IPv4 Exhaustion and Price Surges: How to Protect Your Hosting Budget

IPv4 Exhaustion and Price Surges in Plain Language

Over the last few years, many customers have asked us a similar question during cost reviews and infrastructure planning calls: “Why are IP addresses suddenly so expensive, and why do I have to justify every single one?” The reason is simple but uncomfortable: the public IPv4 pool is effectively exhausted, and what used to be a cheap, invisible line in your invoice has turned into a scarce asset with a real market price. Every additional IPv4 address now carries a measurable cost that flows through to VPS, dedicated server and colocation pricing. If you are planning new projects, migrating infrastructure or trying to control hosting costs, you cannot ignore IPv4 economics anymore. In this article, we will walk through what is actually happening behind the scenes, why prices keep rising, and concrete steps you can take with your hosting and network architecture to avoid being trapped by IPv4 scarcity.

What Is IPv4 Exhaustion and Why Did It Happen?

IPv4 is the 32‑bit addressing system the public internet has used since the early days. It can represent about 4.3 billion unique addresses (2³²), which sounded huge in the 1980s but is tiny compared to today’s number of devices, services and users. Exhaustion means the central pools of unallocated IPv4 addresses managed by Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) have been depleted. They no longer have large, fresh blocks to hand out; instead, IPv4 now moves mostly through transfers between organisations and the secondary market.

This was not a surprise. For years, RIRs warned about IPv4 depletion and implemented stricter policies and smaller allocation sizes. But while policy slowed consumption, it did not change the fundamental math: a finite address space vs. exponential growth of connected devices, cloud services, IoT, VPNs and hosting platforms. When the last big free pools disappeared, IPv4 stopped being an operational detail and became a financial constraint.

RIRs, Transfer Markets and Brokers

Today, large blocks of IPv4 rarely come from an RIR allocation. Instead, they are bought and sold between organisations under RIR transfer policies. This created a true market: IP address brokers, auctions and private deals. As demand increased and supply stayed fixed, the price per IPv4 address climbed steadily.

If you want a deeper dive into the policy side, we analysed how RIR rule changes and transfer procedures affect hosting providers in our article on what’s really going on behind IPv4 exhaustion and price increases. The key takeaway here is that every new IPv4 we can assign to customers at dchost.com has already passed through a chain of acquisition, compliance and technical work that all adds cost.

Why IPv4 Became a Real Line Item Instead of a Free Add‑On

For many years, IP addresses were effectively bundled. Shared hosting, VPS and dedicated servers often included multiple IPv4s at zero or symbolic cost. This was never truly “free”; the acquisition and routing costs were just hidden in the base price. As the market price per address climbed, that model stopped being sustainable. Providers had three choices:

• Increase base prices for every product (even customers who only need one shared IP)
• Start charging transparently per dedicated IPv4 and apply stricter justification rules
• Use heavy NAT/CGNAT for everything and avoid giving customers public IPv4 at all

At dchost.com we prefer the second option: keep base hosting prices realistic and be very transparent about when a dedicated IPv4 is necessary (for example, some mail setups, specific compliance needs) and when name‑based virtual hosting and SNI over HTTPS is enough.

How IPv4 Price Surges Show Up in Your Hosting Costs

IPv4 scarcity does not hit you only when you explicitly buy an extra IP. It affects the entire stack: network design, redundancy, email delivery and even future migrations. Understanding where the pressure comes from will help you make better choices when sizing hosting plans.

Shared Hosting: Many Domains on One IPv4

Shared hosting is the least affected by IPv4 price surges because dozens or hundreds of websites can live behind a single IP using name‑based virtual hosting. Thanks to SNI (Server Name Indication), each domain can still have its own SSL/TLS certificate without needing a separate IPv4.

The main changes you may see are:

• More careful policies on providing “dedicated IPs” for websites; usually only when there’s a specific technical or reputation need
• Stricter abuse controls, because one misbehaving site on a shared IP (e.g., sending spam) can affect the reputation of that address

If you are hosting many sites for different clients on a reseller or shared platform, the bigger cost lever is often architecture, not IP count. For example, separating high‑risk or high‑volume email sending to dedicated infrastructure and using proper dedicated IP warmup and email reputation management can protect both your own domains and the limited pool of valuable IPv4s.

VPS and Dedicated Servers: Where IPv4 Costs Bite Harder

On VPS and dedicated servers, customers typically expect at least one public IPv4. Some workloads demand more: separate IPs for multiple SSL endpoints, isolated mail servers, VPNs, or legacy systems that are not comfortable with name‑based virtual hosting.

That is where price surges hurt. Each extra IPv4 has:

• A real acquisition cost (purchase or long‑term lease on the transfer market)
• An opportunity cost (that IP could be used for another customer or a redundancy design)
• Operational overhead (routing, monitoring, abuse handling, RPKI and filtering hygiene)

When you see per‑IP monthly fees on VPS or dedicated server plans, that is not “nickel‑and‑diming”; it is a reflection of a scarce resource that must be managed responsibly. Our job as a hosting provider is to make sure you only pay for IPv4s that deliver real business value, and that the rest of your architecture is smart enough not to depend on dozens of addresses that add no benefit.

