Hey! We've got a ton of expertise on this topic, and I'll try to briefly answer your main questions in simple, straightforward language.
1. Profitability of a small 4G proxy farm
Yes, even renting out one proxy access can be profitable. That's a fact. I personally had experience renting out a couple of my proxies at the start of our project, and it was beneficial. Here are a few tips to increase your income:
- Spend time choosing a mobile carrier plan, as mobile internet payment is your main expense. On the other hand, the quality of mobile internet guarantees the quality of your proxies. By the way, some mobile carriers don't provide dynamic IPs, so make sure to check this out.
- Invest time in finding multiple sales channels. Don't stick to just one forum. Experiment and pick one channel that is technically convenient for you and brings the nicest clients (in every sense).
- Be cautious when offering people free trial access. There are many who will just use your free hours and disappear forever.
- Organize your work to reward long-term, big clients. Offer them discounts, be kind to them, monitor proxy uptime. Your ideal scenario is having one steady client per 4G device. Then you won't need to spend time dealing with new clients, etc.
2. Risks of selling proxies
The risk lies in the fact that the mobile operator's SIM cards are personally linked to you. Whatever the buyer does online will be associated with
your SIM card.
Here's what I strongly recommend:
- Inform the buyer that you keep proxy logs and prohibit illegal activities (of course, you really should keep these logs or use a service that does it for you).
- Ask the buyer to provide some personal information. Ideally, you could sign a proxy sales agreement with them.
- Keep a sales history of your proxies - who bought them, from which device, and during which period.
If anything, we have an in-house lawyer we hired partly to ensure the security of proxy farmers using our service. Even if you're setting up proxies not through us but via dongles or something else, feel free to DM me with any complex issues; we're happy to share our experience. Plus, we have security and sales advice articles on our site, including various proxy sales agreement templates.
I'm afraid you're mistaken. That's true for residential router IPs. But we're talking about 4G IPs here, which are dynamic. No site would ever block the entire IP pool from a
whole mobile tower.