Shifter vs Rayobyte
We sent the same requests through both networks in five countries. Rayobyte is quick, answering in 333 ms in the United States against our 364 ms, with a tighter tail everywhere. What it does not match is depth: Shifter returned 59% more live US addresses and between three and six times more in every other market, at $0.75 per GB against $2.00.
Trusted by 50,000+ clients worldwide
Every provider in this series gets the same test: plain HTTP, one fresh connection per request, 1,000 concurrent, 10 second timeout. Rayobyte completed between 92.5% and 94.0% of requests depending on the market. The largest single cause was redirects, between 1,957 and 7,112 per run, with timeouts and 503s making up most of the rest. The counts below are from those runs exactly as measured. We did not switch transport or lower concurrency to lift the number, because a client that loses one request in fourteen is something you would rather learn here than in production.
Twice the price at the volume most teams buy
Compared at 100 GB a month: Rayobyte is $2.00 per GB there and Shifter is $1.00, falling to $0.75 from 200 GB. Rayobyte's $0.50 floor is genuinely lower than ours, but it starts at 5,000 GB, a $2,500 purchase.
| Monthly volume | Shifter | Rayobyte | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | $10 5 GB at $2.00/GB | $3.50/GB 1 to 49 GB | 43% |
| 100 GB | $100 $1.00/GB | $200 $2.00/GB | 50% |
| Best rate | $0.75/GB from 200 GB | $0.50/GB from 5,000 GB, $2,500 | - |
Live IPs online during the test
Distinct IPs each network had live and reachable at test time, not the size of its total network. Rayobyte's figures come from runs where 6% to 7.5% of requests failed, so its true pool is larger than shown. Residential IPs rotate all day, so both providers serve far more addresses across 24 hours.
Every metric, country by country
Pick a country to see the complete measurement, including the numbers that did not go our way.
| Metric | Shifter | Rayobyte |
|---|---|---|
| Requests sent | 250,000 | 250,000 |
| Live IPs during the test | 136,667 | 86,099 |
| Unique networks (ASNs) | 1,606 | 1,266 |
| Unique cities | 5,813 | 4,754 |
| Average latency | 364 ms | 333 ms |
| Success rate | 99.8% | 93.7% |
Rayobyte's best market, and the closest result of the five. Shifter returned 59% more live US IPs, 136,667 against 86,099, across 1,606 networks against 1,266. Rayobyte answered marginally quicker, 333 ms against 364 ms, and its geo accuracy of 99.9% beat ours at 97.4%. It completed 93.7% of its requests, so its real pool is larger than shown. On price the gap is wider than the pool: $0.75 per GB against $2.00 at 100 GB.
How we measured this
Every provider in this series receives the identical test: plain HTTP to an IP echo service, one fresh connection per request, 1,000 concurrent, 10 second timeout, and fixed volumes of 250,000 requests in the United States, 100,000 in the United Kingdom, 80,000 in France, 70,000 in Canada and 60,000 in Germany. One connection per request means one fresh exit per request, so distinct addresses map directly to the reachable pool.
Rayobyte completed 92.5% to 94.0% of those requests. The largest single cause was redirects, between 1,957 and 7,112 per run, followed by timeouts and 503s. We report the shortfall as observed and do not attribute it to a concurrency ceiling or any other single cause, because these runs were not designed to isolate one.
Both providers ran plain HTTP, so latency is directly comparable on this page. Rayobyte is the faster network here: quicker on median in four of five markets and tighter at the p95 in all five. Because its counts come from partial runs, its true live pool is larger than the figures shown.
Rayobyte targets through the password rather than the username, and its parameters are set per request. These runs used the us-east.gw.rayobyte.com gateway with country targeting and no session pinning, so every request drew a fresh exit.
An earlier run of ours on 2026-08-13, through a different Rayobyte gateway, measured 74.7% geo accuracy in the United States. The same measurement on the gateway used here is 99.9%. We treat the older figure as an artifact of that endpoint and do not quote it.
What these numbers mean
Every count on this page is the number of IPs that were live and reachable at the time of the test, not the size of either provider's network. Residential IPs rotate constantly as real devices come online and drop off, so across a full day both networks serve far more addresses than a single window can capture. What limits a crawl is how many respond at the same moment, which is what this measures.
Why use Shifter residential proxies?
A larger live pool in all five markets
59% more in the United States, close to four times more in Britain and Canada, five times more in Germany, and six times more in France.
Completes the test
Rayobyte answered 92.5% to 94.0% of requests. Redirects were the largest single cause, between 1,957 and 7,112 per run.
Half the price at 100 GB
$1.00 per GB against $2.00, falling to $0.75 from 200 GB. Rayobyte's $0.50 floor is lower, but it requires a 5,000 GB purchase at $2,500.
Wider city coverage
5,813 US cities against 4,754, and 4,118 in France against 1,590. Network spread is close in Britain and Germany, where the two are effectively level.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about how we benchmarked Rayobyte.
On this test, yes, in most markets. Rayobyte answered in 333 ms against our 364 ms in the United States and led on median in four of five countries, with a tighter p95 in all five. Canada is the exception, where Shifter was quicker at 324 ms against 375 ms. Speed is the dimension where Rayobyte is genuinely strong, and we would not argue with anyone choosing it on that basis alone.
Across the five countries Shifter served 279,244 live IPs against Rayobyte's 119,144. The gap is narrowest in the United States, 59% more, and widest in France, where we returned six times the addresses. Rayobyte advertises 40M+ residential IPs against Shifter's 205M+, but those are lifetime totals, which is why we publish measured tests alongside them.
The largest single cause was redirects, between 1,957 and 7,112 per run, with timeouts and 503s making up most of the rest. Single requests succeed reliably, so the shortfall appears under concurrency. We are reporting what we measured and not guessing further, since these runs cannot separate a capacity limit from a configuration one.
Not at the volumes most teams buy. Rayobyte is $3.50 per GB at entry and $2.00 at 100 GB, where Shifter is $2.00 and $1.00. Its published floor of $0.50 per GB is genuinely below our $0.75, but it needs a 5,000 GB commitment costing $2,500, against $0.75 from 200 GB with us.
Half the price, more than twice the pool
279,244 live addresses across five markets against 119,144, at $0.75 per GB. Published method, repeatable results.