Proxy pool
The set of addresses a provider can route your traffic through, and the source of every rotation decision.
A proxy pool is the collection of addresses a provider can assign to your requests. Pool size and composition are the figures providers advertise most loudly and verify least.
#Why advertised pool sizes deserve caution
No third party can count another company’s pool. The number is a vendor claim, and claims vary in what they even measure: addresses seen at any point in the past year, addresses currently online, or addresses available to your specific plan. These can differ by orders of magnitude.
What matters far more is how many addresses are available in the country you need, right now. A pool of tens of millions concentrated in three countries is worse for your use case than a much smaller pool with real depth where you operate.
#Questions worth asking a provider
- How many addresses are concurrently online in the specific country I need?
- Is the figure measured, or cumulative over time?
- Does my plan reach the whole pool, or a subset?
#What a pool size does not tell you
An advertised total counts addresses seen at some point, over some period, by some method. None of those three is standardised, so two providers quoting similar totals may offer very different service. Four questions turn the number into something usable.
| Question | Why it changes the answer | |
|---|---|---|
| Measured over what window? | A year of sightings counts addresses long since gone | |
| How many are available right now? | Concurrent availability is what you actually draw from | |
| How many in the country I need? | A global total says nothing about one market | |
| How many distinct networks? | Many addresses on few ASNs behave like few addresses |
The last question is the sharpest. Addresses concentrated on a handful of networks share a fate: one classification decision removes all of them at once.
#Measuring it yourself
You do not need the provider’s number. Draw addresses over a period and count the distinct values and networks you actually received. That result describes your account, your country and your plan, which is the only pool that matters to you.
Record when you measured it. A pool is a moving population, so a count has a shelf life.