Data sources
- ipapi.is: who operates the IP and network (ISP, hosting, business, education…), plus proxy, VPN, Tor, abuse and crawler flags.
- DB-IP Lite: country, city and ASN, used under CC BY 4.0.
- X4BNet public lists: known datacenter and VPN ranges.
- Tor Project: Tor exit node list.
- FireHOL level1: public abuse ranges.
- DNS blocklists: SpamCop, PSBL, UCEPROTECT L1, DroneBL and s5h, queried live.
- RDAP registry data: network name, registrant, abuse contact and remarks, via rdap.org to the regional registries.
- Reverse DNS (PTR): the IP itself, plus one in every 8 addresses of the same /24 (32 in total).
- proxycheck.io: a second opinion listed in the evidence but not used for the verdict (in our tests it labels some home-broadband pools as business and cloud servers as VPN); used only as a fallback when the main source is unavailable.
- PeeringDB: the network’s self-declared type. Reference only — large home-broadband ISPs often register as backbone networks, and cloud providers sometimes as “enterprise”.
Results for the same IP are kept for 24 hours. The online source has a daily quota; once it runs out we judge from public lists only and label the result “reduced”.
How the IP type is decided
Step 1: database verdict
The first matching row decides the initial verdict:
| Order | Condition | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Flagged as proxy, VPN or Tor exit | Proxy / VPN |
| 2 | Flagged as datacenter, or operated by a hosting / cloud company | Datacenter IP |
| 3 | Flagged as mobile network | Mobile network |
| 4 | Operated by an ISP | Residential IP (then checked in step 2) |
| 5 | Operated by a business, school, government or bank | Business line |
| 6 | None of the above | Undetermined |
Step 2: double-check with registry data and reverse DNS
IPs judged residential, business or undetermined are checked against two kinds of public evidence, in this order:
| Evidence | New verdict |
|---|---|
| Reverse DNS looks like servers or cloud (ec2-…, vps…), or registry data points to an IDC / datacenter | Datacenter IP |
| Reverse DNS belongs to a business ISP (e.g. MegaPath) | Business line |
| Databases say residential, but neither the IP nor its /24 shows home-broadband pool naming (adsl-…, pool-…, cm…) | ISP IP |
| Undetermined, but reverse DNS shows home-broadband pool naming | Residential IP |
When the IP itself has no reverse DNS we use the naming type shared by more than half of the 32 sampled neighbours. Missing reverse DNS is never counted against an IP. The “Evidence” section of each result lists every item and says whether the verdict changed.
“ISP IP” means the address belongs to an ISP network, but we found no public evidence that it is home broadband. It may be, or it may be sold to a business or a datacenter. Different checkers use different sources, so verdicts for the same IP can differ.
Native IP vs broadcast IP
We compare the country in the whois address of the IP’s range with the country the IP is located in. The same country means a native IP; different countries mean a broadcast IP — typically a range registered in one country and announced for use in another.
Purity score
Start at 100 and subtract, down to 0:
| Finding | Points |
|---|---|
| Datacenter IP | −25 |
| Proxy flag | −30 |
| VPN flag | −30 |
| Tor exit | −50 |
| Abuse record | −25 |
| Crawler flag | −10 |
| Each DNS blocklist hit | −10 (max −30) |
| Broadcast IP | −5 |
Grades: 95+ A+, 85+ A, 70+ B, 50+ C, 25+ D, otherwise F.
How use-case fit is scored
TikTok and gaming need very different things from an IP, so each use case has its own deductions from 100: 80+ is “Suitable”, 55–79 “Usable, with risk”, below 55 “Not recommended”. This is a fit score, not a success rate — platforms also weigh your account, device and behaviour.
| Deduction | TikTok | E-commerce stores | Social accounts | Streaming | Payments | Gaming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Datacenter IP | −50 | −30 | −30 | −50 | −30 | −10 |
| Flagged as proxy / VPN | −40 | −40 | −35 | −40 | −45 | −15 |
| Tor exit | −60 | −60 | −50 | −60 | −70 | −60 |
| Abuse history | −25 | −30 | −30 | −5 | −35 | −20 |
| Per blocklist (max 3) | −5 | −5 | −5 | — | −10 | — |
| Broadcast IP | −15 | −10 | −10 | −25 | −15 | −5 |
| Type unclear | −10 | −10 | −10 | −10 | −10 | — |
| Business line | −5 | — | — | — | — | — |
| Shared by many | −20 | −25 | −15 | −10 | −15 | — |
What each use case weighs most: TikTok — IP type, native vs broadcast, sharing; E-commerce stores — sharing (account linking), proxy flags, abuse; Social accounts — proxy flags, abuse; Streaming — datacenter / proxy (blocked as proxies), broadcast IPs (catalog by region); Payments — proxy / Tor, abuse, blocklists; Gaming — mostly latency (not measured here); IP type matters less.
Regional hard limits are not scored — they are “Not recommended” outright: TikTok does not serve mainland China (Douyin instead), Hong Kong (left in 2020) or India (banned since 2020); Netflix and Disney+ are not offered in mainland China, and Netflix suspended service in Russia in 2022.
Shared by many: when you run the home-page check we store “exit IP, date, device hash” (the hash is derived from your browser’s UA and language plus a site secret, cannot be reversed, and is deleted after 8 days). 5+ different devices on the same exit within 7 days counts as shared. Homes usually have 2–4 devices and won’t trigger it. The count only covers IP Judge visitors, so it errs low.
Corrections
If you think a verdict is wrong, submit a correction at the bottom of the IP page. Each one is reviewed by hand; confirmed corrections change the verdict, and the IP’s evidence cites the correction number. All corrections and outcomes are public under Corrections.
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini suitability
Each company publishes its own list of available regions, and the lists differ. We judge each platform against its own list (checked item by item on 30 September 2026):
- ChatGPT: OpenAI’s list, 208 regions.
- Claude: Anthropic’s list (Claude.ai section), 185 regions.
- Gemini: Google’s list, 240 regions. Mainland China is Workspace-only and not counted for personal accounts.
Common examples: mainland China is supported by none of the three; Hong Kong and Macau only by Gemini; Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria and Belarus by none.
Once the region is on the list, the network type decides: proxy / VPN is not suitable; a datacenter IP works but gets challenged more; residential, mobile, ISP IPs and business lines are suitable.
The home page also asks claude.ai and chatgpt.com directly which IP they see — proxy apps often route by domain, so these can differ from the IP that opened this site. Gemini offers no public way to read the IP it sees, so the home page only checks whether it is reachable.
Separate IPv4 and IPv6 checks
The home page contacts one IPv4-only and one IPv6-only address (Cloudflare’s diagnostic page) and reads both exits. If the IPv6 exit is in a different region from IPv4, IPv6 traffic is taking another route — and many sites prefer IPv6, so that is the exit they see.
What we cannot promise
Platforms also weigh your account, device, payment method and usage. IP Judge only checks the network side; a result is not any platform’s final decision.