Verified July 2026

5 Best ipapi Alternatives in 2026

ipapi is a budget IP geolocation API with fixed monthly quotas. Here is the shortlist worth your time, compared on verified pricing, coverage, and the catch each vendor’s own page will not tell you.

The best ipapi alternative depends on why you are moving. ipstack is its sibling product with a near-identical shape, IPinfo adds a free unlimited country tier and stronger developer experience, MaxMind and IP2Location cover database licensing, and 1Lookup folds IP checks into the same credits as phone and email validation.

Disclosure: this site is built by 1Lookup. It appears on this list where it genuinely fits, and we say plainly when a competitor is the better choice.

Source: ipapi.com homepage, captured August 2026

Why teams look beyond ipapi

IP geolocation only; no email or phone validation products
Security module (proxy/Tor/crawler/threat data) is excluded from Standard and Business paid plans; among paid tiers only Business Pro ($99.99/mo) includes it (the free plan also has it)
Bulk lookups are not available on the entry Standard plan
Overage fees apply automatically past 100% of quota at exactly 4x the plan's base per-lookup rate (Standard: $0.0010392 per extra lookup, about $1.04 per 1,000, vs $0.26 per 1,000 in-plan); usage alerts at 75%, 90%, and 100%
Priority (Platinum) support is a paid add-on billed annually at $479.88 to $719.88 per year depending on plan, and the FAQ states its checkbox is pre-checked by default at plan signup; the free plan includes no support, and cancellations/downgrades take effect only at the end of the billing period

These are factual scope and pricing characteristics, not knocks; ipapi remains the right tool for the buyers described in the verdict section below.

The shortlist, in order

1. 1LookupOur product

Best if IP checks are one part of broader validation

Pick 1Lookup when you look up IPs alongside phone and email checks and want geolocation, VPN and proxy detection, and risk scoring billed from the same credit balance as the rest of your validation stack.

Starting price: $99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise)
Free option: Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required
The catch: Younger brand with a smaller public review footprint than long-established incumbents

See 1Lookup pricing 7-day free trial

2. IPinfo

Best developer experience with an unlimited free country-level tier

Pick IPinfo when you want a polished IP data API you can start on free without request caps, with clean paid tiers for city-level accuracy and VPN and proxy detection.

Starting price: $41/mo billed annually ($490/yr) for the Core plan with 150,000 requests/mo (~$0.27 per 1k lookups); monthly billing costs more (annual pricing is "2 months free", save 17%)
Free option: Lite plan, free forever: unlimited API requests ("no daily or monthly limit"), country-level geolocation plus ASN data only, daily-updated database downloads in CSV, MMDB, JSON, and Parquet, 100 manual web lookups, no credit card required (free signup token needed)
The catch: IP intelligence only: no email or phone validation products

1Lookup vs IPinfo: full comparison

3. ipstack

Best established low-cost geolocation with time zone and currency data

Pick ipstack when you want a long-running, widely integrated geolocation API with location, time zone, currency, and connection fields at low fixed monthly prices.

Starting price: $12.99/mo for 50,000 lookups on Basic ($0.26 per 1,000, about $0.00026/lookup); $140.99/yr on yearly billing
Free option: $0 plan named "Free Trial" with 5,000 requests; pricing table says "5,000 Total Requests." (reads as one-time) while one FAQ answer calls it "a free IP API tier with limited monthly requests" and another says "limited number of requests," so refresh cadence is ambiguous. Table shows green ticks for SSL, location, standard support, time zone, connection, and currency on the free column, but six of those cells carry contradictory markup (see confidenceNotes).
The catch: IP geolocation only; no email or phone validation products, so multi-channel verification requires other vendors

1Lookup vs ipstack: full comparison

4. MaxMind

Best for low-cost IP geolocation at scale, by query or by database

Pick MaxMind when you want reference-grade geolocation data at very low per-query rates, or a downloadable database for unlimited local lookups, and IP is the only channel you need.

Starting price: $20 minimum service credit purchase; at $0.0001/query that buys 200,000 GeoIP Country lookups ($0.10 per 1,000)
Free option: GeoLite2 Country, City, and ASN databases free with account signup (capped at 30 downloads/day), plus free GeoLite Country and City web services capped at 1,000 lookups/day per service
The catch: IP-only vendor: no email or phone validation products (minFraud scores fraud risk on transactions, it is not identifier verification)

1Lookup vs MaxMind: full comparison

5. IP2Location

Best for flat-rate database licenses alongside a large free API tier

Pick IP2Location when you prefer querying a locally hosted database under a flat annual license, or you want one of the biggest free API allowances in IP geolocation to start from.

