IP Geo API

IP Geo API vs ipgeolocation.io in 2026: Bundled Endpoints, Bundled Threat-Detection, and the EU-Residency Question

5-minute read · 2026 pricing · honest assessment

If ipgeolocation.io is on your IP-geolocation shortlist in 2026, the comparison usually comes down to three things: do you actually need the bundled timezone / astronomy / currency endpoints, is threat detection part of the base plan or a separately-priced Security API, and do you need EU data residency? ipgeolocation.io has a generous 30K req/mo free tier, a Swiss-army-knife API surface, and a low $15 entry-paid tier — but its 2018-era pricing posture (Security API priced separately, USD billing, US-headquartered hosting) creates real friction for a lot of EU teams. This post lays out where each one wins, without the marketing varnish.

Looking for the full feature matrix? Jump straight to the ipgeolocation.io alternative comparison →.

The 60-second take

What you care about Choose
Bundled timezone / astronomy / currency in one API call ipgeolocation.io
User-Agent parsing in the same request ipgeolocation.io
Lowest entry-paid $/req at 150K/mo volume ipgeolocation.io ($15)
Multi-region edge for non-EU global users ipgeolocation.io
Threat detection (VPN/proxy/Tor/datacenter) bundled into base plan IP Geo API
EU-only data residency (no US transit) IP Geo API
EUR billing + iDEAL / SEPA / Bancontact IP Geo API
Smaller payload (~600 B vs ~1.4 KB) IP Geo API
Lower TCO once threat-detection is required IP Geo API

Pick the row that’s the dealbreaker. If two rows pull opposite directions, the row enforcing a hard architectural or compliance constraint wins — for example, “we cannot ship a paid product whose IP-threat data lives in a separately-billed US-hosted Security API” beats “we’d prefer the bundled astronomy endpoint.”

The real reasons teams switch from ipgeolocation.io to IP Geo API

The most common switch story we hear isn’t about price or latency. It’s about production realities that the 2018-era ipgeolocation.io packaging didn’t anticipate:

  1. Threat detection is a separately-priced Security API. ipgeolocation.io’s is_proxy / is_tor / is_anonymous flags live behind a separate Security API SKU that doubles your monthly spend at 1M req/mo (Standard $40 + Security $40 = $80). We bundle is_vpn, is_proxy, is_tor, is_datacenter, and is_residential into every response on every tier, including free.
  2. Bundled bonus endpoints inflate cognitive load. Timezone + astronomy + currency + UA parsing in one response is genuinely useful if you’d otherwise integrate 3-4 APIs — but most teams use 2 fields and ignore the rest. The bundled response payload is ~1.4KB on average; ours is ~600B. At 1M req/mo over a slow link, the wire-time delta is non-trivial.
  3. EU-only data residency for regulated sectors. ipgeolocation.io is US-incorporated and uses standard cloud terms; queries can transit US-based edge nodes. For fintech, healthtech, gov-tech, and adtech under GDPR scrutiny, that’s a documented Article 44/45 transfer-assessment problem. We’re EU-only at infra (Hetzner Frankfurt + Vercel fra1), at contract, and at corporate level.
  4. USD billing fatigue. Stripe/USD invoicing plus monthly FX adds 1-3% friction on every European invoice. Dutch, Belgian, German, and French finance teams flag this on every close. We bill EUR via Mollie with iDEAL, SEPA, Bancontact, and credit card as first-class methods.
  5. Bronze tier looks cheap until you add Security. ipgeolocation.io’s $15/mo Bronze (150K req/mo) is genuinely cheap on raw $/req. The moment you need threat flags — and most production IP-geo workloads do — it jumps to $30+ once you bolt on the Security API. Our €29/mo Starter (100K req/mo) ships with full threat data included, so the apples-to-apples comparison at “geo + threat” volume is closer to even at the entry tier and clearly favors us at 500K+ req/mo.

If none of these hit your stack — you don’t need threat detection, you actively use the bundled astronomy or currency endpoint, you’re outside the EU residency net — ipgeolocation.io’s bundled-everything posture is genuinely good and you have no switching reason. Stay where you are.

The real reasons to not switch

We try to be straight about this — the fastest way to lose a customer is to oversell the migration.

What migration actually looks like

For most teams the move is a single base-URL flip plus a thin response-shape adapter:

- // ipgeolocation.io (api-key as query param, JSON only)
- const r = await fetch(
-   `https://api.ipgeolocation.io/ipgeo?apiKey=${KEY}&ip=${ip}`
- );
- const data = await r.json();
- const country = data.country_code2;
- const city = data.city;
+ // IP Geo API (auth-header, EU-hosted, threat bundled)
+ const r = await fetch(`https://ipgeo.10b.app/v1/lookup/${ip}`, {
+   headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.IPGEO_API_KEY}` }
+ });
+ const data = await r.json();
+ const country = data.country.iso_code;
+ const city = data.location.city;
+ // Threat block — already there, no extra API call:
+ const isVpn = data.threat.is_vpn;

The non-obvious work is field mapping. ipgeolocation.io uses country_code2, state_prov, city, latitude/longitude, time_zone.name, plus optional Security-API-only is_proxy / is_tor flags. We use a nested-object shape: country.iso_code, location.region, location.city, location.lat/location.lng, location.timezone, with threat.is_vpn / threat.is_proxy / threat.is_tor / threat.is_datacenter / threat.is_residential always present in the same payload. Full mapping table on the ipgeolocation.io alternative comparison page.

