> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.flameproxies.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Choosing the Right Proxy Type

> Understand the difference between residential, premium residential, and static residential (ISP) proxies, and when to use each.

FlameProxies offers three proxy types: **residential**, **premium residential**, and **static residential (ISP)**.

Residential and premium residential share the same gateway, ports, and username format. You switch between them by changing a single parameter: `package-standard` or `package-premium`. Static residential proxies work differently — each one is a dedicated IP you rent for a period of time.

This page helps you understand when each type works best.

## Residential

Residential proxies route your traffic through real home internet connections. The IPs belong to genuine ISP subscribers, so websites see them as regular household traffic.

The residential pool includes over 84 million IPs, with a 99.9% success rate. We don't block any sites or ports on residential proxies.

**When to use residential proxies:**

* **Web scraping at scale.** Most anti-bot systems treat residential IPs as legitimate traffic, so you get high success rates on search engines, e-commerce platforms, and marketplaces.
* **Price monitoring.** Check prices from specific countries and cities without triggering geo-based blocks.
* **Ad verification.** See ads the way a real user would in any location, to catch fraud, misplacement, or geo-targeting issues.
* **SEO monitoring.** Track search rankings from different locations using IPs that search engines treat as genuine users.
* **General-purpose data collection.** If you're not sure which type to use, start with residential. It covers the widest range of use cases at the lowest price.

## Premium residential

Premium residential proxies come from a curated pool of more than 15 million clean residential IPs. Each IP is screened for a clean history — not flagged, not recycled across thousands of users, and never detected as a proxy by major fingerprinting databases. IPs whose reputation degrades are rotated out of the pool.

Premium residential also has a 99.9% success rate.

**When to use premium residential proxies:**

* **Targets with strict anti-bot systems.** Sites protected by services like Cloudflare, Akamai, or DataDome, where IP reputation decides whether a request gets through.
* **Elevated CAPTCHA or block rates.** If standard residential IPs are hitting frequent CAPTCHAs or blocks on a target, premium IPs usually pass the trust checks that trip them up.
* **High-stakes flows.** E-commerce checkouts, social platforms, and travel sites, where a single failed request costs more than the difference in bandwidth price.

<Warning>
  Premium residential proxies are blocked on payment providers and government websites. Residential proxies have no site restrictions.
</Warning>

## Static residential (ISP)

Static residential proxies are dedicated IP addresses registered to real ISPs and hosted on enterprise hardware. Your IP stays the same for as long as you rent it, and nobody else uses it.

You pay per IP for a period of time, not per GB, and bandwidth is unlimited. Port speeds go up to 10 Gbps, and UDP is supported.

The cheapest option is **ISP Monthly** at \$0.99 per month per IP, available in the United States only, on the RCN ASN. See [Plans](/proxies/static-residential#plans).

**When to use static residential proxies:**

* **Account management.** Keep a consistent identity on platforms that watch for IP changes between logins.
* **Long-running sessions.** Hold the same IP for days or weeks, not minutes.
* **High-throughput transfers.** When per-GB pricing would get expensive, unlimited bandwidth makes static IPs cheaper.
* **UDP workloads.** Gaming, VoIP, and streaming applications that need UDP.

## How they compare

| | Residential | Premium residential | Static residential (ISP) |
| - | - | - | - |
| IP source | Home ISP connections | Curated subset of clean residential IPs | ISP-registered IPs on enterprise hardware |
| Pool size | 84M+ IPs | 15M+ IPs | One dedicated IP per purchase |
| Price | \$0.50/GB, or \$0.45/GB from 1,000 GB | \$3/GB | From \$0.99/month per IP |
| Success rate | 99.9% | 99.9% | — |
| Best for | Scraping, price monitoring, SEO, ads | Strict anti-bot targets | Accounts, long sessions, high throughput |
| Rotation | Every request, or sticky sessions | Every request, or sticky sessions | Never rotates |
| Geo-targeting | Country and city | Country and city | Location chosen when you buy |
| Site restrictions | None | Payment providers and government sites | — |
| Username parameter | `package-standard` | `package-premium` | Not used |
| Customer API | Yes | Yes | No |

## You can switch at any time

Because residential and premium residential use the same format, moving a workload between them is a one-word change:

```text theme={null}
proxy.flameproxies.com:8989:<USERNAME>-package-standard-country-us:<PASSWORD>
proxy.flameproxies.com:8989:<USERNAME>-package-premium-country-us:<PASSWORD>
```

A common pattern is to run most traffic on residential and route only the hardest targets through premium.

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Authentication" icon="key" href="/getting-started/authentication">
    Set up your credentials and start connecting.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Residential proxies" icon="house-signal" href="/proxies/residential">
    Full reference for residential proxy parameters.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Premium residential proxies" icon="shield-check" href="/proxies/premium-residential">
    Full reference for premium residential proxies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Static residential proxies" icon="server" href="/proxies/static-residential">
    Dedicated ISP IPs with unlimited bandwidth.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>