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Pricing & billing
How much does PacketStream cost?
$1.00 per GB for residential proxy traffic at every volume, as of October 2026. Rotating and sticky sessions cost the same. The minimum purchase is $50, there is no subscription, and purchased balance never expires. The Search and Fetch APIs cost $0.0025 per successful call ($2.50 per 1,000) from the same balance. Worked examples: PacketStream pricing.
Does PacketStream balance expire?
No. The terms of service say purchased account balance “does not expire merely because time passes”, and the pricing page says “nothing renews, nothing expires”. Unused gigabytes stay on the account until you need them.
Does PacketStream have a free trial?
You can request free trial credits on PacketStream’s free-trial page. The credits are discretionary: a person reviews your use case first.
Can I get a refund from PacketStream?
Yes, for the remaining balance, if you ask support within 24 hours of purchase. Eligibility is subject to applicable law, payment settlement and the balance left. See refunds, trial credits and payment.
How can I pay for PacketStream?
By credit or debit card (processed by Stripe) or PayPal, in US dollars. Bank transfer is available by approval for larger purchases.
Product & setup
Does PacketStream support SOCKS5?
Yes. The gateway proxy.packetstream.io accepts SOCKS5 on port 31113, an HTTPS proxy on 31111 (recommended) and a plain HTTP proxy on 31112 (legacy). Some 2026 reviews claim there is no SOCKS5; the official docs say otherwise. See the setup guide.
How does PacketStream country targeting work?
Append an ISO two-letter country code to the auth key, for example AUTH_KEY_country-US; the host and port stay the same. If no exit is available in that country, the request fails rather than exiting somewhere else. The dashboard’s Proxy Access page can generate the key with the right suffix. Details: country targeting.
How long do PacketStream sticky sessions last?
A session label (_session-yourlabel) keeps the same residential exit with a rolling 60-minute inactivity timeout, at no extra cost. Each new connection restarts the timer, so an active session can last longer than an hour. If the person sharing that IP disconnects, the session fails instead of silently switching IP. Details: sticky sessions and country targeting.
Search, Fetch & MCP APIs
What is the PacketStream Search API?
A Google results API at https://api.packetstream.io/v1/search. It covers web, news, shopping, places, autocomplete, Scholar and AI Mode, returns JSON or Markdown, and costs $0.0025 per successful search; failed requests are free. See the Search API section.
What does the PacketStream Fetch API do?
It reads one public page live through PacketStream’s residential network and returns its main content as clean Markdown, with the final URL, HTTP status, title and description. Each fetch that returns content costs $0.0025, and every error is free, including the target site’s own errors. See the Fetch API section.
How do I use PacketStream with Claude Code or Cursor?
PacketStream runs a remote MCP server at https://api.packetstream.io/v1/mcp with two tools, packetstream_search and packetstream_fetch, authenticated by a Bearer API key. Each successful tool call costs $0.0025. Exact configs for Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, VS Code and Claude Desktop are on the API page.
Trust & bandwidth sharing
Is PacketStream legit?
Yes. PacketStream Inc. is a US company founded in 2018, with public pricing, terms of service (governed by California law) and detailed documentation. Its bandwidth-sharing program is opt-in, and Synthient rates its consent practices as low risk. Full assessment: is PacketStream legit?
Can you earn money with PacketStream?
Yes. Sharers (“Packeters”) earn $0.10 per GB of their bandwidth that is used, and cash out via PayPal from $5, processed weekly, minus a 3% fee and PayPal’s own fees. Earnings depend on how much of your bandwidth customers use. See the bandwidth-sharing review.
Alternatives
What are the alternatives to PacketStream?
The alternatives page covers Bright Data, Decodo, Evomi, IPRoyal, Oxylabs, Rayobyte, SOAX and Webshare, each matched to the use case it fits and each with a note on when PacketStream is the better choice. Head-to-head pages start with PacketStream vs Evomi.