How to Choose Sneaker Bots (And Sneaker Bot Proxies)

For shoe collectors, trendsetters, and die-hard fans—aka, sneakerheads— “launch day” is a high-stakes battleground of careful planning, patience, and precision timing. In this game of soles, obtaining the “grail” of footwear is cutthroat and can come down to mere seconds. So just how do you avoid crushing betrayal and of receiving that “Sold Out” banner come checkout? Why, by enlisting a trusty sneaker bot into battle for you of course!

In this article, we’ll discuss all you need to know about choosing sneaker bots (and sneaker bot proxies) and how they can help you start scoring pair after pair of killer kicks. Read on to hear all our tips and be sure to use our table of contents to find the answers you’re looking for that’ll surely help you obtain your personal “grail” of footwear.

Table of Contents

What Are Sneaker Bots?

First things first: What are sneaker bots? A sneaker bot is an automated software tool designed to autocomplete the item selection, purchase, and check-out process of someone shopping online. As their name implies, sneaker bots are most commonly used to buy, or “cop” as it’s known in sneaker culture, limited-edition specialty tennis shoes. Successfully copping a pair of sneakers using a bot means you are “cooking.”

Lingo aside, why would you want to use sneaker bots at all? The simple, unabashed answer is speed.

If you’ve spent any amount of time shopping online, you know how time-consuming the endeavor can be, from adding your items to the cart to entering your shipping and payment info to finally hitting “Confirm Order.” This exercise is tiresome on a normal shopping day, but when dealing with limited stock products, such a laborious process means you might have already missed out on the item you sought to buy by the time you reach check out.

In the Wild West of limited-edition sneaker releases, for example, where the number of shoes available can be as few as a couple dozen, a few seconds can mean the difference between landing a sweet pair of new kicks or having to sport last season’s fashion footwear for a while longer.

Since sneaker bots save your shoe preferences, size, and necessary personal information and automatically populate it where necessary, they take the sneaker-buying process into hyperdrive, completing it within milliseconds of the shoes being released. As you can imagine, someone manually shopping and typing their information into the forms simply can’t compete, which is why so many sneakerheads and collectors rely heavily on bots come launch day.

How Do Shoe Bots Work?

The genius of shoe bots begins when a shoe seller’s website is created. Retail businesses need to ensure their website’s shopping experience is flawless so their customers can, you know, shop. To do this, they actually use a bot themselves, which, just like sneaker bots, automatically puts items in the cart, fills in personal details, and checks out, just like a real customer.

Now, in launching this bot, retailers inadvertently create a backdoor for other bots to infiltrate their website and shop undetected. Enter sneaker bots. Sneaker bots will work behind the scenes once the shoes are released to search, find, and buy sneakers in a fraction of the time it would normally take for a customer to pull up a website. Paired with a sneaker bot proxy (more on these later), shoe bots can even make multiple purchases from the same site without being blocked by the site.

Of course, this sounds rather nefarious, but really, it’s closer to shoe buyers giving themselves an inside advantage more than anything outright illegal. It’s sort of like someone buying the shoes off the truck at the shipping dock before they even make it into the store warehouse. The transaction still happens above board, just not in the traditional storefront manner. And in the world of specialty sneaker collecting, it’s about the only chance at acquiring a pair of uber-expensive limited-edition sneaks.

Choosing a Legit Sneaker Bot

With such fierce competition for limited-edition sneakers, it’s no surprise that competition has bred among sneaker bots as well, with bots ranging from $10 to $500. Don’t go grabbing the cheapest shoe bot you find though. While jumping at the cheaper bot may be enticing, remember, you often get what you pay for.

Although easier on the pocketbook, cheaper bots are often mere extensions of your web browser and therefore lack the extensive programming capabilities designed for copping sneakers the high-end standalone software programs offer.

Of course, cost is relative to what sort of sneaker copping you intend to do, and more expensive does not always mean better. So, here are some other qualities to consider when choosing a legit sneaker bot:

Lifetime updates

It’s important to understand that there is an ongoing battle between sneaker sites and bots. Sneaker sites don’t want sneaker bots to exist, so they try to take them down or block them, and bot creators do everything in their power to keep them up and running to maintain competitive advantage come launch day.

Some bots offer updates for free, while others provide them for small costs. Either way, avoid bots which offer no software updates, because having a regularly updated bot means you’re less likely to be blocked out come launch day.

Dedicated support

When it comes to copping sneakers, every precious second counts. That’s exactly why great and fast customer support is crucial. If anything goes wrong, a support team should be there to help you solve any problems quickly and effectively.

Not sure which bots have great support? Read the reviews. Even though it’s every man for himself come launch day, the sneaker culture maintains a no-nonsense approach when it comes to the bots they use. So, if a bot’s support network isn’t up to par, they’ll share about it.

