Fair-use ceilings: where an unlimited plan can change the bill
A fair-use ceiling is the published traffic quantity or usage rule after which a plan sold as unlimited can throttle service, stop traffic, or add charges. Its bill effect comes first: the checkout total is calculable only when the threshold, measurement window, and treatment after the threshold are known. An unlimited label without those terms removes the visible GB meter but does not prove unrestricted capacity. Current 710-row plan dataset, generated 2026-07-26T02:15:19Z
A named plan with a price-dependent allowance
proxyscrape-dedicated-br-3mo, named Dedicated Datacenter Brazil, 3 months, is sold per IP. Its published configurations span 5 to 1,000 IPs and $31.35 to $3,300 for the 90-day term. ProxyScrape’s terms separately say its unlimited datacenter plans include 1 TB for every $5 paid, with an allowance floor of 10 TB, and that excess may be billed at $5 per TB. ProxyScrape dedicated-plan API, retrieved 2026-07-25T16:33:08.221Z ProxyScrape fair-use terms, retrieved 2026-07-25T16:33:08.221Z
The receipt therefore has two dimensions. The buyer selects an IP quantity and term, while the amount paid also determines the traffic allowance. The dataset preserves the rule as fair-use policy text instead of recasting its $5 per TB charge as an ordinary per-GB plan price. Usage above the calculated allowance can add to the receipt even though the product page uses unlimited language. ProxyScrape fair-use terms, retrieved 2026-07-25T16:33:08.221Z
Publish rate across 47 providers
Seven of 47 providers, or 14.9%, publish some fair-use policy text on at least one plan in the current dataset. That broad rate includes formulas, qualitative policies, and warnings. Only two of 47 providers, or 4.3%, publish a structured ceiling state: IPRoyal supplies a numeric 100 GB allowance on affected per-IP rows, while HydraProxy explicitly says the bandwidth dimension is unrestricted, with no fixed limit and no throttling. The other 45 providers have null for that structured state at provider level, even when a plan uses unlimited language elsewhere. Current fair-use fields across all providers, generated 2026-07-26T02:15:19Z
These rates answer different questions. Policy text tells a buyer that another rule exists. A numeric value or an explicit unrestricted statement says what can enter a calculation. Null means the ceiling is not published. It never inherits the unlimited label.
Before treating an unlimited plan as a fixed-cost purchase, record the allowance as a quantity, explicitly unrestricted, or null. Then record whether it applies per IP, port, order, account, day, or month, plus whether the consequence is throttling, suspension, or a published charge. If any bill-changing part is null, keep the post-ceiling cost not published.