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Premium Domains

Some websites employ more advanced anti-bot and traffic filtering mechanisms that require additional resources to unblock successfully. To support these targets, Bright Data offers a separate premium pricing tier for a predefined list of domains. You can review the current list of premium domains here: Current list of premium domains When premium domains are enabled:
  • Requests to listed domains are charged at the premium rate
  • The estimated cost is reflected in the Estimated cost section of your zone
Enabling premium domains does not affect all traffic.Only requests made to domains on the premium list are billed at the higher rate. Requests to all other domains continue to use the standard pricing tier.

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Advanced options

Advanced options allow you to fine-tune how the Unlocker API processes requests, handles failures, and optimizes success rates.

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Asynchronous requests

By default, requests are processed synchronously, returning a response immediately.
For long-running or high-volume workloads, you can enable asynchronous requests. With asynchronous processing:
  • Requests are handled in the background
  • Responses can be retrieved later via a designated endpoint
  • Overall stability and throughput are improved for large-scale jobs
This mode is recommended when:
  • Target websites respond slowly
  • You are processing large batches of URLs
  • You want to decouple request submission from response handling
Learn more about asynchronous workflows here: Asynchronous requests

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Custom Unlocker API (Custom Headers & Cookies)

By default, the Unlocker API automatically generates optimal headers and cookies for each request. In some advanced scenarios, you may need full control over these values to access a specific site version or user flow. Enabling Custom Headers & Cookies allows you to override the automated behavior and provide your own values.
Enabling Custom Headers & Cookies introduces the following changes:
You gain access to a pre-approved list of supported headers and cookies. This list allows you to verify whether the values you need are already approved for use with your target website.
If your required headers or cookies are not listed, you can submit an approval request to Bright Data’s compliance team. The request must include details about the header/cookie and its purpose. Once reviewed, you will be notified when approval is granted.
Unlike the regular Unlocker API logic, which only charges for successful requests, enabling this feature means you’ll be charged for 100% of the requests (both successful and failed). This change is due to Bright Data not having full control over the process and its performance.

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Enable custom headers & cookies

To enable this feature:
  1. Log in to the Bright Data Control Panel
  2. Select the relevant Unlocker API zone
  3. Open Advanced Options and enable Custom headers & cookies.
  4. Once enabled, start sending custom headers and cookies with your requests.
Once enabled, you can begin sending custom headers and cookies with your requests.

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Control over auto-throttling

The Unlocker API includes an intelligent auto-throttling mechanism designed to protect performance and reduce unnecessary costs. Auto-throttling dynamically adjusts request behavior based on real-time success rates.
The system continuously evaluates request performance and automatically applies better-performing configurations when available.