People often ask us whether a static residential IP or a rotating residential proxy is better. It depends on what you're using it for and how long each session needs to last.
Both send your traffic out through addresses assigned by home broadband providers. The difference is whether that address changes. A static residential IP stays the same for a long stretch once it's assigned to you. A rotating proxy draws from a pool, so your exit can change with every request, every few minutes, or every new session.
When static makes sense#
Say a team of three or four logs in to an overseas supplier portal every day to process orders and pull reports. The portal records where each login comes from. If one day it's Tokyo and the next it's Osaka, expect more security prompts and verification codes, and more time lost to them. Work like this needs to come from the same place every time, which is what a static residential IP gives you.
Other examples: regularly checking how your own site or product pages look from a particular region, testing an API that only accepts allowlisted source addresses, or several devices sharing one fixed line. These tasks run for a long time, and the exit is better left alone.
Static doesn't mean permanent, though. A carrier can reassign address blocks, and maintenance can move you to a new exit. When you compare providers, ask two things: will they tell you before an address changes, and will your subscription update automatically when it does?
When rotating makes sense#
Now suppose you want to see how one public page looks from twenty different cities, or you're running an authorized data collection job where each request stands on its own. A single fixed exit gets in the way here. A rotating pool sends each request out from a different place and covers far more ground.
Many rotating services offer sticky sessions, which hold the same exit for anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour or so. That helps when a short sequence of steps has to stay consistent. The address is still borrowed from the pool, and it changes once the session expires or you reconnect. If you need the same exit for months, a sticky session won't get you there.
They're billed differently#
Static residential IPs usually come in plans with a set amount of traffic, bandwidth and exits, so the monthly cost is predictable. Rotating proxies are mostly billed by traffic or request volume: the more you use, the more you pay.
So comparing unit prices only goes so far. A team that uses the connection steadily every day will find a plan easier to budget for. If you only run batch jobs a few days a month, pay-as-you-go may cost less. Running last month's actual usage through each pricing model tells you more than the list prices do.
If you need both#
Plenty of teams need both. Staff log in to back-office systems through a fixed exit every day, while marketing occasionally checks how pages render across regions. Split the two workloads and give each its own setup. One kind of proxy doesn't have to handle everything.
Whichever you use, the destination site's rules still apply. Rate limits and account terms stay the same when your exit changes.
If you're still comparing exit types, read about residential vs. data center IPs next, or see how we provide static residential exits on the PPVPN static residential IP service page.