IPRoyal is one of the cheapest proxy services on the market, so I understand its appeal. It offers short-term deals where you can buy a proxy for a day or get 1GB of traffic. What’s more, it offers a large number of different types of proxy. But does the low price mean that it offers fewer benefits?
IPRoyal offers a wide range of products for trainer lovers and website scrappers on a budget. The prices are aggressive enough to cause serious headaches for IPRoyal’s competitors and for you to consider the company as your provider of choice. 7 for 1GB of residential proxies and no monthly commitment? That’s a great deal.
But low prices always mean compromises. What compromises will IPRoyal make? And will its products perform well enough to justify the provider’s choice over PacketStream, Smartproxy or even high-end competitors like Bright Data?
I decided to test its features to see if it offers good value for money. The speed tests let me know if it’s fast enough for browsing, streaming, gaming or torrenting. I’ve tested its security to see if it can keep you safe online. I’ve also looked in detail at its privacy policy and registration process to see if you can trust it with your data.
About IPRoyal
IPRoyal was launched at the end of 2020. It initially focused on leasing IP space to other companies, but attention quickly shifted to selling proxies directly to customers. Today, the provider offers four different proxy networks covering all IP types.
IPRoyal manages its own pool of residential proxies via a bandwidth-sharing application called Pawns. Despite some serious setbacks in the early days, the provider has managed to expand its network to several million IPs. This is an impressive feat, which also allows IPRoyal to claim that the proxies come from ethical sources.
IPRoyal used to be one of the more affordable services, like Storm Proxies and PacketStream. It also focused on trainer lovers, with special plans for data centres and residential proxy endpoints for shops such as Nike.
After a price hike in 2022, IPRoyal is moving closer to mid-range providers such as Smartproxy. However, small users remain the company’s main audience, although it won’t hesitate to sell you terabytes of residential traffic for a large-scale project or for resale.
According to CEO Karolis Toleikis, IPRoyal‘s ambition is to become one of the top three providers in the near future.Considering that traffic usage has increased 10-fold between 2021 and 2022, the company is on the right track.
IPRoyal review running out of time? Here are my main conclusions
IPRoyal Benefits
- Excellent customer support. There’s 24/7 live chat with support staff who know their stuff. Read here how I got access to free proxies.
- Works on almost any device. You can connect it to any device with proxy settings. Find out why browser extensions are so useful here.
- It can be used in China. The helpdesk told me that several people are currently using these proxies in the country. To find out which protocol is recommended for China, click here.
- Unlocks tons of platforms. I was able to unblock all the major streaming platforms with IPRoyal. Find out how the proxies worked for streaming here.
IPRoyal Disadvantages
- Slow speeds. My speeds have dropped considerably on every proxy I’ve tested. See how much my speeds have dropped here.
- Not very privacy friendly. You have to give a ton of personal information to sign up. Find out what IPRoyal does with your browsing history here.
- Bad for games. I couldn’t play any online games. Find out what happened when I tried to use Steam here.
Streaming – Ideal for unlocking platforms
IPRoyal unlocked all the streaming platforms I tested and played the videos perfectly. Thanks to my extremely fast basic internet speed, I didn’t experience any buffering and all load times were short. However, if your connection speed is average or low, you may not be able to watch the content without experiencing significant delays.
If you plan to use IPRoyal for streaming, you will need to purchase appropriate proxies. Static residential IPs are the best choice. You get unlimited data and they are perfect for getting around geographical restrictions as they come from real residential IPs.
Mobile and royal residential rotary proxy lists are not recommended for streaming. They may unblock platforms, but they will cost you too much. The other problem is that you pay for each static location. If you want to unlock platforms from several different countries, it will become very expensive as you pay for each static location. I recommend IPRoyal for streaming if you have high internet speed, only plan to watch content from one country and don’t mind limited security.
Unlocked: Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video
I was able to unlock Netflix US without any problems. Elysium took just 5 seconds to load and played in the best possible quality, with no buffering.
I got the same results with HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. Prime Video impressed me because it’s one of the hardest services to unlock. IPRoyal allowed me to access it and load the videos instantly. Hulu was easy to unblock, but the quality of movie playback was slightly inferior.
Platforms outside the US could not be tested. This is because there are higher charges for each location chosen. There is a list of free global proxies, but I wasn’t able to connect any of them. I assume it can unblock platforms worldwide, but I can’t guarantee it.
IProyal data centre proxies
- IPRoyal sells versatile data centre proxies optimised for trainers. These are dedicated addresses in the form of static lists.
- IPRoyal’s data centre proxies are virtually unlimited: you can set up as many threads or send as much traffic as you like. What’s more, they support SOCKS5 for traffic-intensive use cases, streaming or gaming.
The number of locations is also impressive, with 30 countries to choose from. There are only two problems: you can only select one country per plan, and some countries may have few or no IPs available at certain times. For example, IPRoyal didn’t have any Canadian or Singaporean proxies in stock when I checked.
The format is a simple list of randomly assigned IP addresses. You can refresh it for free once a month or keep the same proxies for the duration of the subscription.
