IPinfo

About IPinfo

IPinfo is one of the most widely used IP data providers in the market, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Seattle. IPinfo serves over 500,000 developers and handles more than 40 billion API requests per month, making them a strong default starting point for many teams evaluating IP data providers.

The IPinfo product range covers IP geolocation, ASN data, company identification, privacy/VPN detection, abuse contacts, hosted domains, and IP ranges. They offer both a real-time API and IP database downloads, though the pricing of these is only available on request and not made public.

IPinfo's unique strength compared to other IP data providers is its probe network used to measure round trip response times to millions of IP addresses, enabling their location to be triangulated. This provides IPinfo with a theoretical edge and greater accuracy compared to other IP geolocation providers that mostly rely on public meta data for geolocation.

Where IPinfo May Not Be the Right Fit

IPinfo is a strong product and has established itself as a market leader for IP data. But depending on your requirements, particularly around data sovereignty, privacy, and pricing transparency, there are areas where it may create friction:

Data Residency and Sovereignty

IPinfo is a US-incorporated company that processes data in the United States. Their privacy policy states:

These Services are hosted in the United States and are intended primarily for visitors located within the United States. If you choose to use the Services from other regions of the world, you may be transferring your Information outside of those regions to the United States for storage and processing.

For organisations subject to GDPR or internal data sovereignty policies, this creates a compliance dependency that requires careful evaluation, particularly if you're passing end-user IP addresses through their API in real time.

Lack of Transparency on IP Database Download Pricing

IPinfo offers database downloads that can mitigate some of the privacy and compliance concerns around their API - by keeping lookups local, you avoid sending IP addresses to a US-based third-party processor. But IPinfo doesn't publish pricing for these downloads on their website. Instead, you're directed to "Contact Sales," which typically signals value-based pricing: what you'll pay could end up depending on your company profile rather than a fixed price.

Privacy and Consent Implications

IPinfo's GDPR FAQ takes the position that their service doesn't track end users and therefore falls outside GDPR scope. While this may apply to their database download product, the API-based lookup model involves sending IP addresses (which the GDPR considers personal data) to a US-based processor. Depending on your DPO's interpretation, this may require a consent mechanism or contractual safeguards that add operational overhead. For teams that want to avoid this question entirely, a provider that processes everything within the EU removes the ambiguity.

IPinfo Alternative: IP Trust

If you are looking for an alternative to IPinfo, IP Trust delivers the same IP geolocation, ASN, and privacy detection data you rely on, but hosted and processed entirely in the EU with enterprise-grade compliance built in from day one.

Here are the main benefits to choosing IP Trust over IPinfo:

EU-First: Incorporated, Hosted, and Processed in Europe

IP Trust is part of Friendly Captcha GmbH, an EU-incorporated company based in Munich, Germany. All data processing happens within the EU, with contractual data residency guarantees and a standard Data Processing Agreement included with every plan. For organisations subject to GDPR, Schrems II, or internal data sovereignty policies, this removes the need for transfer impact assessments, supplementary measures, or reliance on US adequacy decisions that may change over time.

Transparent Database Download Pricing

IP Trust publishes database download pricing directly on its website - the same price for every customer. There are no "Contact Sales" gates, no negotiation, and no value-based pricing. For procurement teams evaluating vendors, this means faster budget approval, straightforward like-for-like comparison, and no risk of paying a different rate to another customer for the same data.

Privacy-First by Design

IP Trust is built by Friendly Captcha, a company whose core product is privacy-preserving bot protection. Privacy is a core value of the company and the IP Trust service is designed so that no end-user personal data, including IP address, is ever collected or stored. For teams where every new vendor triggers a DPIA or a conversation with the DPO, this architecture keeps the compliance overhead to a minimum.

How IP Trust Compares to IPinfo

IP Trust: Same Use Cases, Better Compliance Posture

IP Trust covers the same core use cases as IPinfo:

• Content localisation - Serve the right language, currency, and content based on visitor location
• Fraud detection - Flag suspicious logins from VPNs, proxies, Tor nodes, and hosting providers
• Regulatory compliance - Enforce geo-restrictions for GDPR, content licensing, gambling regulations
• Analytics enrichment - Enrich your event stream with location, company, and network data
• Ad targeting & personalisation - Deliver relevant experiences without invasive tracking
• Security & threat intelligence - Identify anomalous traffic patterns and network-level threats

IP Trust offers these capabilities without introducing a US data processor into your privacy architecture.

Ready to Try IP Trust?

IP Trust offers a free 28 day trial, no credit card required, with access to all data. If you are already an IPinfo customer, or are evaluating IP data providers, you can sign up to a free trial and evaluate IP Trust for yourself.

Frequently Asked Questions