get started, and some tips for best use.

Bright Data’s Residential Proxy Network

The Bright Data Residential proxy network is one of our proxy network solutions and is a network of 72+ million IPs from 195 countries all around the world.

Our vast pool of Residential IPs is made up of real people who opt-in and are rewarded in exchange for lending their IP to our network, allowing you to target sophisticated, hard-to-reach websites with local IPs from the target area, which helps you view or collect relevant data as a real person would.

Best for

• Browsing sophisticated target websites as a real user
• Business intelligence, competitor analysis, and Ads verification
• If you’re getting low success rates or blocked altogether when using our Datacenter or ISP proxy network
  

If you need a more advanced proxy unblocking solution that tackles additional blocking challenges, such as site-specific headers, cookies, CAPTCHAs, etc, try out our Web Unlocker or check out our other proxy products.

Quick Start

1. Sign in to Bright Data's control panel
   • If you haven’t yet signed up for Bright Data, you can sign up for free, and when adding your payment method, you’ll receive a $5 credit to get you started!
2. Create your new Residential proxy
   • Navigate to ‘My Proxies’ page, and under ‘Residential Proxies’ click ‘Get started’

Note: If you already have an active proxy, simply choose ‘Add proxy’ at the top right corner

3. In the ‘Create a new proxy” page, choose and input a name for your new Residential proxy zone

Note: Please select a meaningful name, as the zone’s name cannot be changed once created.

4. IP type
   Choose one of two IP types for your proxy zone:
   • Shared - IPs that are shared across multiple users
     • Best for: When you want a cost-efficient option, and you don’t require IP exclusivity. 
     • Geolocation targeting: If you plan to target specific locations based on City, State, Zip code, or ASN, you’ll need to add that here (by default only “Country” is enabled). Learn more about location targeting while sending your request. 
       
   • Dedicated IP - IPs that are set aside for your use only.
     
     • Best for: When you need to access websites with an exclusive IP address. 
     • IP Groups (GIPs): Add in this section how many you need 
     • Geolocation targeting: Please select a country and if you plan to target specific cities within, you can add that as well. Learn more about geolocation targeting with a dedicated IP.
       
       Tip regarding geolocation: Since your IPs are automatically allocated, it is recommended setting up a separate Residential proxy, for each geolocation you wish to target.
       
5. Advanced options:
   • Long-session Peers: Get access to peers that maintain a stable IP address for an extended period of time without rotating.
     
6. To create and save your proxy, click ‘Add proxy’ 
   
   
7. Choosing your track for Residential Network Access
   We offer two tracks:
   • Immediate access - This proxy network allows targeting over 240+ pre-approved websites that are compliant with our Terms of Service. You won’t need to complete a full KYC (Know-your-customer) process for this track.
   • Full access - This proxy network allows targeting our pre-approved sites plus any sites that are specifically approved for your use case during your KYC review.
     Note: When continuing with ‘Full access’ you’ll be prompted to begin our KYC review process.
     
     Our KYC review is a short procedure made for us to get to know you better, verify your identity, and understand your target use cases. You may submit your KYC at any point.
     
     

     A note on Account verification:
     
     If you haven’t yet added a payment method, you’ll be prompted to add one at this point in order to verify your account. If it’s your first time using Bright Data, then you’ll also receive a $5 bonus credit to get you started!
     
     Be advised: You will not be charged anything at this point and this is solely for verification purposes

8. Sending your first Residential request
   
   After verifying your account above, you can now send your first request.
   
   In your proxy zone’s ‘Access parameters’ tab, you’ll find your API credentials which include your Username (Customer_ID), Zone name (attached to username), and Password

• Copy the ‘Base CURL’ test example in the black code block on that page and paste it into your CMD prompt
• It should look like the following when pasted (with your credentials and zone swapped in):
  

  • curl--proxy brd.superproxy.io:22225 --proxy-user brd-customer-<CUSTOMER_ID>-zone-<ZONE_NAME>:<ZONE_PASSWORD> "https://lumtest.com/myip.json" 

  • Press ‘Enter’ to send your request and if it’s successful, the expected output should look like the following:

  {"ip":"ALLOCATED_IP","country":"PK","asn":{"asnum":203020,"org_name":"HostRoyale Technologies Pvt Ltd"},"geo":{"city":"Islamabad","region":"IS","region_name":"Islamabad","postal_code":"44040","latitude":33.7233,"longitude":73.0435,"tz":"Asia/Karachi","lum_city":"islamabad","lum_region":"is"}}

• Now, simply try it with any domain you would like to target, replacing  “https://lumtest.com/myip.json” with your target domain. That’s it!
  
  

Additional info and resources

Dynamic Proxy Integration Tutorial 

An in-depth interactive display of all our API use cases, code integrations, and advanced configurations

API Documentation

Explore more advanced API documentation and see more use cases and features 

Monitoring Residential Network Usage and Statistics 

You can fully monitor your proxy usage and statistics live and also see a history per day/month

User Permissions

Easily add, remove, and change user permissions for the control panel and API

Pricing & Billing

See more about how pricing is calculated for your Residential proxy

Residential Network Policy

Review the different types of Residential Network accesses, how they differ, and learn about our KYC process.