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Traffic accounting

Which bytes count, which don't, how the billing multiplier applies, and why your own numbers differ from the platform's.

This matters for the per-gigabyte line (dynamic residential). The accounting is described down to the byte so you can reconcile.

The rule in one sentence

Counted

  • Every byte inside the tunnel once CONNECT succeeds — TLS handshake records, HTTP headers, request bodies, response bodies
  • The reconstructed request line and headers in ordinary HTTP forward mode
  • Chunked body wire framing (including the chunk-length markers)
  • Both upload and download

Not counted

  • The CONNECT request line and headers you send to the gateway
  • The HTTP/1.1 200 Connection Established the gateway sends back
  • SOCKS5 greeting, authentication sub-negotiation, CONNECT request and reply
  • The CONNECT / SOCKS handshake between gateway and exit
  • TCP / IP / Ethernet packet headers

What one HTTPS request actually costs

Visiting an HTTPS page, the billed bytes break down roughly like this:

PartTypical sizeBilled
Client-to-gateway CONNECT request~200 BNo
The gateway's 200 response~40 BNo
TLS ClientHello / ServerHello / certificate / Finished3–6 KBYes
HTTP request headers (encrypted)0.5–2 KBYes
HTTP response headers0.5–2 KBYes
Response bodyDependsYes

So "an API call returning a few dozen bytes of JSON" actually bills around 5–10 KB, most of it TLS handshake. Reuse connections for this kind of workload.

The billing multiplier

Raw bytes are multiplied by a product multiplier before being deducted from your balance. The multiplier is expressed in parts per million (PPM), and the accumulated value is floored.

text
billed bytes = floor(accumulated raw bytes × multiplier ÷ 1,000,000)

A multiplier of 1,000,000 is 1:1. Check the product description or the console's product detail for the actual value.

Settlement and statistical dimensions

Daily aggregates settle on Beijing-time calendar days. Keep that in mind when reconciling across timezones — your UTC-based daily consumption will differ from the platform's by several hours' worth.

The dimensions available in usage statistics are covered in Usage statistics.

Hourly and hourly-per-domain detail is retained for 60 days, after which only daily aggregates remain. Export regularly if you need longer retention.

Why your numbers don't match the platform's

When your own byte counting disagrees with the platform's, it's nearly always one of these:

Your countingPlatform countingDifference
Response body onlyTLS handshake + request headers + response headers + body5–10 KB more per connection
Decompressed sizeActual bytes on the wire (compressed)Platform's number is smaller
Successful requests onlyEvery byte written to the socket, including partial responses of failed requestsPlatform's number is larger
Days split by UTCDays split by Beijing timeAn 8-hour boundary offset
Retries excludedEvery retry countedPlatform's number is larger

Reducing traffic

Ordered by impact:

Make sure compression is on

shell
curl -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br' ...

HTML / JSON / CSS / JS typically compress 60–80%. This is the biggest single saving.

Block images and fonts in browser automation

python
# Playwright
def block_heavy(route):
    if route.request.resource_type in {"image", "media", "font"}:
        route.abort()
    else:
        route.continue_()

context.route("**/*", block_heavy)

Images and fonts routinely account for 60–80% of a modern page's first-paint traffic.

Reuse connections

Each new HTTPS connection carries 3–6 KB of TLS handshake overhead. With dense request patterns, reuse saves a meaningful amount.

Note this conflicts with rotating IPs — handshake overhead is the cost of changing IP. The compromise is reusing connections within a sticky session and only rotating when necessary.

Probe with HEAD

Use HEAD instead of GET when you only need to know whether a resource exists or want the headers:

shell
curl -I -x 'http://USER-country-US:PASS@GATEWAY_HOST:58971' https://example.com/large-file

Don't fetch pages you don't need

Obvious, but in practice the largest waste is usually crawling a whole site and using a small fraction of it. Decide what you actually need first.

Per-IP product lines don't consume traffic

Static residential, datacenter and unlimited residential never deduct from the traffic pool.

Unlimited residential has two billing modes: the port edition charges by port count × validity period with a 6 Mbps aggregate cap per endpoint; the bandwidth edition charges by account-wide aggregate bandwidth × validity period. Neither edition deducts gigabytes.

How long a balance lasts

Dynamic residential traffic accumulates into the pool on purchase. In the current implementation there is no code-level automatic expiry or forfeiture — the balance is not zeroed out by the passage of time.

How long a quote lasts

Dynamic residential quotes are valid for 5 minutes by default, shortened further if a promotion ends or the product is delisted sooner.

So a flow of "get a quote → show the user → the user deliberates for ten minutes → place the order" will fail. Either shorten the decision window or re-quote before ordering.

Unpaid orders

Expire after 30 minutes by default, with inventory automatically returned. Stripe checkout links are retained for 30 days.

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