No-KYC proxy providers compared: what each asks for at sign-up and payment
What seven proxy providers and GhostConnect ask for at sign-up, which payments and coins they take, whether a trial needs verification, and what their privacy policies say they keep.
"KYC" at a proxy provider means someone checks who you are before you can use the network: a passport scan, a selfie, a company registration document, sometimes a video call. Some providers require it for every customer, some only for residential IPs, some only when you pay in crypto, and some never mention it. This post collects, for seven providers and GhostConnect, what their own pages say you hand over at sign-up, how you can pay and in which coins, whether a trial needs verification, and what their privacy policies say they keep.
How this was checked
Every statement about another provider comes from that provider's own site, fetched on 2026-10-24: the pricing page, the privacy policy and, where one exists, the KYC page. Where a page did not say, the cell says so; nothing is filled in from memory or from reviews. Providers are alphabetical, GhostConnect in its place, because "how much identity a provider wants" has no honest single score. NetNut was on the list but its pages did not load as product pages on 2026-10-24, so it is left out. GhostConnect's facts come from its privacy page and the configuration the order form reads.
What you hand over to open an account
| Provider | Collected at sign-up, as its pages say | Identity or business verification | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | Privacy policy: "your IP address, your name and email address, identifying documents (driver license/ID/passport), office/home address, screen name, payment and billing information". | Residential and mobile need KYC: a business and use-case form plus a company registration document, possibly a government ID and a video call. Residential access "is granted only to registered companies" with a corporate email domain. Datacenter, ISP and Web Unlocker: "None of them require KYC". | 2026-10-24 |
| Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) | "your username and email address which are necessary to create your account"; the email is verified after sign-up. Name, company, tax code and billing address for payment. | Through Stripe, which "collects your government-issued ID document images and a selfie photograph"; company verification "as an alternative method". The policy says "where required" and not when. | 2026-10-24 |
| GhostConnect | Nothing. The account is one random 32-character key, shown once. Never collected: name, email, phone, postal address, identity documents, date of birth. | None, on any product. | 2026-10-24 |
| IPRoyal | "Our verification process begins at the moment of registration." Privacy policy: name, date of birth, email, physical address, a valid phone number, country of residence, company name for a legal entity. | "Identity verification ensures unrestricted access to all our services and features", through iDenfy; the company "does not collect or store copies of identity documents or biometric data". | 2026-10-24 |
| Oxylabs | Privacy policy: "name, surname, email address", "phone number, address, company name, industry", last four card digits. | "Every customer has to answer a KYC questionnaire to get access to our solutions": registered company name, industry, date of incorporation, phone, email, registered address, business model, planned use case, "Necessary documentation". | 2026-10-24 |
| Proxy-Seller | "During the creation of your account on our Website, you provide us with your email address." | "We may verify your identity by asking you to submit scan copies of your documents." KYC is required for affiliates and for "certain restricted resources or ports"; nothing says it is required for an ordinary purchase. | 2026-10-24 |
| SOAX | Registration: "name and surname; email address; phone number; business address (where applicable)", "identification document data (where required)". | Two SOAX pages differ. The KYC policy: "Identity verification is a condition of access to the paid Platform", before purchase. The help centre: it "is only needed if you" pay with cryptocurrency or request restricted domains or ports. | 2026-10-24 |
| Webshare | "your name, account credentials, billing and payment information", "email and physical address, username and password". | "We use Stripe Identity for identity verification." Which customers are asked is not stated. A "brief KYC procedure" is mentioned only for unblocking restricted websites. | 2026-10-24 |
Three patterns. Bright Data and Oxylabs put a human review in front of the product, and Bright Data's residential network is for companies only. IPRoyal and SOAX run vendor verification from sign-up or at purchase. Decodo, Proxy-Seller and Webshare name an email as the one thing you must have. GhostConnect has no field for an identity to go in.
How you can pay
A payment method is itself identification: a card carries a name, PayPal an email and a name, a wire a bank account. This is what each provider's pages list, and which coins are named where crypto is taken.
| Provider | Cards | PayPal | Crypto, and which coins | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | Credit cards | Yes | Not listed | Payoneer, Alipay, Google Pay, wire transfers, Azure, AWS Marketplace |
| Decodo | Visa, Mastercard, Amex | Yes | Yes, "for all products except ISP proxies and datacenter proxies (Pay per IP option)"; coins not named | Alipay, Google Pay, Apple Pay, wallet credits; Paddle as merchant of record |
| GhostConnect | Card on Stripe's own page | No | 8 coins through the site's own processor: Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, BNB, Tron, Tether USDT, USD Coin | Balance deposits from $5.00; card payments from $5.00 |
| IPRoyal | Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex | Yes | "IPRoyal supports 25 cryptocurrencies", named on its payment page, among them Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tron, USDT and USDC | Alipay |
| Oxylabs | Payment cards | Yes | "We do not accept Bitcoins." | Wire transfers in dollars and euros, AliPay |
| Proxy-Seller | Visa, Mastercard | Yes | Bitcoin, USDT, USDC, BUSD, BNB, TRX, TON "and more" | Wire transfers through support |
| SOAX | "most major credit and debit cards" | Not listed | "crypto (after KYC)"; coins not named | Bank transfer "may be available for approved business accounts" |
| Webshare | Nine networks named, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB and UnionPay | Not listed | Not listed | Google Pay and Apple Pay on mobile |
All cells as the pages read on 2026-10-24. If crypto with no identity attached is the point, the table narrows: IPRoyal and Proxy-Seller take coins with no KYC step named on their pages, Decodo takes them on most products, SOAX after verification, and the rest do not list them. Of the coins GhostConnect takes, Monero is the one whose chain shows neither sender, receiver nor amount; the payment guide covers what each method leaves behind. A card paid on Stripe's page is still a card: Stripe sees it and may ask for an email for its receipt.
