Comparison
LayerCall vs 1Lookup
Both answer questions about whether a signup is real. 1Lookup is a multi-signal validation API; LayerCall returns IP, email, phone, domain and device from one request. Which is the better buy depends on how many of those you need to ask about.
What each one is
Phone, email and IP validation plus contact enrichment on a single API key and a shared credit balance, aimed at teams who want several data products without several vendors.
Their current pricing →One request returns IP, email, phone, domain and device together, on one key and one quota — because the signal that catches a fake signup is usually the relationship between them, and that relationship does not exist inside any single check.
Our pricing →We never quote 1Lookup’s prices. Where the table below states a fact about them, it is read from their own public page, linked beside the claim with the date we read it, and dropped if it goes sixty days unchecked. Their pricing is linked above and is always current.
About 1Lookup’s side of this page: we describe what kind of product it is, and where we state a fact about it we quote their own public page, link to it, and show the date we read it — and we never quote their prices, which change without notice. Where their pages do not say, we say that rather than guess. Anything current comes from them: 1Lookup’s own pricing page. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners; LayerCall is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with 1Lookup.
Point by point
Every row is a point we set out to meet. Ours is checkable on this site; theirs is read from 1Lookup’s own public pages, each claim linked to the page it came from and dated. A dash means their pages do not say — which is not a no.
| Point | LayerCall | 1Lookup | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identifiers scored in one request | Yes | IP, email, phone, domain and device — one call, one key, one quota. | No | IP, email and phone, by category (multi-signal validation API). Not domain and device. |
| A free tier that needs no card | Yes | 1,000 lookups a month, every endpoint, no card, no daily cap. At the limit it stops rather than billing. | No | A card is required to start the trial, but nothing is charged up front. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| Device fingerprinting on every plan | Yes | Included on every plan, the free one too. | Not stated | Fraud Detection product page lists device fingerprinting and emulator detection; plan gating is not stated. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| The signals come back with the score | Yes | The signals behind it, and an allow / review / block verdict you tune with strictness. A number alone is unappealable. | Yes | Returns fraud_score 0–100, risk_level, risk_factors and confidence_level; no strictness parameter, the customer sets a threshold. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| A test mode that never bills | Yes | Synthetic data, labelled as such in every response, never billed, never written to the shared network. How it works | Not stated | Not stated on their public pages. Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| Repeat lookups are not charged | Yes | Cached repeat lookups are free, every response carries billable_lookups, and you set your own spend cap. | Yes | 7-day cache: repeats cost 0 credits (bypass_cache to skip); credits_used and credits_remaining on every response; no spend cap stated. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| Accuracy published with sample size and method | Yes | Published with the sample size, the method and the corpus. The figures | No | Fraud Detection page lists False Positives <0.3% under Technical Specifications; no sample size or method is published. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| Verifies an AI agent's signature | Yes | Verifies an agent’s Web Bot Auth signature and decides what a verified agent may do. Agent endpoints | No | Hosted MCP server lets AI agents call lookups with OAuth sign-in; verifying AI agents (Web Bot Auth, HTTP Message Signatures) not mentioned. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
When 1Lookup is the better buy
You want enrichment as well as validation — contact and company data alongside the checks. That is a broader catalogue than ours and a genuine reason to pick them.
Weighing more than one option? Every 1Lookup alternative we know of, ranked — including the ones that are a closer swap than we are.