How much should IP geolocation data cost?

For anyone who’s ever tried to decipher pricing for geolocation services, it can be a monumental task. Some providers are free. Others charge per request. Still others hide their prices until you’re ready to talk to a sales representative.

Simply narrowing down how much to pay for geolocation data can be an overwhelming undertaking. Not only do decision makers need to weigh the values coming from developers and other team members, but they also have to consider all the services offered by that particular geolocation provider.

Needless to say, it's not always easy for companies to narrow down their options. That’s why we want to give you a few benchmarks to consider as you look at your budget and the prices of geolocation services.

Pricing as a feature

Before jumping into all of that, though, here’s some food for thought. Geolocation services offer many features, and perhaps price is one of them.

Just like buying a house simply based on one feature, such as the color of the carpet or the size of the upstairs bathroom, might lead to some unexpected repercussions for homebuyers. So choosing a geolocation provider simply based on one feature (such as price) may steer buyers away from their long term goals.

So should price be a major consideration? Yes, it absolutely should be. That being said, it’s easier to make good decisions when viewing price as a feature, rather than the ruling principle.

For instance...

Here are the options IPinfo offers. Because we want every potential customer to make informed, hassle-free decisions about their budget, at IPinfo we operate on an open pricing model. Users can sign up for free... no gimmicks or credit card information required.

And while we have several distinct pricing tiers, we also focus on flexible API pricing. As a result, users can get specific data sets without paying for other information they don’t need.

Additionally, our APIs are built to grow with enterprise businesses. Our team is used to building customized plans to accommodate high volume requests, custom API responses, additional data fields, and much more.

Bottom line, consider price as a feature among many others.

1. What range of prices are there?

Deciphering geolocation pricing models may be right up there with decrypting the Rosetta Stone. It’s confusing.

Pricing models

By way of illustration, there’s at least one geolocation provider who offers their IP to Country database for around $50 per year for a single server. That is, unless you need a site license, at which point you’ll pay nearly a thousand dollars annually.

Another IP address service lists their prices publicly for a few products and then hides them for others. To complicate matters even more, customers will pay even more if they need other specific data beyond the baseline feature price.

And then there are other publicly available APIs that are completely free. But dig in a little further and you might notice the underbelly of free geolocation data that isn’t properly maintained.

All this to say, the range of geolocation data price points range from absolutely nothing to very expensive.

Free plans

IPinfo is unique in that our geolocation API is free up to 50,000 requests per month. This also includes some ASN data as well. And while many other IP address providers offer some sort of free geolocation information, there are normally limitations such as these:

Access to a database only but not to a fully-functional API.
Less than 50,000 requests per month
Free version offers lower quality data
Database isn’t well maintained
Poor or delayed customer support

The free geolocation plan at IPinfo, however, gives users full access to our API. Our database is updated daily, meaning the free version uses the same information quality as our paid plans.

And our customer support is fully functional, responding to questions and requests on the same day, regardless of what plan is being used. In other words, we’d love for you to test our data at no risk to you.

2. What other factors are there?

For paid plans there are a variety of factors that influence what price to consider. We’ll lay a few of those out in this section.

Accuracy

Where geolocation services get their data affects the accuracy of their database. And the accuracy of their database directly affects buyers’ outcomes and return on investment.

Unfortunately, geolocation providers don’t always highlight where they get their data. For instance, many IP address services simply download data from another outside source.

This information may or may not be updated regularly and often isn’t validated by the geolocation provider. Many free APIs function this way.

Other geolocation providers don’t update their databases enough to ensure that buyers receive accurate data. Some manage information quality once a week while others may rarely improve their data sets.

In IPinfo’s case, however, we source our own proprietary data and update it every day. Our in-house data experts monitor the information we provide so that customers can rely on the information they receive.

Here’s the problem with this. Especially in high-risk industries such as Cybersecurity, Healthcare, or FinTech, businesses need to know that the quality of data they receive will help them mitigate risks and protect customers.

But beyond that, Ecommerce, GameTech, and many others also need to protect their online investments and brand loyalty. In short, bad data can quickly diminish those valuable commodities.

Flexibility

Especially for future-oriented companies, flexibility is an important facet to look for in geolocation providers. For businesses who want to scale growth and not be slowed down by an inflexible API, these are important considerations.

Is this geolocation provider equipped to expand with our growth?
Where is our company headed over the next year? Two years? Three years?
Can this API morph alongside accelerated growth? Or will it slow us down?
Will we have to find and implement a different geolocation service if we grow more than expected?

Choosing a completely free API or one of the less-expensive databases, in other words, may come back to bite forward-looking businesses. All this to say, if you’re looking toward the future, then a flexible API is an important feature to weigh while you look at prices.

Latency

Many industries don’t have the luxury of waiting around for their API to serve them the data they need. For instance, gaming companies may lose buyer loyalty if their real-time experiences don’t actually function in real-time.

But beyond that, Cybersecurity and Ecommerce companies need IP address data quickly to stay ahead of fraud or spammers. In short, take a look at the latency of each geolocation provider. This could help you eliminate a few options even if their pricing looks appealing.

Support

Another factor to look at is support and customer service. And while this may not regularly affect project managers or C-suite executives, it directly impacts developers. So here are some questions to weigh while looking at different pricing options:

What kind of support will be available to our team?
Will my developers have the resources they need to work efficiently?
What libraries does this geolocation service offer?
In the long run, will we spend less money developing our use case if we choose one provider over another?

To quote Benjamin Franklin, “time is money.” The more time developers have to spend chasing around answers, solutions, or jimmy-rigging API functions for your purposes, the more you may spend in the long run.

3. What does your company need most?

Here’s the crux of the issue - knowing what factors matter most for your particular business. Is your company ready for rapid growth? Do you need to stay ahead of fraud? Do you need better web personalization to improve customer experiences? And the list goes on and on.

So to make this a little easier here’s a brief quiz you can use to decide what geolocation services might help your company the most. In fact, you might want to have different team members fill it out to gather more information about efficiency in their department.

1. What are the budget constraints?

2. What does our team hope to improve or change with geolocation data?

3. What features matter most to my team?

Low cost
Accuracy
Flexibility
Latency
Support

4. What will save us the most time in the long run?

Low cost
Accuracy
Flexibility
Latency
Support

5. What features will protect our bottom line in the future?

Low cost
Accuracy
Flexibility
Latency
Support

6. Which geolocation providers offer the best service for each feature?

Low cost: _________________________________________
Accuracy: _________________________________________
Flexibility: _________________________________________
Latency: __________________________________________
Support: __________________________________________

7. Based on all of these considerations, what are my top three geolocation service choices?

If you want to share it with a colleague or fill it right in the file, download the full checklist here.

To boil all of this pricing information down, the best way to approach costs is to start with who you are as a company and what you need to reach your long term goals.

These considerations trump everything else (even opinions we may have here at IPinfo). Then, viewing price as a feature, make your decision based on the trajectory of your company.

IPinfo is a comprehensive IP address data and API provider with flexible pricing plans to meet your business needs. We handle billions of API requests per month, serving data like IP geolocation, ASN, VPN detection, IP Abuse contact and more. Sign up for a free account or contact our data experts to learn more.

How much should you be spending on geolocation services?