Trials, and what they ask for
As the pages read on 2026-10-24:
- Bright Data: "Start free trial" buttons; no length or credit stated. For residential IPs: "KYC is not available in Playground or Limited Trial modes" and "can be started only after adding real funds to the account balance".
- Decodo: "Enjoy 100 MB for 3 days, and after the trial period ends, your chosen plan will activate automatically". Needs an account with a verified email and a chosen plan.
- GhostConnect: no trial. The smallest orders are the test: 1 GB of residential for $2.99, a datacenter IP for seven days for $0.90, 100 rotating IPv6 threads for a week for $8.40, one ISP IP for a month for $5.00.
- IPRoyal: a "Start Free Trial" button on the residential page; terms not stated there.
- Oxylabs: "Every new account receives a one-time $5.00 welcome credit on registration." Whether the credit waits on the KYC questionnaire is not stated.
- Proxy-Seller: "A standard free trial is not available"; a proof of concept for enterprise teams on request; a residential test plan at $3.5 per GB, valid 30 days.
- SOAX: no trial; the Sandbox account is free to open with no card and you buy credits as you go.
- Webshare: "10 proxies for free", shared datacenter IPs with 1 GB a month, "No credit card required", and no end date.
What their privacy policies say they keep
Quoted from each policy as fetched on 2026-10-24.
Bright Data keeps the identifiers above, including identity documents and your IP address, "for as long as necessary to provide the Service", with no fixed periods, and "may record audio or video calls with you, in order to comply with User compliance evaluation requirements".
Decodo is specific about proxy traffic: "assigned proxy IP addresses, proxy protocol used (HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5), and target domain requested", not content, kept "for the duration of the active billing period plus a maximum of 90 days". Billing records seven years; account data two years after closure; identity verification results five years after the contract ends.
GhostConnect stores a SHA-256 hash of the key, an account number, the balance, invoices with the processor's reference, the proxies with their credentials, any source addresses you choose to allowlist, hashes of API keys, support messages and notifications. The network keeps "the destination it went to and the response status code it got back. Nothing else", and "The address you connect from is never logged, in any form, at any point in the chain." Idle support threads go 72 hours after the last reply, bandwidth history after 90 days, and deleting the account removes everything at once.
IPRoyal logs the "IP address of first or the last login", keeps log data "for at least 6 months", and account data for the relationship "and for at least 6 month period from the day the Account was terminated".
Oxylabs lists the identifiers above plus "usage data (such as access logs, activity history, preferences)", kept "for as long as necessary", communications up to five years. The policy does not describe proxy traffic logging.
Proxy-Seller holds your email, the IP addresses of visitors to its website, and may receive "your name, telephone number and shortened payment information (4 last digits of your card number)" from its payment provider. Analytics go after 24 months. The policy does not mention proxy traffic at all.
SOAX records "ingress and egress IP addresses", "traffic volume (in bytes)" and "target domain (hostname and/or IP address only)", not content, "for a limited period"; "certain communications metadata" up to two years where law requires; KYC data up to a year after deletion.
Webshare keeps name, credentials, billing data, email and physical address, log files with your IP address, and uses Stripe Identity. Its policy states no retention periods.
Where that leaves GhostConnect, honestly
The absence of an identity has a price. There is no password reset, because there is no email to send one to: lose the key and the account is gone. There is no PayPal, no trial, no free plan. Datacenter IPs come from 6 countries and ISP IPs from 7, where several providers above list far more; rotating IPv6 exits are in Canada only. GhostConnect sells no mobile proxies, which Bright Data, IPRoyal and SOAX do. Residential covers 195+ countries, but you will find no pool-size figure here because the product page makes none.
What you get is an account with nothing to leak. A worked first order: get a key, pay $2.99 in Monero for one gigabyte of residential bandwidth, and the database holds a hash of the key, one invoice with a processor reference, and one proxy with its credentials. No name, no email, no sign-up address, no document. A static address to test instead: $0.90 for a dedicated datacenter IP for a week, same list of records. The companion post walks through what a provider usually knows and what GhostConnect holds instead.
Pick the other provider when you need what it has: Bright Data's or Oxylabs' location lists and enterprise terms, IPRoyal's 25 coins and seven-day sticky sessions, Webshare's free plan, Decodo's trial, SOAX's mobile pool. Pick GhostConnect when the thing you are buying is the absence of a file.
Prices and policies change
Everything above was read on 2026-10-24. Providers rewrite pricing pages and privacy policies without notice. Follow the links for the current text, and treat every quoted cell as what the page said then, not a promise about now.