My IP Help vs Scamalytics

Ad fraud and bot traffic cost the digital advertising industry an estimated $84 billion globally, according to Juniper Research. Identifying fraudulent IPs before they pollute analytics or drain ad budgets requires specialized tools. My IP Help and Scamalytics both analyze IP addresses for suspicious activity, but they target different aspects of the fraud detection problem. This comparison examines how each platform approaches fraud scoring, bot detection, and IP profiling to help you pick the right tool for your needs.

Overview: What Does Each Tool Do?

My IP Help is an IP intelligence platform that combines geolocation data, threat detection, VPN/proxy identification, and a full suite of network diagnostic tools. It aggregates data from MaxMind, DB-IP, and curated threat intelligence feeds to assess risk indicators for any IP address. The platform provides detailed information about an IP’s location, ISP, ASN, hosting type, and threat associations, alongside more than 20 free network tools for DNS, WHOIS, port scanning, and other diagnostic tasks.

Scamalytics is a fraud detection service originally built for the online dating industry that has expanded to serve publishers, ad networks, and e-commerce platforms. It assigns a fraud score from 0 to 100 for each IP address based on proprietary algorithms that analyze connection type, proxy usage, geographic anomalies, and behavioral patterns. Scamalytics maintains its own database of known fraudulent IPs and uses machine learning to classify new addresses based on their characteristics.

The key difference: My IP Help is a general-purpose IP intelligence platform providing comprehensive data about any IP address along with network tools, while Scamalytics focuses specifically on fraud scoring with algorithms tuned for detecting ad fraud, fake accounts, and bot traffic.

Feature Comparison

Key Differences

Fraud Scoring Methodology

Scamalytics builds its fraud scores from proprietary models trained on data from high-fraud verticals, particularly online dating and digital advertising. Their scoring accounts for connection type anomalies, geographic impossibilities, and patterns associated with click farms and bot networks. My IP Help takes a different approach, identifying risk through the aggregation of known threat indicators: Is the IP on a threat list? Is it a known VPN, proxy, or Tor exit node? Is it associated with a datacenter or cloud provider? Both methods are valid, but Scamalytics provides a single confidence score optimized for immediate allow/block decisions, while My IP Help gives you the underlying data points to make your own risk assessment. The IAB’s Invalid Traffic Detection Guidelines recommend using multiple detection signals, which is the approach both platforms support in different ways.

Connection Type Intelligence

Scamalytics places significant emphasis on connection type classification, distinguishing between residential, mobile, datacenter, and corporate connections. This classification is particularly useful for ad fraud detection because legitimate users typically connect from residential or mobile networks, while bots and click farms often operate from datacenters. My IP Help also identifies datacenter and cloud provider IPs through its enrichment system and provides ASN-level classification. Both platforms detect VPNs and proxies, though Scamalytics further categorizes proxy types (web proxy, public proxy, VPN) and factors this into its fraud score calculation.

Breadth vs. Specialization

My IP Help serves a broader audience with its combination of IP intelligence, geolocation, and network tools. A security researcher investigating an IP can get location data, threat status, WHOIS information, and run DNS queries all in one place. Scamalytics serves a narrower but deeper niche: its entire platform is optimized for fraud detection, and every feature feeds into answering the question “Is this IP likely fraudulent?” For teams whose primary concern is ad quality or account integrity, Scamalytics’ focused approach means less noise. For teams that need versatile IP analysis tools, My IP Help provides more capabilities in a single platform. According to Statista’s ad fraud research, digital ad fraud continues to grow, making specialized tools increasingly important for publishers and advertisers.

The pricing models reflect these different approaches. Scamalytics offers paid API plans designed for high-volume ad-tech and publishing integrations, with pricing based on query volume. My IP Help provides free web-based lookups with full data visibility for anyone to use, plus tiered API plans for developers and businesses that need programmatic access. For evaluating suspicious IPs on a case-by-case basis, My IP Help’s free access is hard to beat. For automated fraud filtering in production ad systems, Scamalytics’ purpose-built scoring is worth the investment.

When to Use Each Tool

Choose My IP Help when:

• You need comprehensive IP profiling beyond fraud scoring alone
• Geolocation accuracy and detailed ASN data matter for your analysis
• You want network diagnostic tools (DNS, WHOIS, port scanning) in the same platform
• You are researching or investigating IPs rather than scoring them for automated decisions
• You want a free, accessible tool for quick IP checks without needing a paid account

Choose Scamalytics when:

• Ad fraud detection and click quality scoring are your primary concerns
• You need a single fraud score for automated allow/block decisions
• You operate in a high-fraud vertical like dating, gambling, or classified ads
• Connection type classification (residential vs. datacenter) is important for your filtering
• You need specialized bot detection for ad traffic quality

Frequently Asked Questions

Try It Yourself

See how My IP Help’s IP intelligence compares for your fraud detection needs. Start with a free IP lookup to check any address for VPN usage, threat associations, datacenter hosting, and geolocation data. Use our free network tools to investigate suspicious infrastructure, and explore the API documentation to integrate IP intelligence into your fraud prevention pipeline.