Bright Data officially announced on March 9, 2026 the expansion of its residential proxy network to over 200 million IP addresses — the largest residential proxy pool publicly confirmed by any provider to date.
The expansion includes new geo-targeting capabilities at the city and ZIP code level across 195 countries, making it the most precise residential proxy network available for scraping, ad verification, and competitive intelligence use cases.
Bright Data Residential Proxy Network: New AI-Powered Scraping Infrastructure
Alongside the network expansion, Bright Data introduced its new AI Scraping Assistant — a tool that auto-generates scraping scripts based on a target URL and the data fields a user wants to extract.
The assistant handles dynamic JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHAs, and browser fingerprinting automatically, significantly lowering the technical barrier for non-developers to extract structured web data. Support for Python, Node.js, and no-code integrations is included at launch.
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Pricing and Plan Changes for 2026
Bright Data has updated its pricing structure for 2026, introducing a pay-as-you-go model at $10.50 per GB for residential proxies, alongside revised subscription tiers starting at $500/month for the Growth plan.
A new Starter plan at $99/month with 8 GB included has been introduced to accommodate small teams and independent researchers who previously could not justify entry-level pricing. API access is now included across all paid plans.
Who Should Consider Bright Data in 2026
For businesses running large-scale data collection operations — including e-commerce price monitoring, market research, travel aggregation, and SEO competitor analysis — Bright Data remains the premium choice.
Its combination of scale, geolocation precision, and new AI tooling puts it ahead of competitors like Oxylabs and Smartproxy for enterprise workloads.
However, for budget-conscious teams, newer players continue to offer compelling value at lower price points.
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