E-commerce is a mix
Small shops usually accept any IP; big marketplaces defend hard. A cost-effective setup routes each site to the cheapest proxy that works. See best proxies for e-commerce scraping.
Side by side
| Site type | Rayobyte | Geonode |
|---|---|---|
| Small and Shopify stores | Rotating datacenter from $0.30/GB | Rotating datacenter about $0.53/GB |
| Mid-size retailers | Rotating ISP | Residential |
| Marketplaces | Premium Residential | Residential, cheaper per GB at modest volume |
| Huge catalog crawls | Scale Residential (no targeting) | Unlimited residential |
| Hardest sites | Web Unblocker, Scraping API, rayobrowse | Scraper API |
At the time of writing.
Catalog crawls
For crawls of many terabytes without location needs, Rayobyte's Scale Residential at around a cent per GB is hard to beat. If you need countries, Geonode's unlimited plans include targeting. See high-volume residential compared.
Reviews and pagination
Use a sticky session per product's reviews on either provider. Geonode allows longer sessions; Rayobyte's 120 minutes is ample for review pages.
Residential tip: Many teams end up using more than one provider: Rayobyte for ZIP and ASN targeted residential traffic or its Scraping API, Geonode for non-expiring per-GB bandwidth and long sticky sessions. Start with Rayobyte for e-commerce scraping.
Country storefronts
Both target countries. Rayobyte lists more countries and adds ZIP targeting for local stock and delivery.
Which to choose
| Situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Many small shops | Rayobyte datacenter |
| Marketplaces at modest volume | Geonode |
| Massive untargeted catalog crawl | Rayobyte Scale Residential |
| Massive targeted crawl | Geonode unlimited |
| A few impossible sites in existing code | Rayobyte Web Unblocker |
See Rayobyte for e-commerce scraping and Geonode for e-commerce marketplaces. Related: Amazon compared. With Webshare: e-commerce across all three.
A real-world example
A product data company refreshes catalogs from 1,200 online stores and 6 marketplaces each week. Stores run on Rayobyte rotating datacenter. Marketplaces run on Geonode residential. A quarterly full-catalog crawl of one global marketplace, about 30 TB with no location needs, runs on Rayobyte Scale Residential after a compliance review, at a fraction of normal residential prices.
Proxy tip: To test the Geonode side of this comparison, a small residential balance from Geonode is enough, and it doesn't expire if you pause. See Geonode for price monitoring for its full product range.
Pros and cons for e-commerce
Rayobyte
- Cheapest datacenter for small stores.
- Scale Residential for huge untargeted crawls.
- Managed tools for the hardest sites.
Geonode
- Cheapest residential for marketplaces at modest volume.
- Unlimited plans for targeted bulk crawls.
- Map and Crawl APIs for discovery.
Before you commit to any provider, it helps to see the wider market: our guide to the best proxies in 2026 compares proxy types by job, and cheap proxies explains how to keep costs down without buying IPs that get blocked. To understand the IP type behind this, read our residential proxies guide.
Budget tip: If you want a cheap proxy to try this with, Webshare has a free plan with 10 datacenter proxies and 1 GB of bandwidth a month, no card required. Paid lists let you pick proxy count, bandwidth and location. See Webshare for e-commerce scraping.
Key takeaways
- Route small shops to datacenter and marketplaces to residential.
- Rayobyte is cheaper for datacenter and untargeted bulk; Geonode for modest residential.
- Geonode's unlimited plans suit targeted bulk crawls.
- Use sticky sessions for paginated reviews.
FAQ
Which is better for Shopify stores?
Rayobyte's rotating datacenter is cheaper; both work.
Which is better for marketplaces?
Geonode at modest volume; test both on your marketplaces.
Can I crawl whole catalogs cheaply?
Yes, with Rayobyte Scale Residential if you don't need targeting.
Sources and further reading
Independent references that back up the points above, from standards bodies, governments, universities and non-profits. They open in a new tab.
- Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales (US Census Bureau): Official US e-commerce sales data, the market price monitoring watches.
- urllib.request documentation (Python Software Foundation): Python's standard library documentation, including ProxyHandler.
- Proxy server (Wikipedia): A broad encyclopedia overview of proxy servers and their history.
- Common Crawl (Common Crawl Foundation): The open web crawl that many AI training datasets are built from.
- RFC 6585: Additional HTTP Status Codes (429 Too Many Requests) (IETF / RFC Editor): Defines status 429, the code sites send when you make too many requests.
Editorial note: Proxy providers change their pools, features and prices often, so treat any figures here as typical ranges at the time of writing and confirm current terms with the provider before you buy.