IPRoyal built its growth on being the closest competitor to KnoxProxy on price, filling its pool through the Pawns app peer-sourcing model. That keeps entry cost low and the pool growing quickly, even though it is roughly half KnoxProxy's size today. The choice comes down to budget size and how much pool depth a job actually needs.
KnoxProxy's larger pool, lower PAYG rate, and 2xx-only billing make it stronger once volume climbs past a small side project. IPRoyal's starter plans and rapid pool growth make it genuinely competitive for smaller budgets. At mid-volume, the two sit close enough that a short side-by-side test settles it faster than the spec sheet.
| KnoxProxy | IPRoyal | |
|---|---|---|
| Residential pool | 90.4M | ~32M (growing via Pawns app) |
| Residential price /GB | $2.10 PAYG (to $1.10) | ~$2.70 |
| Failed-request billing | Never billed (2xx-only) | Billed per connection |
| IP sourcing model | Commercial and partner-sourced | Pawns app peer-sourcing (opt-in bandwidth sharing) |
| Free trial | Yes, no card | Yes, no card |
| City / ASN targeting | All plans, 195 countries | 195 countries, granular targeting not confirmed on entry plans |
| Starter plan depth | PAYG only | Dedicated starter plans for smaller budgets |
| Pool growth trajectory | Stable, established | Rapidly expanding via Pawns |
| Concurrency | Unlimited | Not published as unlimited |
| Task | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise-scale scraping needing max pool depth | KnoxProxy | 90.4M IPs vs ~32M means double the rotation depth, cutting repeat-IP exposure on large jobs |
| Sites with high block or failure rates | KnoxProxy | 2xx-only billing means failed connections are free |
| Solo developer on a tight budget | IPRoyal | Starter plans built for smaller monthly spend; $2.70/GB close enough that lower entry floor matters more |
| Mid-volume price-sensitive workloads (50-200 GB/mo) | Benchmark both | The per-GB gap narrows relative to success rates on specific targets -- a side-by-side test settles it |
Provider marketing sells the biggest number on the page. Buyers should buy the smallest one that matters: cost per successful request on their own targets. List price, billing rules, success rate, and how much of the product your tier actually unlocks all feed it.
A rigged table is worthless to a buyer and obvious to a reviewer.
Pool size and pool quality are different axes. A large pool of recycled, previously flagged addresses can lose to a smaller, well-maintained one on your actual targets. Compare the numbers below, then verify with your own benchmark -- ask about IP hygiene, not headcount.
Score both finalists on all five, weight by what your program values, and the winner is usually obvious -- and defensible to whoever signs off.
The protocol is identical -- host, port, credentials. The migration isn't hard; the discipline is running both in parallel long enough to trust the numbers on your real workload.
IPRoyal organizes targeting through dashboard zones with country, state, city, and sticky settings per zone. List active zones and their settings -- KnoxProxy uses per-request parameters instead.
Where IPRoyal ties session persistence to a zone, KnoxProxy sets it via a session ID parameter on each request. Recreate each sticky window using KnoxProxy's session parameter.
Run a portion of existing IPRoyal traffic through KnoxProxy in parallel. Watch success rate and latency on actual targets for a few days, then move the rest.
For most workloads past a small side project, yes -- KnoxProxy's larger pool (90.4M vs ~32M), lower PAYG rate ($2.10 vs ~$2.70/GB), and 2xx-only billing add up fast at volume. IPRoyal's starter plans remain the better fit for a small, fixed budget.
Pawns pays regular users to share unused bandwidth, which is how IPRoyal grows its residential pool. Different sourcing model than KnoxProxy but does not inherently mean lower quality.
Not at list price. KnoxProxy PAYG is $2.10/GB vs IPRoyal's ~$2.70/GB. IPRoyal's advantage is in starter plans built for smaller monthly budgets.
KnoxProxy with 90.4M vs IPRoyal's ~32M. The gap matters most on high-volume jobs where avoiding repeat IPs is critical.
For a small fixed budget, IPRoyal's starter plans are worth testing first. For usage likely to scale, KnoxProxy's PAYG and unlimited concurrency avoid a re-platforming step later.
IPRoyal organizes targeting through dashboard zones with country, state, city, and sticky settings per zone. List active zones and their settings -- KnoxProxy uses per-request parameters instead. Most teams run both providers in parallel for about a week, comparing per-target success, before cutting over fully.
Nothing beyond the gateway host and credentials changes -- the proxy protocol is the same, so your existing scraping code, retry logic, and session handling keep working.
Enterprise plans include MSAs, invoicing, committed-use discounts, and a named account manager from 1 TB/mo.
Competitor specs re-verified quarterly against public rate cards. Found an error? Tell us -- we fix within 48h.
Free trial against your real targets -- same endpoints, your benchmark, no credit card.