Spaw vs ipstack
ipstack is a geolocation API on monthly request quotas from a 100-request free tier to a two-million-request plan, with a bulk endpoint and a security module reserved for its top plan; its documentation pages rendered only a header to our fetcher, so the field list is not reproduced here.
The table uses ipstack'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 ipstack publishes.
| spaw | ipstack | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Monthly plans by request quota: Free "100 Request/mo." at $0, Basic "50,000 Request/mo." at "$12.99/mo.", Professional "500,000 Request/mo." at "$59.99/mo.", Professional + "2,000,000 Request/mo." at "$99.99/mo.", Custom on request; yearly billing "Save up to 15%". Overage fees apply past the quota, with notifications at 75%, 90% and 100%. |
| Free tier | 100 free credits every month, no card required | "100 Request/mo." at $0, without SSL encryption, support or the paid modules (SSL, commercial use and the Location, Time Zone and Connection modules are listed for paid plans) |
| 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. | A "Security Module" is listed for the Professional + plan only; its fields were not readable on the documentation pages we fetched, so they are not reproduced here |
| 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. | "up to 24 database updates per day" |
| 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 database, "over 2 million unique locations in more than 200,000 cities worldwide"; the source is not named 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 | A "Bulk Endpoint" is included on the Professional + plan only; its size limit was not readable |
| Rate limit | 50 requests per second per key on the IP endpoints | Monthly quotas with overage; no per-second figure is published on the pages read |
| 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: ipstack pricing, ipstack documentation (only the header rendered on 2026-09-12)
When ipstack fits better
Teams already on the apilayer marketplace that want a high-volume monthly quota and are willing to buy the top plan for bulk and security answers.
- The free tier is 100 requests a month and, like SSL encryption, commercial use is listed under the paid plans
- The bulk endpoint and the security module are reserved for the $99.99 Professional + plan
- The database is described as updated up to 24 times a day
- docs.apilayer.com rendered only its header to automated reading on 2026-09-12, so the fields are not listed here
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.
- ipstack reserves its bulk endpoint and security module for the top plan; Spaw's batch, bulk and every flag are on every key at the same credit price
- ipstack 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
- 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
- ipstack's field list could not be read by our fetcher; Spaw's 62 fields, weights and feeds are on its docs page and in the OpenAPI document
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. ipstack 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. ipstack offers: "100 Request/mo." at $0, without SSL encryption, support or the paid modules (SSL, commercial use and the Location, Time Zone and Connection modules are listed for paid plans).
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 ipstack alternatives.
ipstack is a trademark of its owner. Spaw is not affiliated with it. Markdown version: /compare/ipstack.md