What we recommend:

  1. Dual-call for 24-48h. In the request handler, call both ipgeolocation.io and our API; log every diff to a structured store. The most common diffs are city-naming (we use canonical English; ipgeolocation.io occasionally returns local-script names) and ASN organization formatting.
  2. Cache the response. Most workloads see a 60-80% IP repeat-rate within an hour. A 1-hour TTL cache (Redis, Memcached, or local LRU) cuts your billable count proportionally — and brings effective latency back below 1ms for hot IPs even on a REST API.
  3. Keep the ipgeolocation.io free tier warm for 7 days as rollback insurance, then turn off the Security API SKU and remove the bundled endpoints you’re not using.

Full migration guide with curl examples is on the ipgeolocation.io alternative comparison page.

Pricing math at three common volumes

Direct apples-to-apples needs a small adjustment because ipgeolocation.io’s Security API is a separate SKU. The table below is illustrative based on 2026 public list pricing for the most common workload (city-level + threat detection):

Monthly volume ipgeolocation.io IP Geo API Notes
30K req/mo Free (1K/day) Free (1K/day) Same quota
150K req/mo $15 (Bronze) — geo only; +$15 Security ≈ $30 €29 (Starter, 100K) Comparable at “geo + threat”; Bronze wins on raw $/req if no threat needed
1M req/mo $40 (Standard) + $40 (Security) = $80 €99 (Business, threat included) IP Geo API ~10-20% lower with full threat block
5M req/mo ~$200+ (Standard) + ~$200 (Security) = $400+ €399 (Scale) EUR billing avoids FX
Compliance overhead (EU residency docs, DPA, transfer assessments) ipgeolocation.io SCC + your DPO time EU-only, no transfer assessment Often dominates the unit economics for regulated sectors

Numbers above are list-price snapshots from ipgeolocation.io’s public pricing page on 2026-04-23. Negotiated annual contracts vary. The headline: ipgeolocation.io’s flat plans are competitive on raw geo-only $/req — but for workloads that need VPN/proxy/datacenter flags from day one (most production fraud / abuse / personalization use-cases) the apples-to-apples math is cleanly in our favour from 500K req/mo upward, and the EU-residency contractual posture is a hard constraint we win on regardless of volume.

Trust check: should you trust this comparison?

Honest disclosure: this post is on the IP Geo API blog. We have a commercial reason to suggest switching. We tried to compensate for that bias by:

If you spot a factual error, email hello@ipgeo.10b.app — we’ll edit and add a correction note above the fold within 48h. We’d rather be cited as accurate than aggressive.

Try IP Geo API in 5 minutes

# 1. Sign up — no credit card, 1.000 lookups/day on free tier, threat-block included
open https://ipgeo.10b.app/pricing

# 2. Test against a known IP (Google DNS) — note the bundled threat block
curl https://ipgeo.10b.app/v1/lookup/8.8.8.8 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $IPGEO_API_KEY"

# 3. Inspect the threat fields — no Security-API SKU upgrade required
curl https://ipgeo.10b.app/v1/lookup/8.8.8.8 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $IPGEO_API_KEY" | jq '.threat'

Sign up free → · Full ipgeolocation.io comparison → · API reference →

FAQ

Why is ipgeolocation.io’s separately-priced Security API such a big deal? The Security API SKU isn’t just a price increment — it’s a billing-line surprise that often hits after the architecture decision is locked in. Teams build the integration around the Geo plan, ship to production, and discover during the first abuse incident that their is_proxy / is_tor flags are restricted to the Security tier. At that point you’re either upgrading mid-quarter or shipping fraud-detection logic without the most-used signal. We bundle the threat block on the free tier so you never hit that surprise.

Is the threat data better than ipgeolocation.io’s Security API? Different upstream composition. Our is_vpn/is_proxy/is_tor/is_datacenter/is_residential classifiers run on an ensemble of public abuse feeds (Spamhaus DROP, FireHOL, AbuseIPDB-lite) plus our own passive-probe data. ipgeolocation.io’s Security-API composition is not publicly documented and the surface is similar (proxy + Tor + anonymous flags, no first-class VPN classification or residential-vs-datacenter distinction in the documented schema). Both cover the common 80% of fraud-relevant flags well; specialized fraud platforms typically run their own ML on top regardless of vendor.

Do you offer the bundled astronomy / currency / timezone endpoints? Timezone is included in our location.timezone field (IANA name + offset). Astronomy and currency are not — they’re separate domains and we’d rather be best-in-class for IP geo + threat than mediocre for 5 categories. There are excellent dedicated APIs for timezone math (e.g. timezonedb), astronomy, and currency conversion. If a single bundled call across all four matters more than EU residency + bundled threat, ipgeolocation.io stays your pick.

Will my ipgeolocation.io-shaped code work as-is with IP Geo API? Mostly the field semantics overlap, but the shape differs (their flat schema vs our nested-object schema). country_code2 → country.iso_code, state_prov → location.region, latitude/longitude → location.lat/location.lng. A thin adapter (~10 lines) covers the migration. See the field mapping table.

What happens if your API has an outage? Public status page: https://status.ipgeo.10b.app with a 90-day rolling history. Our SLA is 99.5% on Business plan (multi-region active-active across Frankfurt + Amsterdam). Most production deployments cache responses with a TTL of 1-24h, which means a brief API outage degrades to stale data, not failed lookups.

Related reading

Practical companion (highly recommended if you’ve decided to switch):

Drop-in migration guides for adjacent providers (in case you’re consolidating multiple sources onto IP Geo API):

If you’re evaluating IP geolocation APIs against multiple providers, the other head-on comparisons in this series may help:

Industry deep-dives

Last reviewed 2026-05-09 · IP Geo API team · Comments / corrections: hello@ipgeo.10b.app

Pairs with the full ipgeolocation.io alternative comparison page — has the complete feature matrix, migration guide, and pricing snapshot.

Get early access — 50% off for 12 months

First 100 signups lock in 50% off any paid plan for the first year. No credit card required — we’ll email you at launch.