Starting price: API: $49/mo Starter for 150,000 IP lookups/mo (~$0.33 per 1,000); databases: from $980/yr Site License for DB1 country-level (new customers; the $99/yr per-server Standard License is limited to existing customers adding servers)
Free option: API Free plan: 50,000 IP geolocation queries/mo plus 500 WHOIS and 50 hosted-domain queries, 11 data fields, attribution required, resets monthly, service stops at quota; separately, free LITE databases (country to city level with lat/long, ZIP, timezone, plus proxy and ASN) downloadable for personal or commercial use with attribution, account signup but no credit card
The catch: IP-only vendor: no email or phone validation products

1Lookup vs IP2Location: full comparison

All 5 compared on the same criteria

Product	Starting price	Free option
1Lookup	$99/mo for 20,000 credits ($4.95 per 1,000, down to $2.00 on Enterprise)	Free single lookups via the online tools at 1lookup.io/tools, no account required
IPinfo	$41/mo billed annually ($490/yr) for the Core plan with 150,000 requests/mo (~$0.27 per 1k lookups); monthly billing costs more (annual pricing is "2 months free", save 17%)	Lite plan, free forever: unlimited API requests ("no daily or monthly limit"), country-level geolocation plus ASN data only, daily-updated database downloads in CSV, MMDB, JSON, and Parquet, 100 manual web lookups, no credit card required (free signup token needed)
ipstack	$12.99/mo for 50,000 lookups on Basic ($0.26 per 1,000, about $0.00026/lookup); $140.99/yr on yearly billing	$0 plan named "Free Trial" with 5,000 requests; pricing table says "5,000 Total Requests." (reads as one-time) while one FAQ answer calls it "a free IP API tier with limited monthly requests" and another says "limited number of requests," so refresh cadence is ambiguous. Table shows green ticks for SSL, location, standard support, time zone, connection, and currency on the free column, but six of those cells carry contradictory markup (see confidenceNotes).
MaxMind	$20 minimum service credit purchase; at $0.0001/query that buys 200,000 GeoIP Country lookups ($0.10 per 1,000)	GeoLite2 Country, City, and ASN databases free with account signup (capped at 30 downloads/day), plus free GeoLite Country and City web services capped at 1,000 lookups/day per service
IP2Location	API: $49/mo Starter for 150,000 IP lookups/mo (~$0.33 per 1,000); databases: from $980/yr Site License for DB1 country-level (new customers; the $99/yr per-server Standard License is limited to existing customers adding servers)	API Free plan: 50,000 IP geolocation queries/mo plus 500 WHOIS and 50 hosted-domain queries, 11 data fields, attribution required, resets monthly, service stops at quota; separately, free LITE databases (country to city level with lat/long, ZIP, timezone, plus proxy and ASN) downloadable for personal or commercial use with attribution, account signup but no credit card

Prices verified from each vendor’s public pricing page as of July 2026. Pricing models differ (subscriptions, pay-as-you-go credits, per-lookup metering), so compare at your real monthly volume; the full per-vendor volume tables are on each linked comparison page.

Who should choose what

1Lookup: Best if IP checks are one part of broader validation.
IPinfo: Best developer experience with an unlimited free country-level tier.
ipstack: Best established low-cost geolocation with time zone and currency data.
MaxMind: Best for low-cost IP geolocation at scale, by query or by database.
IP2Location: Best for flat-rate database licenses alongside a large free API tier.

Migration effort

An endpoint swap plus field remapping, with no stored data to move. Before cutting over, replay a day of real traffic against both APIs and diff the fields your code reads. If overage charges drove the move, set up usage alerts on the new provider too; metered APIs differ mainly in how they fail when you exceed plan volume.

ipapi alternatives FAQ

What is the best ipapi alternative?

IPinfo is the strongest like-for-like upgrade, starting free at country level with polished tooling. ipstack is a sibling product from the same company, so switching between the two changes little. MaxMind and IP2Location suit database buyers, and 1Lookup suits teams that want IP intelligence beside phone and email validation on shared credits.

How is ipapi priced?

Monthly subscriptions with fixed lookup quotas and automatic per-lookup overage fees once you pass the quota, plus a free plan with a modest monthly allowance that includes the security fields. Annual billing is slightly cheaper. Verified plan prices and quotas are in the comparison table above.

Why do teams switch away from ipapi?

Overage billing is the common trigger: passing the monthly quota bills automatically per extra lookup rather than hard-stopping, which surprises teams with variable traffic. Others outgrow plain geolocation and want VPN and proxy detection with risk scoring, or consolidate IP checks into a broader validation stack.

How hard is it to migrate off ipapi?

Minimal: IP geolocation APIs are stateless, so the move is an endpoint swap and field remapping. Check the fields you actually consume (time zone, currency, ASN, security flags) for parity on the new provider, and add caching if the replacement meters requests differently than your current quota.

Test the all-in-one option first

1Lookup’s 7-day free trial includes $20 of credits across phone, email, and IP validation. Run your own numbers before you decide.

Start your free trial 1Lookup vs ipapi in depth