An ipinfo.io alternative with datacenter, cloud and Tor detection on a flat plan
ipinfo.io is the reference IP data API and its free Lite tier is genuinely unlimited, at country level. Once you need ASN, hosting detection or a risk signal, you move to a per-request plan with overage. The IP Intelligence API answers the question most apps actually ask, is this address a datacenter, a cloud provider, a Tor exit or a residential connection, in one call, with the reasons spelled out, on the same token plan as every other API in the catalog.
| What | ipinfo.io | IP Intelligence API |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | IPinfo Lite: $0, unlimited requests, country-level data only (as published). | 500 tokens a month, no card; one lookup costs 1 token, with ASN, hosting and Tor included. |
| Entry paid price | Core $26/month for 150,000 requests, $0.34 per extra 1,000 (as published). | Starter $6.99 for 25,000 tokens, Pro $24.99 for 150,000, no overage: the plan is a hard monthly limit. |
| Authentication | Token as a query parameter, HTTP Basic or Bearer (as published). | One API key, sent as the X-Api-Key header. The same key works for every API in the catalog. |
| Data source | Proprietary; attribution is listed under the commercial licence column (as published, wording unclear). | RouteViews BGP data via iptoasn.com (public domain), DB-IP country lite (CC BY 4.0, attribution required), the published address ranges of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, Fastly and GitHub, and the Tor Project exit list. 1.37 million ranges in total. |
| Over the limit | HTTP 429 once the plan's limit is exceeded (as published). | HTTP 429 at the monthly allowance; there are no surprise overage charges. |
Facts about ipinfo.io were read from its own pages on October 29, 2026. If something has changed since, tell us and we will update the page. Sources: ipinfo.io pricing, ipinfo.io developers.
Reasons to pick IP Intelligence API
- Two countries, not one: the geolocation country and the registry country are both returned, with a flag when they disagree, which is itself a fraud signal.
- Datacenter, cloud provider, CDN and Tor exit detection from published operator ranges, combined into a risk score that lists its reasons.
- Self-hosted ranges: no external call per request, so latency is flat and there is no third-party quota behind the API.
- IPv6 and IPv4 with the same fields.
When ipinfo.io is still the better choice
- You need city or postal-code precision, VPN detection or carrier data; the IP Intelligence API deliberately stops at country level and does not claim consumer-VPN detection.
- You want downloadable databases to run offline.
Try it with your key
The first endpoint of the API as a curl command. Create a free key and paste it in. (Data Sources, 1 token).
curl "https://api-ip-intelligence.dataandapis.com/v1/sources" \
-H "X-Api-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"Plans
Free 500 tokens a month · Starter $6.99 for 25,000 · Pro $24.99 for 150,000 · Ultra $99.99 for 1,000,000. Every plan covers every API.
Questions people ask
- Does it detect VPNs?
- No, and it says so. Free data cannot support reliable consumer-VPN detection, so the API reports datacenter, cloud, CDN and Tor exits, which it can prove from published ranges, and leaves VPN claims out.
- What does the risk score mean?
- A 0 to 100 number built from the signals in the response: hosting type, Tor, country mismatch and special-use ranges. The contributing reasons are listed so you can apply your own policy.
- How often is the data refreshed?
- Routing data hourly, cloud and Tor ranges daily, the country database monthly.
One key, 128 APIs, free to start
500 tokens a month without a card. Most calls cost one token.
Create a free account