Colocation: When You Bring Your Own Hardware but Not Always Your Own IPs

Colocation customers sometimes assume that bringing their own routers and servers also means bringing their own address space. In reality, many organisations do not have their own Provider Independent (PI) IPv4 allocations from an RIR. They still rely on the hosting provider’s address space and upstream connectivity.

In those cases, IPv4 costs are a major part of the monthly port and rack pricing structure. Even when you do have your own IPv4 block, announcing it and routing it in a redundant way across multiple data centers has its own operational cost. This is one of the reasons we wrote about IPv4 address prices hitting record levels and how that reshapes colocation and network design decisions.

Technical Workarounds: Stretching a Scarce IPv4 Pool

The industry has not simply accepted IPv4 scarcity; it has engineered around it for years. Some of these techniques you are probably already using without realising it, others you may want to adopt more aggressively to protect your budget.

Name‑Based Virtual Hosting and SNI

Almost all modern websites can share an IPv4 safely thanks to HTTP Host headers and SNI for TLS. That means you do not need a unique IPv4 for each HTTPS site. Only very old clients, legacy embedded devices or special compliance cases still require a dedicated IP.

On our side, this lets us run many domains per IP on shared and VPS platforms, while still giving each site its own SSL certificate and configuration. For you, it means you can consolidate multiple brands or landing pages without multiplying IP costs.

NAT, Carrier‑Grade NAT and Private Addressing

NAT (Network Address Translation) allows many internal private IPs (e.g., 10.0.0.0/8) to share one or a few public IPv4s. At the small scale, you see this in your office router. At the large scale, providers use Carrier‑Grade NAT (CGNAT) to put thousands of customers behind limited public IPv4 ranges.

In hosting, NAT shows up when we design private networks between your VPS or dedicated servers: web ↔ database ↔ cache communication happens over RFC 1918 private ranges, and only the front‑end or load balancer has public IPv4. That architecture dramatically reduces the number of public addresses needed for a complex application stack.

Reverse Proxies, Load Balancers and Port‑Based Publishing

Another way to stretch IPv4 is to publish several services through a single IP with different ports and hostnames, using reverse proxies or dedicated load balancers. For example:

• HTTP/HTTPS for multiple domains on 1 IP (standard virtual hosting)
• SSH, custom APIs or admin panels listening on non‑standard ports behind the same IP, often protected by VPN, mTLS or IP allowlists
• Multiple backend servers hidden behind a single public IPv4, with health checks and routing configured on a proxy layer

We use these patterns heavily when designing multi‑tier architectures, especially for customers who want high availability without paying for a large block of IPv4 addresses.

Where You Still Need Dedicated IPv4s

Despite all optimisations, there are cases where a dedicated IPv4 is still the right call:

• Transactional email at significant volume, where you need isolated IP reputation and careful warmup
• VPN gateways that must be reachable by specific IP from enterprise firewalls or partner networks
• Legacy integrations that whitelist exact source IPs instead of ranges or hostnames
• Some compliance regimes that still assume an IP‑per‑service design

In these scenarios, the best strategy is not to avoid dedicated IPv4, but to use it intentionally and protect its value. For example, if you run your own mail infrastructure, our guide to dedicated IP warmup and sender reputation will help you keep that scarce IP clean and productive.

IPv6: The Only Long‑Term Answer (And How to Phase It In)

No matter how many tricks we apply, there is only one true way out of the IPv4 scarcity trap: IPv6. Instead of 4.3 billion addresses, IPv6 provides 2¹²⁸ possible addresses—so large that, for practical purposes, we can assume it will not run out.

Why IPv6 Has Been Slow, and Why That’s Changing

For years, IPv6 adoption moved slowly because “IPv4 still works” and many applications, routers and security tools were not fully ready. That hesitation is fading. Major ISPs, content platforms and enterprises are now pushing aggressively towards IPv6 to escape IPv4 transfer costs and complex NAT layers. In our analysis on why IPv6 adoption is accelerating, we showed how increasing IPv6 traffic share directly reduces pressure on limited IPv4 pools.

From a hosting customer’s perspective, IPv6 is no longer an experimental extra. It is a serious way to:

• Avoid future IPv4 price hikes on new projects
• Improve connectivity for users and networks that are already IPv6‑first
• Simplify internal addressing, VPN design and multi‑region architectures

Dual‑Stack: The Realistic Transition Path

We do not recommend jumping to IPv6‑only overnight for most web projects. The safest path is dual‑stack: your services are reachable via both IPv4 and IPv6. Clients that support IPv6 will prefer it, while legacy clients continue using IPv4.

In a dual‑stack world, you still need some IPv4, but you slow down your growth in IPv4 consumption dramatically. That is the real win: your existing IPv4 pool lasts longer, and every new service or server you deploy does not come with an automatic expectation of another dedicated IPv4.

