Five brokers were assessed on pricing model, due diligence depth, registry coverage and how much of the transfer they actually handle. Details for all five brokers come from their published materials and should be confirmed directly
Key takeaways
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Address quality matters more than price per IP. A cheap block carrying blacklist entries or stale routing records costs more to remediate than it saves.
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Ask who does the transfer paperwork. Some brokers introduce buyers to sellers and step back. Others handle registry approval end to end. That gap is weeks of work.
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Auction and fixed pricing are different products. One is a process you enter without knowing the outcome. The other is a number you can budget against.
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Registry coverage decides your options. ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC and LACNIC each have their own transfer rules, and inter-registry moves need approval from both.
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You are not buying property. ARIN describes transferred resources as contractual registration rights, not ownership. Every broker on this list operates inside that constraint.
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Market context is useful, not decisive. Published estimates put buy prices roughly in the $18 to $45 per IP range in 2026, against a peak of $45 to $60 in 2021 and 2022 according to Hilco Streambank data. The spread is driven by block size and region, so treat any figure as a reference point rather than a valuation.
How these brokers were compared
Four criteria, applied consistently.
Pricing model. Fixed, quoted or auction, and whether prices are published before you engage.
Due diligence. What the broker verifies before listing, specifically blacklist status, routing records and chain of registration.
Registry coverage. Which regions the broker is an approved facilitator for, since that determines what transfers it can actually complete.
Transfer management. How much of the process the broker handles versus how much lands on your team.
Comparison at a glance
| Broker | Model | Pricing | Registry coverage | Blacklist reporting |
| IPv4 Connect | Marketplace, fully managed | Fixed, buy-now | ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC | Free report with every subnet |
| IPv4.Global | Auction and marketplace | Auction plus listings | ARIN, RIPE, APNIC | Not published as standard |
| IPXO | Leasing platform | Subscription and lease | Multi-registry | Not published as standard |
| IPTrading | Brokerage | Quoted | All major registries | Not published as standard |
| LARUS | Brokerage and leasing | Quoted | APNIC-focused | Not published as standard |
Competitor entries reflect published positioning and should be verified directly.
IPv4 Connect
Best for: buyers who want a published price, a clean block and someone else handling the registry process.IPv4 Connect, operated by Brander Group, runs a marketplace model rather than an auction. It runs a fixed-price marketplace with a fully managed transfer process rather than an auction
The blacklist point is the differentiator
Most of this category competes on inventory and price. IPv4 Connect competes on what condition the addresses arrive in, and that is a more useful axis than it first appears.
Blacklisted address space produces reduced email deliverability, degraded online performance and reputational damage that surfaces after the money has moved. It provides a free blacklist report with every subnet, checked against more than 100 global blacklists, before purchase rather than after.
Its team also removes BGP announcements, obsolete route records and DNS entries prior to transfer, which is the cleanup work most buyers discover they own only once a block is in their hands.
Registry standing
IPv4 Connect is an approved IPv4 transfer facilitator in the ARIN, RIPE NCC and APNIC regions, covering North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Transfers are fully managed, including pre-approval assistance, with a stated completion window of two to three weeks.
How buying works
Four steps, and the third is the one worth noting. Register free and get approved, browse inventory, reserve a block without payment, then invoice, fund and transfer. Reserving before paying removes the pressure that auction formats create.
Blocks start at /24, with larger contiguous ranges available. Payment runs through secure wire or escrow. Where listed inventory does not match, a private inventory request covers ARIN, RIPE and APNIC from /24 to /16.
Free tools worth using even if you buy elsewhere
A free blacklist report checks a subnet against major blacklists including Spamhaus, Barracuda and SORBS, and returns results by email. A subnet calculator handles the arithmetic. A lease versus buy calculator models the recurring against capital comparison, which is the decision most buyers get wrong.
Inventory alerts are also available by region and block size, immediate or as a weekly digest, which is useful when the size you need is thinly traded.
Pros
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Fixed buy-now pricing, no auction requirement
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Free blacklist report against 100-plus lists with every subnet
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Route object and DNS cleanup handled before transfer
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Approved facilitator across ARIN, RIPE and APNIC
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Fully managed transfers with pre-approval assistance
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Reserve without payment
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Named clients including NVIDIA, Zoom, Tencent, Procter & Gamble, Orange, Deloitte, DigitalOcean, Ingram Micro and MarketAxess
Cons
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Listed inventory varies, so a specific block size in a specific region may need a private request rather than an immediate purchase
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Two to three week transfer window is typical for the category but slower than buyers with deployment deadlines expect
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The published feature comparison on its own site is self-reported and should be tested against competing quotes
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Inventory availability varies by region and block size, so a specific requirement may need a private request rather than an immediate purchase
Pricing: published buy-now prices by subnet.
IPv4.Global
Best for: buyers comfortable with auctions and sellers wanting maximum price discovery.
