Many years ago I had a small proxy company which I hoped one day would make my fortune. Unfortunately it achieved little more than reducing both my bank balance and hair line! Believe me, running any sort of proxy or VPN company is not easy, it takes a lot of work, knowledge and persistence. Nowadays I use a lot of proxies but rely on companies to provide them. However I do now have an appreciation of how difficult it is to provide fast, secure and reliable servers to an often demanding clientele.
One of the major problems I found is distinguishing between different customers, who were largely split into two group. Firstly there were people who needed proxies for their online businesses of all types, from managing/promoting multiple social accounts, e-commerce, drop shipping and a thousand other variants. Secondly the group who were also making money but in slightly more dubious means – things like spamming and CPA manipulation. The problem was that the second group were often much harder to deal with.
Now I’m not making a moral judgement, basically as long as it’s legal and no-one gets robbed or hurt then I’m not particularly bothered. If some guy want to use proxies to buy multiple sneakers and resells them on eBay for three times the cost then good luck to him. The problem was basically how these two groups treated my servers during their activities. It is why I suspect that finding decent proxy companies who will let you try out their servers first is do difficult.
Finding a Rotating Proxies Trial
I used to do it, let potential customers who found my services online try out my servers for a few days or so to test. The thought was give them a quick trial to test my wonderful, fast and clean servers then they would become customers. Unfortunately many people looking for proxies don’t really intend on purchasing anything. What they want is a service they can abuse and absolutely hammer for nothing then move on to the next sucker. They make lots of money, incur no costs and leave the provider with all the issues.
Which is why many providers are extremely careful about free trials, if the wrong people get them they’ll destroy the IP addresses, overload the servers and cause all sorts of mayhem. Of course if you’re a potential customer, you just want to test them properly before you hand over your hard earned cash.
The problem from the customer’s standpoint – is that lots of proxies are completely useless for their business activities. For example I run a few Instagram accounts and if I try and manage them through blacklisted and overloaded servers – there’s only one result and it involves me crying and swearing. Basically the easiest way to lose a load of decent Instagram accounts is to fire up Jarvee loaded with a bunch of proxies with flagged IP addresses. The same happens with lots of platforms, all of whom are getting more and more ruthless at tracking and penalizing those of us who try and make an honest living online!
What’s more many adverts on proxy sites, promise one thing and deliver another. You have to be careful and handing over lots of cash before getting to try out the proxies is a risky business with many companies. Over the years I’ve been fobbed off with all sorts of rubbish from lots of companies, even supplying datacentre IPs on residential proxies for instance!
Try and Buy Proxies with Good Support
The best proxy companies make an effort to supply most of their customers with some sort of trial. You’ll often find that the length of the trial is dependent on which sort of proxies you need and the relative volume. No-one is going to let you loose with hundreds of valuable residential addresses as it’s perfectly possible to destroy them in a few hours !
There are different strategies to allowing tests and trials. Here’s a couple of options from the better proxy companies who I’ve learnt to trust.
Rotating Proxies – they offer a trial but at a small cost. This gives you a chance to try out their proxies for a decent time as long as you pay for them. The costs can vary however at the moment you can test 10 proxies for 48 hours for $4.99 which I think is entirely fair. You also state what you’re going to use them which is important as they can ensure you get the right type to suit your needs.
Storm Proxies – another long standing reputable provider, who allow you to test their proxies for 48 hours with a money back guarantee. This is a guarantee that I know for a fact that they will honor with argument so you’re safe to use them. Again it’s important to talk to your proxy provider to ensure you get the right service for your needs. Storm Proxies have loads of different dedicated servers and can hook you up with the right ones if you talk to them.
There are some who offer very time limited trials but they are often quite limited in scope. Luminati for example conduct a business review to check what you’re using the proxies for before you can test. Although it would be good to test for free, unfortunately the reality is that it’s free users who are more likely to abuse the services. It’s in everyone’s interest to adopt sensible trial and testing policies to ensure the servers and IP ranges are protected.