Glossary · Proxies
Proxy pool
A proxy pool is the set of exit IP addresses a proxy service can route your traffic through; each request or session draws an address from it, and the pool's size, address type and geographic spread decide how widely load can be spread and which locations you can appear in.
Reviewed 30 Oct 2026
What matters more than the headline size
- Depth where you need it. A large pool can still be thin in the one country or city your job targets.
- Address type. Residential, ISP, mobile and datacentre exits are treated differently by the same site; see residential proxy and ISP proxy.
- Sharing. Rotating pools are shared, so other customers' traffic passes through the same exits at other times.
- Results on your targets. Advertised IP counts are hard to verify from outside. Measuring success on your own pages is not.
Sizing a pool for a job
Work backwards from the target. If a site tolerates a modest number of requests per address per minute and you need a given throughput, you need at least throughput divided by that allowance in distinct exits in the right location — more if sticky sessions hold each exit for minutes.
Remember that RFC 6585 lets a server count requests however it likes. A pool spreads per-address counters; it does nothing for limits keyed on cookies or behaviour, covered under rate limiting.
ARC's pools
| Plan | Pool | Username token | Relative size |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARC Basic | Rotating ISP | _pool-arc | Smallest |
| ARC Fast | Rotating residential | _pool-arcfast | Between Basic and Ultra |
| ARC Ultra | Premium residential | _pool-arcultra | Largest |
| ARC Mobile | 4G/5G carrier | None — endpoints are generated | Four countries |
ARC does not publish an IP count. The ARC Starter package is one gigabyte of each rotating pool, so the same job can be run on all three and compared.
FAQ
Questions
Something not covered? Write to contact@arcproxies.io.
How big does a proxy pool need to be?
Big enough in the locations you target to keep each exit within what the site tolerates per address. Divide the throughput you need by the per-address request rate the target accepts; that is the minimum number of distinct exits, before allowing for sticky sessions.
Should I build my own proxy pool or use a managed one?
A self-managed list means health checks, removing dead exits and handling rotation in your code. A managed pool behind a backconnect gateway does that for you and exposes location and session choice as username tokens. Own lists make sense for a few fixed addresses; pools for anything that needs breadth.
Can I choose which pool my traffic uses?
On ARC, yes: the _pool- token selects ARC Basic, ARC Fast or ARC Ultra on the same gateway, and each pool draws from its own balance. ARC Mobile is a separate pool with generated endpoints.
Sources & review
Last reviewed by the ARC Proxies team. Prices are read from the live catalog at build time.
In practice