Sticky Proxies

How sticky proxies work

A sticky proxy is a delivery method that does the opposite of rotation: instead of changing the exit IP on every request, it pins one IP to your session and keeps it for the duration of that session. You connect to the gateway, a session is established, and every request you send through it leaves from the same address until the session ends. To the website you are visiting, this looks exactly like a single real person browsing on one home or mobile connection, which is what many multi-step and account-based tasks require.

Under the hood you are still drawing from the same 100M+ pool. The difference is simply how long the gateway holds an IP for you. A rotating request grabs a fresh IP and lets it go. A sticky session reserves one IP and reuses it. When you finish, that IP returns to the pool and a new session can pick up a different one. This gives you a stable identity for the length of a task without locking you to any single permanent address.

What sticky proxies are best for

Sticky is the method whenever a job is stateful, meaning later requests depend on earlier ones. Logins and authenticated sessions are the headline case: most sites bind a login to the IP it came from, so changing IP mid-session logs you out or triggers a verification challenge. Account management at scale relies on each account keeping a consistent location across visits. Multi-step flows such as filling forms, building a cart and checking out need every step to arrive from the same place. AI agents are the newest and fastest-growing case: an agent that browses, logs in and completes a workflow needs one IP for the whole run so the site treats the entire task as a single coherent session rather than dozens of disconnected visitors.

The common thread is continuity. If your task carries state from one request to the next, a stable IP protects that state. Switching addresses partway through would look suspicious and often break the flow.

Sticky vs rotating: when to use which

The opposite delivery method is the rotating proxy, which hands you a new IP on every request. The two methods solve different problems, and most serious projects use both.

Reach for sticky when a task spans several requests that must come from one consistent IP: logging into and managing accounts, multi-step checkouts and forms, or running an AI agent through a workflow where switching IPs mid-task would break the session or trigger a security review. Reach for rotating when each request is independent and you want maximum spread across the pool: bulk scraping, search results, price feeds and ad checks. A rough rule: if changing IP between two requests would break the task, you want sticky; if it would not, rotating is faster and lighter on the target. Both methods are included in the same plan and use the same gateway, so you can mix them per job without switching vendors.

One pool, every IP type

Sticky is the method. The IP type is a separate choice, and all four can be pinned to a session through the same gateway. Residential and mobile IPs are real consumer addresses that pass the strict anti-bot and anti-fraud checks common on login and account systems, with mobile being the hardest of all to detect. Datacenter IPs are the fastest when a target tolerates them. IPv6 offers a huge address space with the widest IP spread. Every type lives in one plan at one price, so you never pay more for one over another; you just switch the gateway port to match the IP to the target and keep the session steady. The four cards below link to each sticky type in detail.