IPRoyal’s sneaker-optimised addresses have identical features – the only difference is that you’ll need to specify your target website when purchasing.
IPRoyal pricing plans
IPRoyal’s
data centre proxies use a subscription pricing model. You can opt for a
monthly plan, pay every two months (5% discount) or every three months
(10% discount). With sneaker-optimised proxies, it’s also possible to
get one-day access.
The provider only charges for the number of
IPs you obtain. Unlike other solutions, pricing is not influenced by
location, traffic or target.
You can choose the number of proxies
you want, starting from five IPs. IPRoyal does not tell you in advance
how many addresses are available, but it will let you know if you are
trying to buy too many. Pricing stops scaling from 100 proxies upwards –
but even then, IPRoyal remains one of the cheapest providers up to
300-500 IPs.
Compared with ordinary data centre proxy servers,
IPRoyal‘s shoe-optimised servers cost more. The difference is between 10
and 20%, which is not significant.
IProyal Speeds – Significant drops on all proxies
I’ve had significant drops in speed with every type of proxy I’ve tried. When testing speeds, I was interested in these 3 criteria:
- Download speed indicates how long it takes to receive data. You need this speed to stream high-quality content, load web pages quickly, etc. It is measured in megabits per second. It is measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
- Download speed tells you how fast you can send data. The faster it is, the faster you can send emails, social media messages, etc. This speed is also measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
- The ping indicates the time it takes for data to travel. You need a low ping (less than 100 ms) for games, where any input lag can make a game unplayable. Ping is measured in milliseconds (ms).
In my first test, I recorded my base speed so that I could see the difference:
No proxy connected (Austin, Texas) :
- Download speed (Mbps) 414.95
- Download speed (Mbps) 273.21
- Ping (ms) 16
- Next, I tested a static IPRoyal residential proxy that customer service gave me access to. It’s only about 2,000 km from my house. But it still dropped my speed considerably.
Static residential IP (Virginia, USA) :
- Download speed (Mbps) 67.15 (84% drop)
- Download speed (Mbps) 66.20 (76% drop)
- Ping (ms) 58
- I was also given access to a static data centre IP. This was a few hundred kilometres from my home, and data centre IPs should be faster. However, I experienced similar speed drops.
Static data centre IP (Chicago, IL):
- Download speed (Mbps) 65.95 (84% decrease)
- Download speed (Mbps) 66.75 (76% drop)
- Ping (ms) 63
- Finally, I tested IPRoyal‘s Royal Residential IP Pool. This is a rotating list of IPs. The speed was much lower than with static addresses.
Royal Residential IP Pool (China) :
- Download speed (Mbps) 7.01 (92% drop)
- Download speed (Mbps) 55.19 (80% drop)
- Ping (ms) 565
- Speeds like these have even made browsing difficult. It’s logical that it should be slower because China is much further away (around 12,300 km). But it’s still a huge reduction in speed. The best VPNs only reduce my speeds by 10-20% on any server, so I’m disappointed with these results.3
IPRoyal Server network – Small for a proxy service but very customisable
I like the fact that IPRoyal offers several types of proxy, but there are services with many more IPs and global coverage. There are 180 locations in total. All its proxies are IPv4 at the moment (no IPv6). Proxies are separated into 4 main categories:
Static Residential
These are static IPs, which means that only one person uses them at a time.
- Available in 18 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.
- Unlimited data for a lower monthly rate.
- Recommended for gaming and streaming.
- Better for accessing bank accounts and social media, as these services block users with roaming IPs.
Royal Residential
This service gives you access to a rotating list of residential proxies, but they are more expensive because you pay for the traffic.
- Connection to over 150 countries.
- Recommended for marketing purposes. As they are difficult to detect, people use them with automated programmes to collect data on the Internet. Others use them to find bargains (travel, fashion, bulk purchases).
- It has a ‘sticky’ function that lets you keep a proxy for up to 24 hours (although this is not guaranteed).
- You can set the rotation time from 1 second to 1 day.
- It has a high-end feature that provides you with only the fastest and most stable IPs, but this reduces the pool, and you need to email IPRoyal to activate it.
- You can use an API (artificial programming interface) with this pool if you have at least $200 in your account. 50 will get you a bot discord. It lets you create a proxy list to control the locations you get. Some people use it to resell proxies.
IPRoyal Mobile
This is another rotating list of IP addresses with the “sticky” option and API. It offers the same features as the royal residential lists, but is more difficult to block.
- The minimum rotation time is 2 minutes.
- These addresses all come from real mobile users with a SIM card in their handset.
- Each of them is on the 4G network.
- They can only point to locations in Lithuania.
IPRoyal Data centre IP
These are static IPs with unlimited data, which are faster and more reliable than the other proxy options. The disadvantage is that they are more easily blocked.
- They are recommended for downloading, caching data and using the cloud.
- You can access 6 countries, including the US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and France.
- You can use specific cities, such as Chicago, Reston and Los Angeles.