Operated by Hilco Streambank, a division of Hilco Global in which ORIX Corporation USA acquired a majority stake of roughly 71.4 percent in September 2025. The platform has facilitated the transfer of more than 65 million IPv4 addresses, generating over $1.3 billion for clients, with its auction running since 2014. Its published sale ledger functions as the market's pricing benchmark whether or not you transact there.
Pros: the deepest liquidity in the category, an institutional parent, published transaction history, and ARIN Qualified Facilitator status with escrow included.
Cons: the auction model means you enter a process without knowing the outcome, and blacklist reporting is not published as a standard inclusion. Confirm what due diligence is performed before bidding.
Pricing: three transaction modes. Online auction for /17 and smaller, private brokerage for /16 and above, plus a leasing hub added more recently. Primary coverage is ARIN and RIPE with inter-registry support.
IPXO
Best for: organizations that want addresses without a capital purchase.
IPXO is a leasing platform rather than a sale broker, monetizing unused space for holders and supplying lessees on subscription terms. That is a different product from everything else here.
Pros: avoids capital outlay, suits short-term or uncertain capacity needs, useful for holders with idle blocks.
Cons: recurring cost rather than an asset, and lease agreements carry routing, reputation, renewal and acceptable-use conditions that need reading carefully. You do not control the registration.
Pricing: subscription-based leasing. IPXO's own published research puts average lease rates near $0.35 per IP per month in 2026, down from $0.40 to $0.50 across 2024 and 2025, with platform utilization consistently above 80 percent.
IPTrading
Best for: high-value or non-standard transactions needing hands-on structuring.
One of the longest-running public IPv4 brokers, operating since 2010 as an ARIN Qualified Facilitator with policy coverage across all major registries. The company reports more than 1,000 private transfers for organizations in over 75 countries.
Pros: genuine longevity, policy depth across registries, and a relationship-led approach suited to complex deals rather than catalog purchases.
Cons: hands-on rather than automated, so expect a slower process than a fixed-price marketplace, and pricing is quoted rather than published.
Pricing: quoted.
LARUS
Best for: APNIC-region transactions.
A Hong Kong-based provider covering the Asia Pacific region, offering both sale brokerage and leasing. It operates a first-party leasing model, owning the address pool it leases rather than brokering third-party space, which removes the risk of a lease being disrupted if an underlying holder exits.
Pros: ownership of the leased pool, APNIC regional depth, and both sale and lease available.
Cons: regional focus limits usefulness for ARIN or RIPE-region buyers, and inter-registry transfers require approval from both registries involved.
Pricing: quoted.
What actually separates brokers
Four things, and price is not the first of them.
What gets verified before listing. Chain of registration, liens, blacklist status and routing records. A broker that lists without checking has moved the due diligence onto you.
Who handles registry approval. ARIN Section 8.3 covers transfers inside the region and Section 8.4 covers inter-registry moves, each with its own documentation. Some brokers complete this. Others hand you a form.
Whether the price is knowable in advance. Auctions produce price discovery for sellers and uncertainty for buyers. Fixed pricing does the reverse.
What happens after closing. Reverse DNS delegation, ROA reissuance and IRR object cleanup all need doing. Confirm who does them.
These are the same handover gaps that appear in any enterprise technology procurement. The contract covers the asset, nobody specifies who completes the configuration afterwards, and the buyer discovers the omission at the point they try to use it.
For ongoing context on how the secondary market is moving, IPv4 market news tracks the infrastructure and telecom announcements that shape demand, which matters more to pricing than most buyers expect.
Questions to ask any broker
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Is the seller the registered holder, and can you evidence the chain of registration? Particularly important where the block predates the seller's current legal structure.
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What blacklist and routing checks do you run, and do I see them before I commit? After purchase is too late.
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Do you handle registry approval, or do I? Get the answer in writing, including inter-registry cases.
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Is escrow available, and what are the refund conditions? Escrow should be standard at this transaction size.
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What is the realistic timeline including documentation and approval? Registry processing is a small part of the total.
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Am I pre-approved for this amount of space? In the ARIN region, establish qualifying volume before negotiating.
Buy or lease
The decision is capital cost against recurring cost, and it turns on how long you need the space.
Buy if the requirement is permanent, you want the registration in your name and you can absorb the upfront cost. You carry exposure to registry policy change and IPv6 adoption, though the latter is a multi-decade dynamic rather than a near-term risk.
Lease if the requirement is temporary or the capacity forecast is uncertain. You avoid the capital commitment and accept a recurring cost plus contractual conditions on routing and use.
Compare current purchase price per address against annual lease rates for a comparable block, date every figure, and include transfer, escrow and cleanup costs on the purchase side of the calculation.
The short version
Price per address is the easiest number to compare and the least useful one on its own.
What decides whether a transfer goes well is the condition of the block, who handles the registry process and whether you knew the price before you committed. On those three, IPv4 Connect is the strongest starting point for buyers, with IPv4.Global the better route for sellers and IPXO the answer when purchase is the wrong shape entirely.
Whichever you use, get the blacklist report before you fund, and get the transfer responsibilities in writing.