The best NetNut alternative for most former customers is ProxyHat: consent-based residential traffic at $10 for the first gigabyte, falling to $3.60/GB at 500 GB, with purchased traffic that never expires. If budget is your only criterion, DataImpulse at $1/GB is the cheapest serious option; if you want the most established enterprise-style platform, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) sells pay-as-you-go residential at $4/GB. This guide compares five alternatives with real July 2026 prices and an honest note on who each one fits — including where ours is not the right pick.
Context in one line: NetNut's domains were seized by the FBI and Google on July 2, 2026 over allegations that its residential pool was fed by the Popa botnet, and its customers now need a replacement with zero notice — ideally one whose sourcing survives the questions NetNut's didn't.
Best NetNut Alternatives at a Glance
| Provider | Residential entry price (July 2026) | Traffic expiry | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProxyHat | $10 / 1 GB, down to $3.60/GB at 500 GB | Never expires | Teams that need sourcing they can defend, plus flexible usage |
| Decodo | $4/GB pay-as-you-go | Plan-dependent | Ex-NetNut enterprise-style workflows |
| IPRoyal | $7 / 1 GB | Never expires | Occasional and low-volume use |
| Webshare | $3.50 / 1 GB | Plan-dependent | Budget self-serve setups |
| DataImpulse | $1/GB pay-as-you-go | Pay-as-you-go | The tightest budgets at high volume |
1. ProxyHat — Best Overall Replacement
Disclosure first: this is our platform, and you should read this entry knowing that. It sits at the top because the two things that made NetNut's collapse so painful for its customers — opaque sourcing and use-it-or-lose-it billing — are the two things ProxyHat was specifically built to avoid.
Sourcing. ProxyHat's residential pool is consent-based: bandwidth comes from device owners who explicitly opted in and are compensated for participation. If your compliance team is asking harder vendor questions this month — and it should be — this is the line item that decides the conversation.
Pricing. Entry is $10 for 1 GB, with volume discounts down to $3.60/GB at 500 GB (see pricing). Purchased traffic never expires. That last part matters more than it sounds: you can buy at the volume tier that gets you the best rate and spend it over months, instead of watching a monthly allowance evaporate.
Features. One gateway (gate.proxyhat.com) serves both HTTP on port 8080 and SOCKS5 on port 1080. Country and city targeting plus sticky sessions are set via username flags, sub-users let you isolate projects or clients, and a separate ISP static catalog offers dedicated IPs in 66 countries at $11 per 30 days with unlimited traffic — including hard-to-source countries like Nigeria (see locations).
Where it's not the right fit. If your only criterion is the lowest sticker price per gigabyte at small volume, Webshare and DataImpulse are cheaper. And if your procurement process is built around dedicated account managers and bespoke enterprise contracts, a larger legacy vendor may feel more familiar.
Coming from NetNut? The step-by-step migration guide maps endpoints, session flags, and geo-targeting one to one.
2. Decodo — Most Established Alternative ($4/GB PAYG)
Decodo is the 2025 rebrand of Smartproxy, one of the longest-running names in the proxy business. As of July 2026 its residential pay-as-you-go rate is $4/GB, and the platform around it — dashboard, documentation, integrations with common scraping tooling — is among the most polished in the industry.
Who it fits: teams that used NetNut precisely because it was a big, established vendor and want the closest drop-in feel with mature tooling.
What to check: your effective per-GB cost once you model real monthly volume against its plan structure — and the same sourcing questions you should now ask everyone.
3. IPRoyal — Never-Expiring Traffic on a Budget ($7 / 1 GB)
IPRoyal sells residential traffic at $7 for 1 GB, and like ProxyHat its traffic never expires. Notably, its pool is built largely on Pawns.app — its own opt-in bandwidth-sharing app where participants knowingly sell idle bandwidth. That is a sourcing model the company discusses openly, which is exactly the kind of transparency this month rewards.
Who it fits: occasional and low-volume users who want to buy a few gigabytes, use them whenever, and not think about billing cycles.
What to check: per-GB pricing at higher volumes, where providers with steeper volume curves become significantly cheaper.
4. Webshare — Cheapest Self-Serve Entry ($3.50 / 1 GB)
Webshare's residential entry point is $3.50 for 1 GB, with a fully self-serve signup and unusually granular plan configuration. The company built its reputation on cheap, no-sales-call datacenter proxies and carries the same price-led, configure-it-yourself positioning into residential.
Who it fits: solo developers and small projects that want to start in five minutes and tune everything from a dashboard.
What to check: plan renewal mechanics, and sourcing documentation for the residential pool specifically.
5. DataImpulse — Rock-Bottom Pricing ($1/GB)
At $1/GB pay-as-you-go, DataImpulse is the cheapest real alternative on this list by a wide margin. For massive-volume workloads where per-request economics dominate every other consideration, that price is the whole argument.
Who it fits: high-volume, price-driven scraping where each gigabyte must justify itself.
What to check: sourcing, seriously. Bandwidth at $1/GB has to come from somewhere, and the entire lesson of the Popa botnet is that "somewhere" is now the buyer's problem too. Ask the hard questions before routing production traffic through any pool at this price — the answers may be fine, but get them in writing.
How to Choose After NetNut
- Sourcing transparency first. Ask every candidate where its IPs come from, what device owners agreed to, and what they are paid. We published the full question list in our guide to ethically sourced residential proxies.
- Match the billing model to your usage. Bursty or unpredictable workloads favor never-expiring traffic (ProxyHat, IPRoyal); constant heavy volume favors the best pay-as-you-go rate you can negotiate.
- Test small on your real targets. Success rate on your domains beats any published benchmark. Buy the smallest package and run your actual workload before committing volume.
- Check the entity behind the brand. A registered company in a named jurisdiction, with terms a lawyer can read, is now table stakes.
Key takeaways:
- ProxyHat is the strongest overall NetNut replacement: consent-based sourcing, $10/1 GB entry falling to $3.60/GB at 500 GB, and traffic that never expires.
- Decodo ($4/GB) offers the most established enterprise-style platform; IPRoyal ($7/1 GB) is the other never-expires option; Webshare ($3.50/1 GB) and DataImpulse ($1/GB) win on entry price.
- After Popa, sourcing transparency is a primary buying criterion, not a nice-to-have — ask before you pay, whoever you choose.
- Always run a small test on your real targets before committing to volume pricing.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best NetNut alternative?
For most former NetNut customers, ProxyHat is the strongest overall replacement: consent-based sourcing, $10 for the first GB falling to $3.60/GB at 500 GB, and purchased traffic that never expires. DataImpulse is the cheapest option at $1/GB, and Decodo is the most established enterprise-style platform at $4/GB pay-as-you-go.
What is the cheapest NetNut alternative?
DataImpulse, at $1/GB pay-as-you-go as of July 2026. At that price, do extra due diligence on IP sourcing before routing production traffic through it.
Which NetNut alternatives offer traffic that never expires?
ProxyHat and IPRoyal. Both sell prepaid residential traffic with no expiry, which suits bursty or unpredictable workloads where monthly allowances would go to waste.
Can I recover my unused NetNut balance?
Probably not through NetNut itself while its domains are seized and support is unreachable. If you paid by card recently, ask your bank about a chargeback; for larger contracts, speak to counsel.
