Comparison
NumberBroom vs. IPQualityScore
How is NumberBroom different from IPQualityScore?
Short answerIPQualityScore is a fraud-prevention platform with a strong phone product, and on unit price at volume it beats us outright: its $99/month Startup plan covers 5,000 lookups, which is about $0.02 a lookup by our arithmetic against $0.20 here. Two things are worth knowing before that settles it. Their plans are monthly with a stated minimum monthly commitment, so the entry cost is a subscription rather than $5. And their DNC and TCPA litigator data are add-ons an account manager has to switch on -- the fields return null until then, and their own documentation says the DNC data "may not be 100% current". NumberBroom runs the litigator check on every job by default.
On this page
These two get compared because both will tell you whether a phone number is real, and there the similarity stops. IPQualityScore is a fraud-prevention platform that happens to have an excellent phone product. NumberBroom is a compliance-shaped tool for people who already have a list and have to decide what to do with it this week. The honest version of this comparison concedes a lot of ground.
On unit price they win, and pretending otherwise would be silly
| Plan | Per month | Lookups | Per lookup (our arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000/mo, 35/day | -- |
| Startup | $99 | 5,000 | ~$0.0198 |
| SMB Basic | $499 | 10,000 | ~$0.0499 |
| SMB+ | $999 | 75,000 | ~$0.0133 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | -- |
| NumberBroom | $0 | Pay per job | $0.20, $5 minimum |
Their page hedges every tier as "as low as", and the per-lookup column is our division rather than a rate they publish. Read the third row twice: the $499 plan is dearer per lookup than the $99 one. That is their published arithmetic, not a typo of ours, and it is the sort of thing worth checking before you upgrade into it.
There is also a figure on their phone-validation page describing pricing as "on average from $0.0005 per user". It appears on no pricing page and reconciles with none of the published tiers, so we quote it as marketing copy rather than treating it as a rate you can buy at.
The difference that actually decides it is commitment, not rate
IPQualityScore's plans are monthly and, in their words, "do not require a contract" -- you can cancel, upgrade or downgrade at any time, and upgrades pro-rate your unused credits. But the same page states that each plan requires a minimum monthly commitment. So the smallest real paid entry is $99 a month, or $1,188 across a year whether or not you run a list in August.
NumberBroom has no plan to be on. A 100-row list is $20, a 25-row list is $5, and a month with no lists is nothing. At 5,000 numbers a month, every month, IPQualityScore is dramatically cheaper and you should use IPQualityScore. At one list a quarter, a subscription is the expensive option no matter how good the unit rate looks.
Where the products genuinely diverge
The field lists tell the story. Theirs is built to answer "is this person a fraud risk": fraud score, recent abuse, prepaid status, SMS-pumping risk, leaked credentials, porting history. Ours is built to answer "is it safe and worthwhile to dial this row": line type, carrier, whether the line looks disconnected, and whether the number belongs to somebody who files TCPA suits for a living.
Litigator screening: included here, enabled there
IPQualityScore does have do_not_call and tcpa_blacklist fields. Both are add-ons an account manager switches on, both return null until they are, do_not_call is USA and Canada only, and their documentation itself cautions that the DNC data may not be fully current. Add-on pricing is not published.
On NumberBroom the litigator check is not a tier, an add-on or a conversation. It runs on every row, at the same $0.20, because screening the list was the reason the product exists.
Neither of these is a knock on a well-built platform aimed at a different buyer. It does mean that if TCPA exposure is the thing keeping you up, the product where that check is standard is a different purchase from the product where it is a phone call with an account manager.
Which to pick
- Continuous, high-volume validation wired into a signup or checkout flow. That is IPQualityScore's home ground, the unit economics are strongly in their favour, and the fraud signals are real value we do not offer.
- Periodic list hygiene before an outbound push, where the spend is lumpy and TCPA exposure is the actual worry. Paying a monthly minimum to answer an occasional question is the wrong shape.
- Both, at different layers, which is common enough. Score traffic at the edge with a fraud platform; scrub the call list before the dialer runs.
For how the rest of the market prices this, see what DNC and litigator scrubbing actually costs, or check a single number free.
Frequently asked questions
Is IPQualityScore cheaper than NumberBroom?
Per lookup, at volume, yes -- and it is not close. Their published tiers as of 8 September 2026 are $99/month for 5,000 lookups, $499 for 10,000, and $999 for 75,000. Dividing those out gives roughly $0.0198, $0.0499 and $0.0133 per lookup; that division is ours, since IPQS publishes no per-lookup rate. Against $0.20 here, the Startup plan is about a tenth of the price and the $999 tier about a fifteenth. Two caveats that do not cancel that out but do change who it suits: the plans are monthly with a minimum monthly commitment, so the real comparison for occasional use is $99 a month against $5 a job; and one oddity worth noticing before you pick a tier is that the $499 plan works out dearer per lookup than the $99 one, which is what their own page says.
Does IPQualityScore check TCPA litigators and the DNC list?
Yes, with conditions, and it would be wrong to say they do not. Their documentation lists two relevant fields, do_not_call and tcpa_blacklist. Both are add-ons that an account manager has to enable, and both return null until that happens, so they are not part of a plan you buy off the pricing page. do_not_call covers the USA and Canada only, and their own docs note it "may not be 100% current with the latest DNC blocklists", directing you to contact support to enable better DNC data and litigator removal. Add-on pricing is not published, so we do not know what that costs. On NumberBroom the litigator check is not an add-on or a conversation; it runs on every row of every job at the standard $0.20.
Which one returns more information about a phone number?
IPQualityScore, comfortably. Their documented response carries 25+ fields, including line type across seven categories, carrier, active status, a 0-100 fraud score, prepaid and VOIP flags, recent-abuse and spammer signals, city, region, zip and timezone, mobile country and network codes, porting history with a last-ported date, SMS-pumping risk and leaked-credential indicators. NumberBroom returns a deliberately narrower set aimed at one decision: line type, carrier, an activity score that identifies disconnected numbers, E.164 normalisation, and the litigator flag. If you are scoring signup fraud, their field list is the point. If you are deciding which rows of a call list to dial, most of it is not.
Can I use IPQualityScore without writing code?
Yes. They are API-first but there is a dashboard CSV upload and a bulk validation CSV API alongside it. The upload allowance is tier-gated -- three per day on the free plan, unlimited on Enterprise -- and the limits for the middle tiers are not stated on the pages we scraped. NumberBroom is CSV-first by design, with the API as the secondary door rather than the main one.
Do IPQualityScore's phone lookups use the same credits as their other products?
Their plans describe a single shared lookup pool spanning IP, email, phone and URL products, so one budget covers all of them. We could not fully verify how phone consumes it: the "What Counts as a Lookup?" entry in their pricing FAQ names Proxy Detection, Email Verification and Device Fingerprinting, and omits phone. Rather than guess, treat this as a question to ask them directly if your volume is concentrated in one product. Whether unused credits roll over or expire is likewise not stated on any page we read.
