Byteful Review
Well spread and fairly priced, with the least consistent completion of any working network.
The short version
- Byteful returned 213,947 live IPs across five countries, a respectable mid-to-upper result.
- Network spread was a genuine strength at 1,804 distinct operators.
- Completion was the weak point: 74.4% to 92% of requests answered depending on the country.
- Median responses ran 851 ms to 937 ms, in the slower half of the field.
- Pricing is fair at $3.25 per GB entry, about $2.50 at 100 GB and $1.75 at volume.
At a glance
What we measured
Live IPs each network had answering during the same test window, five countries, identical request volumes and concurrency for both sides.
| Country | Byteful | Shifter | Networks |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 117,330 | 136,667 | 1,300 |
| United Kingdom | 35,595 | 53,506 | 135 |
| France | 20,286 | 33,581 | 43 |
| Canada | 25,351 | 33,485 | 188 |
| Germany | 15,385 | 22,005 | 138 |
Good spread, inconsistent completion
Byteful drew its 213,947 live addresses from 1,804 distinct operators across five countries, which is a healthy ratio: the addresses are not piled onto a handful of networks. For work where being fingerprinted by operator is the risk, that dispersion is worth something real.
Completion is the problem. It answered between 74.4% and 92% of our requests depending on the country, the weakest range of any network in the series that was not failing outright on transport. In the worst market roughly one request in four did not return inside ten seconds.
That is not catastrophic in the way a 55% rate is, but it is the kind of number that quietly degrades an unattended job: the crawl finishes, the dataset is incomplete, and nothing obvious tells you.
Speed, price and the rebrand
Byteful was formerly Ping Proxies, so older reviews under that name describe the same service and both appear across the market.
Median responses ran 851 ms to 937 ms, placing it in the slower half of the field alongside the deepest networks rather than the quick mid-market ones.
Pricing is one of its better arguments: $3.25 per GB at the standard rate, roughly $2.50 at 100 GB and $1.75 at volume. That is genuinely mid-market for a pool of this size. Our own rate is $1.00 at 100 GB and $0.75 above 200 GB, a disclosed commercial interest.
Pricing
| Plan | Traffic | Per GB | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Entry | $3.25 | from $32.50 |
| Mid | 100 GB | ~$2.50 | ~$250 |
| Volume | Bulk | $1.75 | on request |
Pros and cons
- 1,804 distinct operators across five countries, strong dispersion for the pool size
- 213,947 live addresses measured, upper mid-table in the series
- ASN and ZIP targeting across 195+ countries
- Fair pricing, $1.75 per GB at volume
- Weakest completion of any working network we tested, 74.4% to 92%
- Roughly one request in four failed in the worst country
- Median responses of 851 ms to 937 ms
- Volume pricing quoted rather than published
Who Byteful is for
- You want good geographic and network dispersion rather than the deepest raw pool.
- Your crawler retries cleanly and a one-in-five failure rate is absorbable.
- You buy at volume where $1.75 per GB applies.
- Unattended jobs where up to a quarter of requests failing produces partial data.
- Latency-sensitive work, given medians near a second.
- You need the deepest pool available for the money.
How we scored it
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live pool measured | 25% | 6.8 | 213,947 IPs live across five countries, against the tested field. |
| Network spread measured | 20% | 6.6 | 1,804 distinct networks across five countries. |
| Price per GB measured | 25% | 7.6 | $1.75 per GB at volume, quoted rather than published. The standard rate is $3.25 and 100 GB works out around $2.50. |
| Response time measured | 10% | 8.2 | 849 ms median across the countries tested. |
| Country coverage | 10% | 10 | 195+ countries advertised, scaled against full global coverage. |
| Features | 5% | 7.5 | ASN, ZIP and city targeting, sticky sessions, pool size indicators in the dashboard. No HTTP3 or carrier-level control. |
| Transparency | 5% | 7 | Standard rates are published and the dashboard exposes live pool indicators, which few rivals do. Volume pricing is on request. |