Quick answer
What is a good self-serve Bright Data alternative for developers?
CrawlRelay is a self-serve Bright Data alternative for developers who cannot pass company KYC: rotating residential proxies at $1.50 for 1 GB and $0.50/GB from 50 GB, as of October 2026, with targeting and sessions in the username and traffic that never expires. Bright Data's Residential network requires company KYC for zones created after July 7, 2026. Paid in crypto, with no KYC.
Key facts (as of October 2026)
| Bright Data Residential access | Company KYC with human review for zones created after July 7, 2026; personal email accounts cannot be approved |
|---|---|
| Bright Data without that review | ISP, datacenter and Web Unlocker products |
| Bright Data mobile proxies | Discontinued in April 2026, per Proxyway's 2026 market research |
| CrawlRelay residential | $1.50 for 1 GB; $0.50/GB from 50 GB to 1 TB; never expires |
| CrawlRelay sign-up | Account-number login; email is optional; no ID, no selfie, no company documents |
| CrawlRelay payment | Crypto only: BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC, from a $25 top-up |
What changed at Bright Data in July 2026?
Since July 7, 2026, new Bright Data Residential zones are open to verified companies only, after a KYC review by a person, and accounts registered with a personal email address cannot be approved, according to its network-access documentation, read on 5 October 2026. It also says there is no automatic, instant or self-serve path to the Residential network.
The rule does not cover everything Bright Data sells: its ISP, datacenter and Web Unlocker products stay available without that review. The same documentation states that government websites are blocked across all its networks.
Bright Data vs CrawlRelay for a scraping developer
| Bright Data | CrawlRelay | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can buy residential | Verified companies (zones created after July 7, 2026) | Anyone who accepts the Acceptable Use Policy |
| Identity checks | Company KYC, human review | None: no ID, no selfie, no documents |
| Payment | See their billing page | Crypto only: BTC, USDT, USDC, ETH, SOL, LTC |
| Residential price | See their pricing page (not readable from our test location on 2026-10-13) | $1.50 for 1 GB; $0.50/GB from 50 GB |
| Traffic expiry | Check their terms | Never expires |
| Mobile proxies | Discontinued April 2026 | Rotating 4G/5G per GB from $1.50/GB |
| Scraping APIs, unblocker, datasets | Yes | No: proxies and documentation only |
| Blocked targets | Government websites on all networks | Banking, government and payment-portal sites, plus SMTP (email-sending) ports 25, 465 and 587 |
Prices checked on
Bright Data facts from its documentation (2026-10-05) and Proxyway's Proxy Market Research 2026. Prices change; check both pages before you decide.
Who should stay with Bright Data?
Registered companies that already passed its review and use what CrawlRelay does not sell: the Web Unlocker, scraping APIs, ready-made datasets, ISP or datacenter IPs, invoices and card billing, or compliance paperwork for procurement. For those teams, switching proxy networks saves little.
The teams that gain from moving are the ones the July 2026 rule leaves out, or that only need raw residential traffic: individual developers, researchers, students, open-source projects and small agencies without a company email domain.
How do I move a scraper from Bright Data to CrawlRelay?
Only the proxy URL changes. Bright Data usernames follow the pattern brd-customer-<id>-zone-<zone> with suffixes such as -country-us and -session-<id>; CrawlRelay uses the same idea with a shorter base.
Top up and buy traffic
Top up from $25 in crypto, then buy 10 GB ($5.94) to test your targets.
Swap host, port and credentials
Use
gw.crawlrelay.com:7777(or 7778 for SOCKS5) and the username and password from your dashboard.Map the targeting suffix
-country-usstays-country-us; add-city-, in the US-state-or-zip-, and-asn-for an internet provider. Sessions become-session-<id>-ttl-<minutes>, up to 30 minutes.Re-check rates per target
Run 500 URLs per target and compare usable responses. Adjust per-host concurrency with the concurrency guide.
# Before: Bright Data (illustrative placeholders)
# proxy = "http://brd-customer-<id>-zone-<zone>-country-us:<password>@<bright-data-host>:<port>"
# After: CrawlRelay
proxy = "http://USERNAME-country-us:[email protected]:7777"
proxies = {"http": proxy, "https": proxy}What are the limits of CrawlRelay compared with Bright Data?
- No unblocker or scraping API. You run your own client or browser; we provide the network and the docs.
- No independent benchmark yet. Bright Data and others have been tested by third parties; CrawlRelay has not. Test on your targets with the 1 GB plan.
- Crypto only. No card, invoice or wire payment.
- No ISP or datacenter IPs. CrawlRelay sells rotating residential and rotating mobile traffic per GB.
- Same rules on use. No KYC does not mean no rules: the Acceptable Use Policy applies, and abuse leads to suspension.
Bright Data alternative: questions
Can I still use Bright Data residential proxies without a company?
Not for new Residential zones. Bright Data's documentation says zones created after July 7, 2026 are for verified companies only and that personal email accounts cannot be approved. Its ISP, datacenter and Web Unlocker products remain available without that review. CrawlRelay sells residential proxies with no company check and no ID.
Is CrawlRelay cheaper than Bright Data?
We could not read Bright Data's pricing page from our test location on 13 October 2026, so we do not print a figure for it. CrawlRelay costs $1.50 for 1 GB and $0.50/GB from 50 GB, and the price comparison shows 15 providers with dated sources.
Does Bright Data still sell mobile proxies?
No. Proxyway's Proxy Market Research 2026 reports that Bright Data discontinued its mobile proxy product in April 2026. CrawlRelay sells rotating 4G/5G mobile traffic per GB from $1.50/GB (from 5 GB), for checks of what phone users see.
Will my Bright Data code work with CrawlRelay?
Yes, with a new proxy URL. Both services take targeting and sessions in the username of a standard HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy, so Python, Node.js, Scrapy, Playwright and Puppeteer code keeps working once the host, port, username and password change. Bright Data-specific APIs, such as its unblocker, have no equivalent here.
Why do you not require KYC when Bright Data does?
CrawlRelay screens by usage instead of identity documents: a published Acceptable Use Policy, blocked categories (Banking, government and payment-portal sites, plus SMTP (email-sending) ports 25, 465 and 587), an abuse desk and suspension of abusers. Many developers cannot or will not upload company papers to buy a few gigabytes; the rules on use still apply to them.
Sources (3)
- Residential network access docs.brightdata.com/products/residential/network-access — Bright Data (2026-10-05)
- Proxy Market Research 2026 — Proxyway (2026-05-28)
- Residential proxy price per GB: 15 providers compared — CrawlRelay (2026-10-13)
Residential proxies without a company check
$1.50 for 1 GB, $0.50/GB from 50 GB.