In proxy pricing, bandwidth is the total amount of data transferred through your proxy connection, usually counted in gigabytes (GB). Every page, image, script, and file you load through the proxy adds to that total. On plans billed by usage, this number sets your cost, so heavier pages and repeated requests cost more.

Per-GB billing can make costs unpredictable for high-traffic workloads, since usage naturally fluctuates with scraping volume, page sizes, and how many retries a task requires. Unlimited-bandwidth plans (common in flat-rate datacenter proxy pricing) trade that unpredictability for a fixed monthly cost, which is generally easier to budget for continuous, high-volume automation.

A single page load rarely means a single request. Images, scripts, and background API calls loaded alongside it typically add up to several times the raw page size, which is why bandwidth use often runs higher than a simple request count would suggest.

Bandwidth as Data Volume vs. Speed

  • Networking meaning: In general networking, bandwidth is how much data a connection can carry per second. It is measured in bits per second, such as Mbps or Gbps.
  • Pricing meaning: In proxy plans, bandwidth means the total volume of data moved, counted in bytes, such as GB.
  • Mind the units: A byte is 8 bits. A 100 Mbps connection moves at most 12.5 MB per second, not 100 MB.

Measuring and Reducing Data Use

  • Measure a sample: In Chrome DevTools, the Network panel's Size column shows response headers plus body as delivered, and the status bar totals the transferred size of logged requests. You can export the log as a HAR file for review.
  • Accept compression: Send Accept-Encoding: gzip, br. The server compresses text responses and names the method in Content-Encoding. Images, audio, and video are already compressed, so this mainly shrinks HTML, JSON, CSS, and JavaScript.
  • Load only what you need: Request the HTML page or API endpoint that holds your data, and block images and media in headless browsers when you do not need them.