Beyond user support, legit sneaker bot reviews also provide info on included features, number of sites compatible, ease of use, and more so you can make an informed decision on the bot you buy.

Compatibility with multiple sites

They say never put all your eggs in one basket, and the same goes for copping sneakers. After all, the best sneaker bot for Yeezys may not be ideal for copping a pair of Jordans and vice versa. While some shoe bots target specific brands like Nike or Adidas, the best bots will support a wide range of brands and sites to improve your chances of getting the pair of kicks you’re after.

Bots like EasyCop Ultimate or Better Nike Bot – All in One for instance let you cop shoes from Nike, Adidas, Foot Locker, Champs Sports, and more. That means you can always take advantage of a launch, no matter where it is happening. Plus, most reputable bots are constantly adding new sites into the mix, so if your favorite site is missing, there is a good chance it will be added in the near future.

Multiple account support

You don’t go fishing with only one worm, nor should you try copping shoes with only one account. Having multiple account support means your sneaker bot can shop multiple sites simultaneously, therefore increasing your success rate. It also allows you to shop multiple pairs of shoes from the same site while avoiding potential purchase limits and bot blockers.

Multi-thread technology

As fast as sneaker bots work, there’s still a lot for them to accomplish within seconds of shoes dropping. Having a bot with multi-thread technology not only allows your bot to navigate a website easier, but also multitask and complete steps much quicker. The faster your bot can maneuver through a website and the check out process, the higher chances you have at copping successfully.

Proxy support

Any legit sneaker bot worth its stuff will feature strong proxy support. Why? Well, I’m so glad you asked!

Sneaker Bot Proxies

Buying a quality sneaker bot is only one half of the sneaker-copping equation. The other is equipping it with a quality set of proxies. And yes, that’s plural for a reason. A proxy or proxy server is a ‘gateway’ through which your personal home computer can access and search the internet anonymously. In other words, it masks your home IP address from appearing on the websites you’re browsing, showing the proxy IP instead.

Why would this be important when trying to buy shoes, though?

Remember that ongoing battle between retailers and bot users? Well, one of the many ways retail sites defend against people using sneaker bots on launch day is to limit the number of purchase requests that can come from one IP address. Without a proxy, your home IP will eventually be blocked, leaving you out of luck as far as copping any more sneakers.

Sneaker bot proxies overcome this restriction by providing alternate IP addresses so that it appears as if multiple different users are buying the shoes, not just one person (and certainly not a bot). This allows you to shop multiple pairs of sneakers from multiple sites without ever being stymied by the web servers recognizing you’re using a shoe bot.

Pretty sneaky, huh?

The Best Proxies for Sneaker Bots

As we illustrated, trying to cop sneakers without sneaker bot proxies is like going up against a sword without a shield. Or your own sword. In other words, you don’t stand a chance. No proxy, no sneaks.

Knowing which one to buy, however, is another story, which is why we’ve compiled a list of key aspects you need to consider when choosing proxies for sneaker bots:

• Location
• Latency
• Proxy type
• Number of proxies

Your proxy’s location and latency go hand in hand. Some companies sell proxies that are located halfway across the world. When you get a proxy that’s located in a far-off location, two things will happen. First, it’s going to be slow, which is pretty much a death-knell for your sneaker copping hopes. Second, it’ll likely throw up a red flag to the site you’re trying to access, increasing your chances of being blocked.

Instead, stick with a low-risk location that is in your general area. USA proxies are a popular choice since these proxies are typically reputable, low risk, and fast. And if you want to reduce your latency—how fast a website and your server take to communicate—even more, consider upgrading to a virtual private server. These sneaker servers are created for sneakerheads and provide you with incredibly-fast speeds that are perfect for running bots and proxies.

The type and number of sneaker bot proxies you buy are important as well. For starters, we recommend you buy a dedicated proxy as you avoid sharing your proxy ID with someone else as you would with a semi-dedicated server. Our rotating residential and ISP proxies offer fast, reliable, and secure private proxies for all your sneaker copping needs.

It’s also a good idea to buy multiple proxies for your bot. When you buy proxies, you get them in bundles, from as few as five to several hundred at a time. Having a minimum of 25 proxies when you’re buying sneakers allows your shoe bot to rotate through the different proxies and remain anonymous, therefore avoiding the likelihood your proxies will get blocked.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re a seasoned sneakerhead or a novice trying to make a name for himself, the advantages of using sneakers bot to cop sneakers are undeniable. Although using a sneaker bot doesn’t guarantee you’ll obtain that pair of “grail” sneaks you desire, it will drastically improve your chances to. Choosing the right bot for you might seem more trouble than it’s worth, but as we hope we illustrated, finding a quality sneaker bot can make all the difference between copping some killer footwear or being left standing out in the cold. Rest assured, follow these tips, and you’ll be cooking in no time.

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