The gateway is the operating layer, not the pool size
Pool-size claims describe inventory. They say nothing about the route picked for your target at the time you run the job. Five things sit between the headline number and a working response: exit inventory, authentication, routing policy, session assignment, and usage accounting.
The gateway checks credentials, applies plan and country rules, picks an eligible exit, forwards the request, and writes a log row. That last part is where the useful truth lives.
Plan tokens route to different exit tiers
On the Proxynade pool, the routing tier travels in the expanded username: base user, a required plan token, an optional country code, and an optional rotation window.
http://proxynade.net:2555
username: rt97db6958d9-plan-volume-country-us-lifetime-30
password: <your-password>The plan token selects which exit tier handles the request. Volume residential is $0.89/GB. Premium residential is $5.00/GB. Datacenter skips the lifetime token entirely and bills at the datacenter rate. Static ISP proxies are pay-per-IP with unlimited bandwidth. Every byte that crosses the gateway counts toward the bill regardless of whether the scraper accepted the response.
| Token | Exit type | Rate |
|---|---|---|
volume | Volume residential | $0.89/GB |
premium | Premium residential | $5.00/GB |
datacenter | Datacenter | Datacenter rate, no lifetime token |
The usable pool is always a subset
Country filter, session mode, target blocking behavior, IP reputation, and time of day all cut the eligible set before a request lands. The headline number is the full inventory. The usable slice for one target in one country on one plan is always smaller, sometimes by a small margin and sometimes by a painful one.
Residential is the most variable tier: more ISP context, more country inventory gaps, and exits that were clean yesterday are blocked today. Datacenter is consistent and fast but classified immediately by most commercial targets. Static ISP splits the difference when the same IP-assigned identity needs to hold for an extended run.
The check that actually answers the question is one authenticated request against the real target, not an IP-lookup tool and not a pool size on a sales page.
Usage logs catch what the app misses
A scraper can save zero rows after a 403, a redirect loop, or a page it discards, while metered bytes still climb because traffic crossed the gateway. App-level counters track accepted rows. The dashboard network logs track host, outcome, latency, and byte totals for every request the gateway handled.
When bytes rise faster than accepted rows, check the usage logs before anything else. A 429 storm, a wrong-geo redirect, or a soft block that returns 200 but empty HTML all show up in bytes before they show up in the scraper output.
Logs export as CSV from the dashboard. The columns include host, plan, outcome status, latency in milliseconds, and bytes transferred. Sorting by bytes descending finds the expensive failures first.
Test one route before scaling
Running one route against the real target before scaling is the only step that answers the actual question. Scale only amplifies whatever the single-route result already showed. If the result is clean, scaling works. If it is not, scaling hides which part failed and makes the usage log harder to read.
The Proxynade dashboard generates connection lines with the correct username format for each plan. Copy one, run it against the target, check the outcome in the network log, then decide whether to add concurrency or switch tiers.
Proxy pool FAQ
What actually sits behind a proxy gateway? Exit inventory, an authentication layer, routing policy, session assignment logic, and a usage logger. The gateway checks credentials, applies plan and country rules, picks an eligible exit, forwards the request, and writes a log row.
Why is the usable pool smaller than the advertised size? Country filter, session mode, target blocking behavior, IP reputation, and time of day all cut the eligible set before a request is served. The headline number is the full inventory; the usable slice for your specific target and country is always a subset.
What does the plan token in the Proxynade username do? It selects which routing tier handles the request. Volume residential ($0.89/GB), premium residential ($5.00/GB), and datacenter each go to different exit pools. The token sits in the expanded username alongside optional country and lifetime tokens.
Why do metered bytes climb even when the scraper saves nothing? The gateway meters every byte that crosses it, including 403 responses, redirect chains, and pages the scraper discards. App-level counters only count rows the code accepted; usage logs show what the gateway actually forwarded.