Rotating vs Sticky Sessions: Which Proxy Mode Should You Use?

By Marcus Reiner · 2026-02-08 · 7 min read · Engineering

Choose wrong and you'll either get blocked instantly or burn 10× the bandwidth. The full breakdown for 2026.

Rotating proxies, explained

Rotating proxies assign a new IP on every request (or every N requests). They're the default for high-volume scraping where each request is independent — search results, public product pages, sitemaps.

Sticky sessions, explained

Sticky sessions hold one IP for a configurable window (typically 1–30 minutes). You need them whenever the target site has session state — login flows, multi-step checkouts, paginated dashboards behind auth.

When to use which

Rotating: SERP scraping, public catalog pages, anything stateless. Sticky: account-based scraping, sneaker copping, social media management, anything that depends on cookies or CSRF tokens.

Pricing implications

Sticky sessions usually cost the same per GB but burn more bandwidth (you're often re-loading assets). Budget 2–3× the bandwidth vs rotating for equivalent workloads.