Spaw vs IP2Location
IP2Location sells geolocation as downloadable databases (DB1 to DB26, licensed yearly) and, through IP2Location.io, as an API on monthly query plans whose higher tiers add proxy, VPN, Tor, datacenter, crawler and residential-proxy detection and a fraud score; the classic web service no longer takes new registrations.
The table uses IP2Location's public pricing and documentation pages as checked on 2026-09-12, and Spaw's own pricing page. A row those pages carry no value for is marked "not on the pages read" rather than guessed at, and that is a statement about the reading and not about what IP2Location publishes.
| spaw | ip2location | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pay-as-you-go credit packs whose credits never expire, or optional plans, billed monthly or yearly, that deposit the same credits every month for less and roll unused plan credits over up to three months' allowance; both through Stripe Checkout. One credit buys five answered IP lookups | IP2Location.io API, monthly query plans: Free $0 ("50K IP Geolocation API queries/month", "11 IP Attributes", "Attribution Required"), Starter "$49/month" ("150K IP Geolocation API queries/month", "20 IP Attributes"), Plus "$249/month" ("300K IP Geolocation API queries/month", "59 IP Attributes"), Security "$499/month" ("600K IP Geolocation API queries/month", "79 IP Attributes"); overage per increment Starter $10, Plus $50, Security $100. Databases, standard licence per year: DB1 "$99", DB2 "$399", DB8 "$1,299", DB18 "$2,799", with a site licence at ten times those figures. |
| Free tier | 100 free credits every month, no card required | "50K IP Geolocation API queries/month" with 11 attributes, basic geolocation and open-proxy detection only, "Attribution Required"; without a key "up to 1,000 queries per day" |
| Price per 1,000 at about 10k | $1.80 per 1,000 IP lookups at 5 to the credit (Starter pack: 1,000 credits for $9), or $1.40 on the Starter monthly plan (1,000 credits for $7 a month) | not on the pages read |
| Price per 1,000 at about 100k | $1.56 per 1,000 IP lookups at 5 to the credit (Growth pack: 5,000 credits for $39), or $1.16 on the Growth monthly plan (5,000 credits for $29 a month) | not on the pages read |
| Addresses no feed covered billed | One credit buys five answered addresses whatever their flags say; a flag no feed could evaluate answers null rather than false, and the answer costs the same | not on the pages read |
| Reserved and private ranges billed | No: reserved, private, loopback, CGNAT, documentation and multicast ranges answer reason reserved_range and are free, unallocated space is free, and so are repeats within 7 days | not on the pages read |
| Feeds behind the flags | Public feeds, each named in the answer with the date it was synced: DB-IP Lite and RFC 8805 geofeeds for location, the five registries' delegated statistics for allocation, Spamhaus DROP and ASN-DROP and abuse.ch Feodo Tracker for blocklists, the Tor Project's exit list and Onionoo, the Mullvad, NordVPN and Private Internet Access server lists plus the open X4BNet lists, Apple's iCloud Private Relay egress list, the cloud providers' own published ranges, and the verification files Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity, DuckDuckGo and Ahrefs publish for their crawlers. | Its own IP2Proxy data: is_proxy with a proxy object of "last_seen, proxy_type, threat, provider", and on the higher plans is_vpn, is_tor, is_data_center, is_public_proxy, is_web_proxy, is_web_crawler, is_ai_crawler, is_residential_proxy, is_spammer, is_scanner, is_botnet, is_bogon and a "fraud_score" from 0 to 99. The Free and Starter plans detect open proxies only. |
| Refresh cadence | Every feed re-syncs daily, the botnet command-and-control list hourly, and the geofeed crawl weekly. Each response names every dataset it consulted with the date it was last synced, and /status lists them all. | "Database Updated Daily" on the API pricing page; the database product page states no cadence |
| Geolocation source | The DB-IP Lite database, overridden wherever the operator publishes the location itself — an RFC 8805 geofeed, Apple's relay list, a VPN provider's server list. location_source says which answered, and location_confidence is graded from a weekly accuracy report rather than asserted. | Its own databases: country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, time zone, ISP, domain, net speed, IDD and area code, weather station, mobile carrier with MCC and MNC, elevation, usage type, address type, category, district and ASN, per the database comparison chart. No accuracy figure is published on the pages read. |
