- Usage depends on page weight, not on the number of requests
- A page without images weighs 5–10 times less than the full page
- Video and auto-loading feeds are the main traffic eaters on social media
- Only a measurement on your own task gives an exact figure: start with a small volume
Proxies billed by traffic count the volume of data, not the number of requests. So the question "how many gigabytes do I need" has no answer without a second question: what exactly you load and how. The same thousand pages can cost a hundred megabytes or three gigabytes.
What usage is made of
A request and a response go through the proxy. The request weighs little: hundreds of bytes. Almost all of the volume comes from the site's response: HTML, images, styles, scripts, fonts, video. A browser loads all of it automatically; a scraper loads only what you asked for.
How much one action weighs
The figures below are reference points. For a specific site they can differ several times over, so it is better to measure your own task.
| What you load | Approximate weight | Per 1000 actions |
|---|---|---|
| API response or HTML only | about 0.1 MB | about 0.1 GB |
| Search results page | about 0.3 MB | about 0.3 GB |
| Page without images | about 0.5 MB | about 0.5 GB |
| Full page with images | about 2.5 MB | about 2.5 GB |
| Social media feed, 10 minutes without video | about 30 MB | — |
Three typical tasks
Price monitoring. 5000 product pages once a day without images is about 2.5 GB a day, 75 GB a month. If the site serves prices through an API, the same volume fits into 15 GB.
Rank tracking. 2000 queries a day, one results page each, is about 0.6 GB a day, 18 GB a month.
Running accounts. Ten accounts for 20 minutes a day without video is about 0.6 GB a day. With video watching, usage grows several times over: a minute of video can weigh more than an hour of a text feed.
How to measure the weight of your page
- Open the page in a browser and turn on the developer tools, the "Network" tab.
- Reload the page and look at the total at the bottom: how much was transferred.
- Disable the cache in the same tab, otherwise the figure will be too low.
- If you work with a scraper, look at the response size in its logs: that is the real usage.
How to cut usage
- Do not load images and video if you do not need them. In automation browsers this is done by blocking resource types.
- Take data from the API when there is one: the response is tens of times lighter than a page.
- Do not request the same thing twice: save what you have received.
- Do not turn off compression: most libraries enable it by default.
- Turn off video autoplay in profiles for social media.
Which proxy type to choose for your volume
For large volumes of open data, start with datacenter proxies: they have the lowest price per gigabyte and the highest speed. If the site responds with a CAPTCHA or refusals, first lower the request rate, then switch to residential. Accounts on social media need little traffic, and mobile proxies are chosen there more often.
Where to start
How not to spend too much
A bug in a script can use up the whole plan overnight: a loop repeats requests or downloads video. Prokso has two safeguards against this in the plan settings:
- Traffic limit - how many gigabytes the plan can spend per hour, day, week or 30 days. Once the limit is reached, the plan is paused and you get a notification.
- Blocked sites - a list of addresses that traffic will not go to at all. Handy for cutting off heavy video sites or ad domains.
Usage by day and by site is visible in the plan statistics: this makes it easy to find where the gigabytes went.
How to estimate the volume in advance
For a first estimate, use the traffic calculator: choose what you are loading, how many actions per day and for how many days - it will calculate the approximate volume and cost. Then compare it with the actual usage over the first days of work and top up as much as you need.
Do not try to guess the volume a month ahead. Buy a small volume, work for a day or two and look at the real usage in the plan statistics. At Prokso, purchased gigabytes never expire, so the reserve will not be lost, and you can buy more at any time. Prices are on the pricing page.
FAQ
How many gigabytes do 1000 pages take?
If you fetch only the HTML, about 0.1–0.5 GB. If you load full pages with images, 2–3 GB. A measurement on your site will show it more precisely.
Is traffic counted if the request ended with an error?
Yes, everything that passed through the proxy is counted. But an error response usually weighs just a few kilobytes.
Why is my traffic used up faster than I expected?
Most often because of images, video and scripts that the browser loads along with the page, and because of repeated requests.
Can I limit traffic usage?
Yes. In the plan settings, set a limit per hour, day, week or 30 days: when it is reached, the plan is paused and you get a notification.
Where can I see which sites the traffic went to?
In the plan statistics in the dashboard: it shows usage by day and a log of requests to sites.
