ShieldLabs vs IPQualityScore
Updated September 2026
Looking for an IPQualityScore alternative? ShieldLabs gives enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing: risk detection for every visitor, user, device and IP address, and ready-made detection of multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel with no rules to configure, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications. IPQualityScore gives you a 0 to 100 score per lookup, with device fingerprinting on Enterprise, and you configure the rules and build account-level detection yourself, from 99 USD a month for 5,000 lookups.
How ShieldLabs compares to IPQualityScore
| Capability |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | ||
| Overall score | 9.7 out of 10 | 7.7 out of 10 (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Getting started | ||
| Integration time | About 5 minutes | Hours to days (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Public pricing and self-serve | Public prices for device and network intelligence at every volume, no sales call | Public prices for IP, email, phone and URL lookups, device fingerprinting on Enterprise (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Ease of use | Results in the analytics dashboard with nothing to set up | Signals and a score, the detection model is yours to build (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Fit from startup to enterprise | Enterprise-level functionality on every plan, for businesses of all sizes | Four self-serve tiers to 75,000 lookups, then custom Enterprise pricing (comparable) |
| Documentation and SDKs | Public docs, client and server SDKs | Public docs, client and server SDKs (comparable) |
| API and webhooks | On every plan, including Free | On every plan (comparable) |
| Platform coverage | Web and mobile web | Web, native mobile apps, Flutter and Unity (comparable) |
| Platform flexibility | Ready-made detection, nothing to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Detection | ||
| Identification accuracy | 99.9%, network and device intelligence | Device intelligence, with partial network coverage (ShieldLabs leads) |
| How the accuracy figure is checked | Published method: what is collected, how the score is built, 1,511 automated tests, audited on more than a million requests | Not published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Risk signal detection accuracy | 99.9%, network and device intelligence | Device intelligence, with partial network coverage (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Bot and automation detection | Bots, automation and AI agents | Bots and automation, no AI agents (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Breadth of the signal set | 300+ risk signals | 300+ raw signals claimed (comparable) |
| Local IP detection | Ready-made, with its country | Not offered (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Geolocation accuracy | Location checked against the local IP and network characteristics, not the public IP alone | From the public IP (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Account clustering | Multi-accounting and account sharing, with a graph | A device ID and a hardware GUID, no linked-accounts output (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Multi-accounting detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | No ready detection, you build it yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Account sharing detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | No ready detection, you build it yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Account takeover detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Impossible travel detection | Ready-made, no rules to configure | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Decision and analytics | ||
| Fit to the job | A finished verdict for each detection | A 0 to 100 score per lookup, with no account-level verdict (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Risk signal scoring | Ready-made weights for every signal | A machine-learning black box, weights not published (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Why a visit was flagged | Every signal that fired, with its weight, on every plan | 46 device reason codes, marked a premium account feature (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Cost of a false positive | A ready verdict with every reason shown | Rules you configure yourself (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Analytics a non-engineer can read | Traffic, risk and events readable without building anything | Advanced Reports, averages and CSV in their dashboard (comparable) |
| Latency and real-time decisioning | About 300 milliseconds | About 400 milliseconds (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Decision Risk | Trusted, Suspicious or Dangerous for visitors, users, devices and IPs | A score per lookup, with no per-user or per-account object (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Traffic-quality scoring | Ready-made | Click and invalid-traffic filtering, sold as its own product (comparable) |
| Traffic source | Channel and full UTM | Not offered (ShieldLabs leads) |
| History API | On every plan, for every identification | Lookup by ID (comparable) |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | 5,000 identifications, one time | 1,000 lookups a month (comparable) |
| Entry price | From 99 USD a month, 25,000 identifications | From 99 USD a month, 5,000 lookups (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 25,000 identifications a month | 99 USD a month, 10x cheaper | 999 USD a month, their cheapest plan covering 25,000 lookups (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 150,000 identifications a month | 399 USD a month | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price at 500,000 identifications a month | 999 USD a month | An enterprise contract only (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Price per identification | From 0.00396 USD down to 0.00200 USD | From 0.0133 to 0.0499 USD a lookup (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Plans and support | ||
| Features on every plan | Every feature on every plan, including Free | Device fingerprinting on Enterprise, deeper fields by tier (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Data retention | 90 days on every plan | About one year (comparable) |
| API requests per second | From 5 to 15 RPS | 35 lookups a day on Free, 250 on Startup, 20 a second from SMB Basic (comparable) |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% on Scale, self-serve | 99.5% on their 999 USD plan, 99.9% only on Enterprise (ShieldLabs leads) |
| Support | Chat and email on every plan, including Free | Email and business-hours phone on every plan, 7-day support on Enterprise (comparable) |
Every competitor cell was checked on their public website and docs, and in our own testing, in September 2026. How ShieldLabs measures 99.9% accuracy
Why choose ShieldLabs
Ready-made detection, no rules to configure
Multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel come ready, with Medium or High confidence and no rules to configure. IPQualityScore returns a device ID and a fraud score, so you configure the rules and build the account-level detection yourself.
Enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing
Every feature comes on every plan, device intelligence included, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications, and 5,000 identifications are free to start. IPQualityScore starts at 99 USD a month for 5,000 lookups and lists device fingerprinting among the optional features on Enterprise.
Enterprise quality at a lower price
More mature functionality at a lower price: from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications, and the price per identification drops as your traffic grows. The cheapest public IPQualityScore plan that covers 25,000 lookups costs 999 USD a month, and larger volumes are sold on an enterprise contract only.
Risk analytics and investigation
Investigate visitors, devices and IPs, each rated Trusted, Suspicious or Dangerous, and see the overall risk across all your traffic and by source, channel and UTM. IPQualityScore reports on the variables you pass it and captures no traffic source of its own.
Switch to an IPQualityScore alternative without a migration
Both install side by side without conflicting. Add ShieldLabs on the free tier alongside your current IPQualityScore setup, compare the data for a week, see the quality for yourself, and switch to ShieldLabs when you are ready.
- 01
Install the ShieldLabs snippet next to IPQualityScore in about five minutes.
- 02
Collect 5,000 free identifications on the same traffic.
- 03
Detect risky visitors and users, and compare them with what IPQualityScore flags.
- 04
Move to ShieldLabs and prevent abuse of your product.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best IPQualityScore alternative?
- ShieldLabs gives enterprise-level functionality without enterprise pricing: risk detection for every visitor, user, device and IP address, and ready-made detection of multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel with no rules to configure, from 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications. IPQualityScore gives you a 0 to 100 score per lookup, with device fingerprinting on Enterprise, and you configure the rules and build account-level detection yourself, from 99 USD a month for 5,000 lookups.
- How is ShieldLabs different from IPQualityScore?
- Multi-accounting, account sharing, account takeover and impossible travel come ready, with Medium or High confidence and no rules to configure. IPQualityScore returns a device ID and a fraud score, so you configure the rules and build the account-level detection yourself.
- How much does ShieldLabs cost compared to IPQualityScore?
- ShieldLabs costs 99 USD a month for 25,000 identifications, 399 USD a month for 150,000 identifications, 999 USD a month for 500,000 identifications, with 5,000 identifications free to start. IPQualityScore: 999 USD a month, their cheapest plan covering 25,000 lookups at 25,000; An enterprise contract only at 150,000; An enterprise contract only at 500,000.
- Can ShieldLabs run alongside IPQualityScore?
- Both install side by side without conflicting. Add ShieldLabs on the free tier alongside your current IPQualityScore setup, compare the data for a week, see the quality for yourself, and switch to ShieldLabs when you are ready.
Ready to get started?
Start free with 5,000 identifications. Add the snippet once, and the analytics dashboard fills in from your first visitor.