Comparison
LayerCall vs Predax
Both answer questions about whether a signup is real. Predax is an IP threat intelligence 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
A real-time IP intelligence API — VPN, proxy, Tor and datacenter detection with a risk score — packaged with a web application firewall and drop-in WordPress and WooCommerce plugins.
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 Predax’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 Predax’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: Predax’s own pricing page. Product names and trademarks belong to their owners; LayerCall is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with Predax.
Point by point
Every row is a point we set out to meet. Ours is checkable on this site; theirs is read from Predax’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 | Predax | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identifiers scored in one request | Yes | IP, email, phone, domain and device — one call, one key, one quota. | No | IP, by category (IP threat intelligence API). Not email, phone, domain and device. |
| Cross-signal linkage | Yes | A device that reappears on a new email and IP is linked, and the link is in the score. | No | Not possible from a single-identifier check: there is no second signal to link IP to. |
| 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. | Yes | Free: 5,000 requests every month, with no credit card and no expiry. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
| Device fingerprinting on every plan | Yes | Included on every plan, the free one too. | Yes | Crawler identification included on the Free plan; API accepts an optional fingerprint input (timezone, languages, webrtc_local_ip). 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 risk_score with reasons entries of {flag, source, detail} explaining why each flag was set. 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 | No | Browser playground has a Demo mode that needs no API key; separate test keys or a non-billing synthetic sandbox are not described. their page → 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 | A repeat of the same IP within 5 minutes on the same key is not billed; an X-Quota-Billed header says whether a call was charged. 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 | Publishes detection and false-positive rates by type: Tor ~99% at <0.1%, commercial VPNs ~95% at <1%; no sample size or method. 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 | crawler.verified checks bot identity via forward-confirmed reverse DNS or published IP ranges; no Web Bot Auth / HTTP Message Signatures. their page → Checked 3 Sept 2026. |
When Predax is the better buy
The site you are protecting is WordPress or WooCommerce, and you want a plugin rather than an integration. Installing something from the plugin directory and being done is a genuinely different purchase from wiring an API into a signup flow, and we do not offer it. Their firewall sits in front of the request too, which is a job we do not do at all — we answer a question, we do not block traffic for you.
Weighing more than one option? Every Predax alternative we know of, ranked — including the ones that are a closer swap than we are.