Practical IPv6 Steps on VPS and Dedicated Servers

On dchost.com VPS and dedicated servers, we provide native IPv6 support so you can start dual‑stacking your applications without complex tunnels. The high‑level steps look like this:

1. Enable IPv6 on your server and verify connectivity with simple tools (ping6, traceroute6)
2. Publish AAAA DNS records alongside existing A records for your domains
3. Configure your web server (Nginx, Apache, LiteSpeed, etc.) to listen on both IPv4 and IPv6
4. Update firewalls and security groups to allow IPv6 traffic safely

If you want a hands‑on walkthrough, our guide to setting up IPv6 on a VPS shows the exact configuration patterns we use in production, including firewall rules and basic troubleshooting tips.

Planning Your Infrastructure Around IPv4 Scarcity

Knowing that IPv4 is scarce and expensive is useful, but it only pays off if you translate that knowledge into concrete architecture and budgeting decisions. Here is how we recommend approaching this in practice.

1. Audit Your Current IPv4 Usage

Start with a simple inventory:

• How many public IPv4s are you using across shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and colocation?
• Which ones are actually required (mail, VPN, whitelisted services) and which are just “nice to have” or historical leftovers?
• Are there servers with multiple IPs that could be consolidated via name‑based hosting or reverse proxies?

We often find customers paying for IPv4s tied to old testing subdomains, deprecated services or past migrations. Cleaning those up is the fastest way to lower your exposure to price increases.

2. Categorise Workloads by IP Sensitivity

Not all workloads have the same relationship with IPv4:

• IP‑sensitive: email relays, VPN gateways, B2B APIs with IP allowlists, payment integrations
• IP‑flexible: typical websites, APIs behind a reverse proxy, microservices communicating over private networks
• IP‑agnostic: internal tools, staging environments, non‑public services

For IP‑sensitive workloads, plan dedicated IPv4s and protect them. For flexible and agnostic workloads, design them from day one to live behind shared IPv4 or IPv6‑only endpoints where possible.

3. Adopt IPv6 Strategically, Not Emotionally

IPv6 is the right long‑term answer, but the transition should be prioritised:

• New projects and greenfield applications: start dual‑stack from day one, so you never add “IPv4‑only” items to your backlog.
• High‑traffic public sites: enabling IPv6 can reduce load on IPv4 infrastructure and help users on IPv6‑first mobile or ISP networks.
• Internal networks and inter‑region links: IPv6 simplifies addressing and can improve routing flexibility.

We have seen many customers rethink their network plan after reading our breakdown of why IPv4 prices are soaring and how to respond. Often, the conclusion is clear: keep critical IPv4s, but make sure every new layer you add is IPv6‑ready.

4. Design for Fewer, More Valuable IPv4s

At the architecture level, you can reduce your IPv4 footprint without sacrificing reliability:

• Use one or a small set of IPv4s on load balancers or reverse proxies; keep all backend services on private IPv4/IPv6 only.
• Consolidate multiple small sites onto shared hosting or a single VPS with virtual hosts instead of one server + IP per site.
• Separate email infrastructure logically so that only the SMTP edges require dedicated IPv4s with good reputation.
• For multi‑region setups, consider IPv6‑first interconnects even when your public front‑end is still dual‑stack.

This is exactly the kind of design work we do with customers who colocate their own servers with us or run multi‑VPS stacks. IPv4 becomes a small, carefully managed surface at the edge; everything else relies on abundant private addressing and IPv6.

5. Make IPv4 Part of Your Budget and Risk Discussions

Finally, treat IPv4 as the strategic resource it has become:

• Include IP costs explicitly in your hosting budget forecasts, especially for growth scenarios.
• When planning acquisitions, new regions or large new services, ask “What is the IPv4 impact and how can we mitigate it with IPv6 or consolidation?”
• During vendor selection, evaluate how transparent the provider is about IPv4 pricing and how strong their IPv6 and private networking options are.

IPv4 scarcity is not a temporary spike; it is the new normal. The organisations that adapt their architecture and budgeting now will have a clear advantage over those still treating IPs as an afterthought.

Bringing It All Together: A Practical Roadmap

IPv4 exhaustion and price surges can easily feel like something far away, handled by registries, brokers and network operators. In reality, they touch your daily hosting decisions: how many servers you deploy, where you place email infrastructure, even which DNS records you publish.

From our side at dchost.com, we are doing two things in parallel. First, we treat our IPv4 pool like the scarce asset it is: we acquire it carefully, protect its reputation, and allocate it transparently so you pay only where it makes sense. Second, we keep investing in IPv6, private networking, dual‑stack hosting and smarter architectures so that your projects are not chained to ever‑rising IPv4 costs. If you want to explore this further, our in‑depth article on why IPv4 became so expensive and what to do about it dives even deeper into real‑world case studies.

For your next project or migration, take a moment to map out your real IPv4 needs, where dual‑stack can decouple you from future price hikes, and how shared or private networking can replace unnecessary dedicated IPs. Our team can help you choose the right mix of shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and colocation, with a clear plan for IPv4 and IPv6 that matches your budget and risk tolerance. IPv4 scarcity is here to stay—but with the right strategy, it does not have to dictate your growth.