Compare IP Data API Providers
A vendor-neutral look at ipinfo.io, MaxMind, ip-api.com, ipdata.co, ipqualityscore.com and myip — free-tier limits, commercial-use terms, pricing model, entry price, delivery format and licensing, not a single misleading price column.
Short answer: there is no single best IP data provider — it depends on what you need. For free, commercially-licensed, high-volume lookups, ipinfo.io's Lite plan is hard to beat, though it only returns country/continent-level geolocation. For a free downloadable database with city-level geolocation, MaxMind's GeoLite2 is the standard choice, but MaxMind itself calls the free city data considerably less accurate than its paid data and not recommended for commercial use, plus it requires attribution. For a paid API that bundles RDAP-sourced network data (fetched from the registry and cached), geolocation and threat/fraud signals under one per-unique-IP-per-day metered price instead of a flat per-call fee, that is what myip is built for. The honest comparison below is meant to help you pick correctly, including away from us.
Competitor data retrieved on 2026-07-28 from each vendor's own pricing page: ipinfo.io, MaxMind, ip-api.com, ipdata.co, and ipqualityscore.com. Prices change without notice — verify against the vendor's own page before relying on a figure.
Provider comparison
Deliberately not a single price column — these five vendors bill on four incompatible bases (per-request/day subscription, per-request/month subscription, an annual-only EUR contract, and per-query plus a separate database subscription), so one price column would have to pick one basis and distort the rest.
| Provider | Free-tier limit | Commercial use on free tier | Pricing model | Entry price | API vs downloadable DB | Licensing & attribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ipinfo.io | Unlimited API requests/month (Lite); 100 manual lookups via the website UI. | Yes — commercial license included on every plan, including the free Lite plan. | Tiered monthly or annual subscription by request-volume band, plus per-1,000-request overage beyond the band. | $41/mo (IPinfo Core; $490 billed annually). | See their pricing page for delivery details. | Commercial license included on every plan, including Lite. Attribution clause: not retrieved on 2026-07-28 — see their pricing page. |
| MaxMind (GeoLite2 / GeoIP2) | GeoLite2: 30 database downloads/day, or 1,000 web-service lookups/day per service. | Discouraged, not an explicit ban — the free city data is called considerably less accurate than the paid data and "not recommended for commercial use cases"; see the GeoLite2 EULA. | Per-query pay-as-you-go web service (GeoIP2), separate from downloadable-database subscriptions (monthly, annual or one-time). | From $0.0001 per query (GeoIP2 Country web service), or $38.00 per month (GeoIP Country database, monthly plan). | See their pricing page for delivery details. | GeoLite2 requires mandatory attribution to MaxMind under its EULA; commercial use of GeoIP2 requires purchasing a separate commercial license. |
| ip-api.com | 45 requests/minute per IP address (no separate daily/monthly cap published). | No — commercial use of the free endpoint is explicitly disallowed. | A single paid "Pro" plan sold on an annual commitment; the only published rate is the 12-month-term price. | €13.3 per month, when paying for 12 months (Pro). | API only — no downloadable database product found. | Commercial use allowed on the Pro plan. Licensing/attribution clause: not retrieved on 2026-07-28 — see their pricing page. |
| ipdata.co | 1,500 requests/day. | No — the free tier is explicitly restricted to non-commercial use. | Tiered monthly subscription by requests-per-day volume (20% off advertised on annual plans; no per-plan annual figures published). | $10 per month (Personal, 2,500 requests/day). | See their pricing page for delivery details. | Not published by the vendor — see their pricing page. |
| ipqualityscore.com | 1,000 lookups/month, 35 lookups/day. | Not retrieved on 2026-07-28 — see their pricing page. | Tiered monthly subscription; paid tiers are priced as a floor ("As low as"). | As low as: $99 / Month (Startup). | Not retrieved on 2026-07-28 — see their pricing page. | Not retrieved on 2026-07-28 — see their pricing page. |
| myip (this service) | We publish no terms of use for the free tier. | Flat monthly subscription, metered per unique IP address per day, not per request. | API only — no downloadable database product. | Every geo response names its data source; an authenticated request on a verbose-enabled plan also returns that source's license and reference URL (geo.license/geo.url). |
* Per-minute and per-day limits are counted per unique IP address looked up. An overall request-rate ceiling also applies at the gateway, independent of the per-minute/per-day limits above, returning HTTP 429 once exceeded.
Detailed comparisons
Prices decay fast; response-field names don't. Each dedicated page below carries a real field-by-field migration snippet for that provider's format, not just another price table.
See myip's current numbers for yourself
Frequently asked questions
- Which IP data provider should I use?
- There is no single best answer — it depends on your use case. Free, high-volume, commercially-licensed country-level lookups: ipinfo.io's Lite plan. A free downloadable city-level database with no per-request billing (and mandatory attribution): MaxMind's GeoLite2. A paid API bundling RDAP registry data (fetched from the registry and cached), geolocation and threat/fraud signals under one per-unique-IP-per-day price: myip. Compare the table above before deciding, including against us.
- Is ipinfo.io's free Lite plan really unlimited?
- Yes for API requests — ipinfo's own comparison grid lists Lite's API-requests-per-month as unlimited, with a commercial license included. A separate, smaller limit of 100 manual lookups via the website UI applies on a different surface, not the API. The honest trade-off on Lite is data depth, not volume or licensing: it returns country/continent-level geolocation only.
- Is MaxMind's free GeoLite2 database safe to use commercially?
- Not clearly. MaxMind's own developer page calls the free GeoLite City data considerably less accurate than its paid data and "not recommended for commercial use cases." Attribution to MaxMind is mandatory regardless, and redistribution needs MaxMind's prior written consent.
- Does myip charge per request or per IP address?
- Per unique IP address per day, not per request. Looking the same address up many times in one day only counts once against that feature group's daily budget.
- How current are the numbers in this comparison?
- Competitor figures were retrieved from each vendor's own pricing page on 2026-07-28 and are not re-verified live by this page — check the linked vendor page for the current figure before relying on it. myip's own row is the one exception: it is fetched live from this service's API on every page load, so it never goes stale.