- SOCKS5 and HTTPS protocols and API are available.
- You can also choose between whitelisting and authentication.
- Shoe proxies are for people trying to buy limited edition shoes. They used to be available with residential IPs. But now you can only get data centre IPs.
They are associated with “sneaker bots” (programmes that help people buy shoes before they sell out). You tell IPRoyal the brand of shoe you want and when it will be released. IPRoyal then allocates you an IP address close to its head office to reduce latency. It will provide you with an unrestricted IP address on the day of release, but cannot guarantee that it will remain so after 24 hours.
There are also 6,861 free proxies, but I was disappointed to find that none of them worked. I contacted customer services for nearly an hour, but they couldn’t help me connect. Finally, they told me that these free proxies might no longer be valid.
If you’re a marketer or stockbroker, or buy a lot of fast-selling products, you’ll need this network.
How to use IPRoyal
This section covers the IPRoyal registration procedure, the dashboard, management of proxies and subscriptions, and customer service.
Registration on IPRoyal
To start using IPRoyal, you must first complete a registration form. You will need to enter your surname, first name and telephone number as personal details, and you may need to confirm registration via your telephone. Once you have completed this step, you will be taken to the dashboard, where you can purchase and manage access to IPRoyal’s proxy networks.
With the exception of static residential proxies, KYC is not mandatory. But without it, your use of proxies will be limited. In the case of residential IPs, you will only be able to access 40% of the pool. In addition, IPRoyal will block Facebook, LinkedIn and several other websites.
The identity verification process involves sending an identifier to a third-party service called Idenfy.
IPRoyal Dashboard
IPRoyal’s dashboard is divided into standalone sections for each product. They allow you to purchase proxies, authenticate them and track their usage wherever possible. They even have separate order histories, a bit like using five different dashboards instead of one.
This means you only need to leave your tab to change account settings – or deposit money if you choose to use the dashboard’s wallet functionality.
If you add at least $200, IPRoyal activates its reseller tools: a separate tab to manage sub-users and an API to perform the same tasks programmatically. The API documentation is well maintained and supports all major programming languages.
Subscription management
IPRoyal allows you to purchase proxies using two methods. The first involves depositing money on the platform, and the second involves creating orders directly. The difference is that the first option allows you to pay in bitcoins. You can also use it to extend monthly subscriptions or top up residential traffic without making any additional money transfers.
You can track orders and generate invoices under separate proxy types. It’s possible to add a note to an order and then search by note, which is good for usability.
Proxy management
Once you have purchased a plan, the procedure for configuring the proxy depends on the type of proxy you get.
For example, IPRoyal’s residential proxies give you a widget with lots of options. You can choose a location (or several locations), the rotation time and the connection protocol. There are also additional options: choice between several proxy formats, IP or DNS host name. You can then copy or download the generated endpoint list.
With data centre or ISP proxies, IPRoyal simply displays a list of assigned IPs.
Usage monitoring
The dashboard displays the remaining traffic, but only as a figure: there is no visualisation. This is rather amusing when you consider that the section for affiliates provides visual statistics for earnings and clicks.
You can also generate a report on data usage by entering a user name, a date range and the data measurement unit of your choice. IPRoyal creates a CSV file showing daily traffic usage by target. It’s not the most practical report format, but it’s better than nothing.
Finally, you can choose to receive automated traffic reminders by email.
Iproyal Support tools
IPRoyal offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. They work like any other similar tool, allowing you to use proxy servers without changing your browser or operating system settings.
There is also a proxy tester that allows you to check and filter lists of proxy IP addresses.
Iproyal Documentation
Although IPRoyal has improved, it still has problems providing information. The APIs are reasonably well documented and the product pages satisfactorily address the main concerns. However, you’ll find very few configuration instructions, troubleshooting guides and other useful information that vendors like Smartproxy and Bright Data have in abundance.
Practical assistance
IPRoyal answers questions 24/7 via live chat, email and Discord. We tried contacting support via live chat; an agent responded in less than a minute and competently answered all the questions we asked. I am impressed.
Final Iproyal word
IPRoyal may be right for you if you need to use a proxy for a short time and don’t want to pay a lot. For example, this service can be useful for personal marketing, stock market transactions or the purchase of limited edition products. You can buy minimal data or buy a cheap IPRoyal proxy for a day.
Conclusion
Like many other new proxy providers, IPRoyal is an exercise in compromise. You give up certain features, you encounter difficulties in use – and in this case, you have to make do with a smaller proxy pool. In return, you pay less, in the hope that the product on offer will meet your needs.
Well, will it?
Once again, it depends: the residential proxy pool should be fine for occasional use, with performance and IP numbers varying from place to place. It’s not up there with the high-end providers yet, but the service is improving fast. And the benefits are compelling: $7/Gb, non-expiring traffic, and some of the most flexible IP rotation settings I’ve seen.
I’m afraid to think what a corporate whale would do to the pool now, but IPRoyal‘s growth is promising. So you can try it for most tasks today – after all, the price is right – but be aware of its limitations.