| Bulk limit | 100,000 addresses per bulk job, with an HMAC-signed completion webhook | not on the pages read |
| Batch API | 1,000 addresses per synchronous request; repeats inside the list are looked up once | not on the pages read |
| Rate limit | 50 requests per second per key on the IP endpoints | Monthly plan quotas with overage; keyless access "up to 1,000 queries per day" resetting at 00:00 UTC |
| Official SDKs | Python, Node.js, PHP | not on the pages read |
| Data retention | No history row and no log line carrying the address. What a lookup leaves is keyed and never holds the address: the 7-day marker that makes a repeat free and, under the same keyed hash, the count behind seen_by_you; privacy: true skips both. The account's own outcome reports are kept as salted hashes for 90 days. Bulk input lists and result files are deleted with the job after 30 days. | not on the pages read |
checked 2026-09-12 · sources: IP2Location.io pricing, IP2Location.io API documentation, IP2Location database products
When IP2Location fits better
Teams that want a downloadable database under a yearly licence, or an API whose top plan carries a fraud score and a wide set of proxy and crawler flags.
- Fields are gated by plan: 11 attributes on Free, 79 on the Security plan
- The Free API plan requires attribution
- Proxy detection beyond open proxies starts on the Plus plan; the fraud score, datacenter and crawler flags on Security
- Databases are sold for download, so the data can run inside your own infrastructure
When Spaw fits better
Developers who want every public IP feed compiled, dated and named for them, with a risk score whose weights are published so it can be recomputed or ignored.
- IP2Location gates attributes by plan, from 11 to 79; Spaw answers every one of its 62 fields on every lookup at the same price, five lookups to the credit
- IP2Location's proxy and fraud data are proprietary; Every dataset behind a Spaw IP answer is a public feed named in the response with the date it was synced, and the risk score is a published sum of weights anyone can recompute
- IP2Location sells a monthly quota that resets; Spaw sells pack credits that never expire at five IP lookups to the credit, and reserved, private, documentation and unallocated ranges are free
- Spaw does not sell database downloads; it names each public feed behind an answer so a customer can read the same file
Questions
Does Spaw charge for addresses its feeds do not cover?
Spaw bills per answered address, five to the credit: the answered lookup that opens a block costs 1 credit and the next four cost nothing. Reserved, private, loopback, CGNAT, documentation and multicast ranges answer reason reserved_range and are free, unallocated space is free, and so is a repeat of the same address within seven days. A flag no feed could evaluate answers null rather than false: the address is still billed, and the null tells you the signal was not checked instead of pretending it was. IP2Location does not publish how it bills them.
Can I run a log file or an export through Spaw?
Yes. A bulk run takes up to 100,000 addresses from the dashboard or the API and returns one row per input address, in input order, with every flag, the risk score and the signals that made it. Five answered addresses cost a credit, repeats inside the list are looked up once, reserved ranges cost nothing, and the finish is announced on an HMAC-signed webhook.
Is there a free tier?
Every Spaw account receives 100 free credits at the start of each month with no card on file, and unused free credits accumulate. IP2Location offers: "50K IP Geolocation API queries/month" with 11 attributes, basic geolocation and open-proxy detection only, "Attribution Required"; without a key "up to 1,000 queries per day".
Try Spaw on your own list
Free credits every month, no card. Upload a list, keep your columns, and download only the rows you want. See the pricing page for every rule, or the IP2Location alternatives.
IP2Location is a trademark of its owner. Spaw is not affiliated with it. Markdown version: /compare/ip2location.md