What Are Dedicated and Shared Proxies?
The terms "dedicated" and "shared" describe how many users access the same proxy IP address at the same time. A dedicated proxy (also called a private proxy) is an IP address assigned exclusively to you — no other customer uses it while you have it. A shared proxy is used by multiple customers simultaneously, with requests from different users routed through the same pool of IPs.
This distinction affects performance, cost, security, and how likely the IP is to get blocked. Understanding the trade-offs is key to choosing the right proxy setup for your proxy infrastructure.
How Dedicated Proxies Work
When you purchase a dedicated proxy, the provider assigns one or more IP addresses solely to your account. For the duration of your subscription, those IPs handle only your traffic. No other user's requests pass through them.
The benefits are straightforward:
- Full bandwidth: The entire connection capacity is yours — no sharing means no contention
- Clean IP reputation: Only your usage history affects the IP's standing with target websites
- Predictable performance: Latency and throughput are consistent because there is no variable load from other users
- Full control: You decide how the IP is used, how many requests it sends, and to which targets
How Shared Proxies Work
Shared proxy pools serve multiple customers from the same set of IPs. When you send a request, the provider's gateway selects an IP from the shared pool — the same IP might be handling another customer's request at the same time, or it may have been used by another customer moments before.
Rotating proxy services are inherently shared: the large pools of residential, datacenter, or mobile IPs are accessed by all customers of the provider. The scale of the pool is what makes this work — with millions of IPs, individual customers rarely conflict with each other.
Dedicated vs Shared: Side-by-Side Comparison
| Factor | Dedicated Proxy | Shared Proxy |
|---|---|---|
| IP exclusivity | Only you use the IP | Multiple users share IPs |
| Cost | Higher (per IP pricing) | Lower (per GB or per request) |
| Speed | Consistent, no contention | Variable, depends on pool load |
| IP reputation risk | You control it entirely | Others' behavior can impact you |
| Pool size | Limited to purchased IPs | Access to full provider pool |
| Best for | Account management, persistent sessions | Scraping, SERP tracking, bulk data |
| Scalability | Must buy more IPs to scale | Scales with bandwidth usage |
| Setup | Assigned specific IPs | Gateway-based, automatic |
Performance Differences
Speed and Latency
Dedicated proxies offer more predictable performance because your traffic doesn't compete with other users on the same IP. Response times are consistent, and you won't encounter random slowdowns caused by another user's heavy traffic on the same address.
Shared proxies in a well-managed pool perform comparably most of the time. The provider's infrastructure distributes load across thousands of IPs, so individual IP contention is rare. Performance issues arise mainly during peak usage or when the pool is undersized relative to demand.
Bandwidth
With dedicated proxies, the full bandwidth of the connection is available to you. On shared proxies, bandwidth is nominally unlimited but effectively constrained by how many users are active on the same pool segment. Quality providers like ProxyHat manage this by maintaining pool sizes large enough that individual users rarely experience bottlenecks.
IP Reputation and Ban Risk
The Dedicated Advantage
On a dedicated proxy, the IP's reputation is entirely in your hands. If you follow best practices — reasonable request rates, proper headers, realistic browsing patterns — the IP stays clean. No other user can trigger a block on your IP by sending aggressive traffic to the same target.
This matters most for long-running operations like account management, where a blocked IP means losing access to accounts built over months of activity.
The Shared Risk
With shared proxies, another customer targeting the same website may get the IP blocked before you use it. You make a request, receive a CAPTCHA or 403, and the block has nothing to do with your behavior. This is sometimes called "IP contamination" or "neighbor effect."
Good providers mitigate this through active pool health monitoring — continuously testing IPs and removing blocked ones from the rotation. With IP rotation, you also get automatic failover: if one IP is blocked, the next request uses a fresh one.
Cost Analysis
Dedicated Proxy Pricing
Dedicated proxies are typically priced per IP per month. If you need 10 IPs, you pay for 10 IPs regardless of how much bandwidth you use. This model works well when you need a small number of reliable, consistent IPs.
Shared Proxy Pricing
Shared (rotating) proxies are usually priced per GB of bandwidth consumed. You get access to the entire pool and pay only for the data you transfer. This model is far more cost-effective for high-volume scraping where you need thousands of unique IPs but each one handles only a few requests. Check ProxyHat pricing for current plans.
Cost Comparison Example
| Scenario | Dedicated Cost | Shared Cost | Better Option |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 accounts, light traffic | 10 IPs/month | Minimal GB | Dedicated (consistent identity) |
| 100K pages scraped/day | Hundreds of IPs needed | A few GB/day | Shared (vastly cheaper) |
| SERP tracking, 50K keywords | Would need rotating anyway | Standard GB billing | Shared (built for rotation) |
| Ad verification, fixed locations | Per-location IPs | Geo-targeted rotating | Depends on volume |
When to Choose Dedicated Proxies
Account Management
Running multiple social media accounts, e-commerce seller accounts, or marketplace profiles requires each account to appear as a unique, consistent user. Dedicated proxies (especially ISP proxies) provide the stable IP identity these platforms expect.
Persistent Sessions
Workflows that require maintaining a login session over days or weeks — such as monitoring dashboards, managing advertising campaigns, or operating SaaS tools — need the consistency of a dedicated IP.
Compliance-Sensitive Operations
When you need an audit trail of exactly which IP was used and when, dedicated proxies provide clear attribution. With shared proxies, the same IP may have been used by others, complicating compliance records.
When to Choose Shared Proxies
Web Scraping at Scale
Large-scale scraping demands thousands of unique IPs to avoid bans and rate limits. Buying thousands of dedicated IPs is prohibitively expensive. Shared rotating pools give you access to millions of IPs at a fraction of the cost.
SERP and Price Monitoring
Collecting search engine results or e-commerce pricing data across thousands of keywords and products requires broad IP diversity and geo-targeting — exactly what shared rotating pools provide.
One-Time Data Collection
Research projects, competitive analysis, and market studies that involve scraping a dataset once don't justify the ongoing cost of dedicated IPs. Shared proxies let you pay for exactly the bandwidth you need.
Using Both Strategies Together
Many organizations use a hybrid approach:
- Dedicated ISP proxies for account management and persistent sessions
- Shared rotating residential proxies for data collection and scraping
ProxyHat supports both models through the same gateway at gate.proxyhat.com, with HTTP (port 8080) and SOCKS5 (port 1080) access. Refer to the documentation for configuration details.
Key takeaway: Choose dedicated proxies when you need IP consistency, full reputation control, and predictable performance for a small number of connections. Choose shared proxies when you need massive IP diversity, cost-effective scaling, and automatic rotation for high-volume data collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can other users get my dedicated proxy IP blocked?
No. With a dedicated proxy, only your traffic passes through the IP. Its reputation is entirely determined by your usage patterns. No other customer can affect it.
Are shared proxies less reliable than dedicated?
Not necessarily. Shared rotating proxy pools are designed for high reliability through redundancy: if one IP fails, the next request automatically uses a different one. The reliability comes from the pool, not from any individual IP.
Can I switch between dedicated and shared proxies?
Yes. Most providers offer both options, and you can use them simultaneously for different tasks. Use dedicated for account management and shared for scraping.
How many dedicated proxies do I need?
One per identity you need to maintain. For account management, allocate one IP per account. For general browsing or testing, a handful of dedicated IPs is usually sufficient.
Do shared proxies affect my scraping success rate?
Well-managed shared pools maintain high success rates through IP health monitoring and large pool sizes. If you encounter high failure rates, it's more likely due to request patterns than shared pool issues. See our guide on scraping without getting blocked for optimization strategies.
