Why IPv4 Address Costs Keep Rising (And How to Respond)

If you manage hosting, networks, domains or servers, you have probably noticed a line in your budget that keeps creeping upward: IPv4 addresses. A few years ago, public IPv4s felt like a routine, almost negligible cost. Today, they are a strategic resource that can materially change the economics of a project, a SaaS platform or an agency hosting stack. As a hosting provider operating our own infrastructure at dchost.com, we see this pressure from both sides: IPs we lease or acquire on the global market, and IPs we allocate to customers for websites, email, APIs and VPNs.

In this article we will unpack what is really driving the rising costs of IPv4 addresses, how it flows through to your shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server and colocation bills, and what you can do about it without compromising reliability or performance. We will also look at how realistic it is to offset these costs with IPv6, and share the practical strategies we use with our own customers to keep their IP footprint efficient and future‑proof.

The State of IPv4: Scarce, Traded and Increasingly Expensive

IPv4 is a finite 32‑bit address space. Roughly 4.3 billion addresses were designed into the protocol in the early days of the internet, long before smartphones, IoT and global cloud platforms existed. Over the last decade, all major regional internet registries (RIRs) – RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC – have either fully exhausted their free IPv4 pools or moved to extremely restrictive “last /24 per member” style policies.

That exhaustion pushed IPv4 into a secondary market. Instead of requesting large blocks directly from a registry, networks now buy or lease address space from other holders via brokers, auctions or private deals. Prices are no longer nominal administrative fees; they are market‑driven. Address blocks are valued based on size, reputation history (abuse, blacklists), and region. As a result, the cost per single IP that eventually reaches a hosting customer is the tip of an iceberg that includes acquisition cost, transfer fees, legal work and risk.

If you want a deeper narrative of how we got here, including the historical milestones of exhaustion and transfer policies, you can also read our story‑driven article “So… Where Did All the IPv4 Go? The Real Story Behind Exhaustion and Price Surges”. Here we will focus on the current economics and your practical options.

Why IPv4 Address Costs Keep Rising

There is no single villain behind IPv4 price inflation. Instead, several structural forces stack on top of each other. Understanding them will help you design more resilient hosting and budget strategies.

1. A Hard Supply Cap with No Real Way Back

Unlike bandwidth or compute, which can scale up by adding more fiber or servers, IPv4 has a hard, unchangeable limit. We cannot “manufacture” new IPv4s; the only way addresses re‑enter circulation is when existing holders decide to sell or transfer part of their space. That creates a scarce asset dynamic:

• Growing demand from ISPs, hosting providers, CDNs, VPN services, SaaS platforms and enterprises.
• Limited supply from organizations willing to renumber, reorganize or shut down legacy networks.
• No real substitutes for certain use cases (e.g. public‑facing IPv4 endpoints where clients lack IPv6).

This is classical supply‑and‑demand economics. Even if demand growth slows, the fact that supply is so inelastic keeps baseline prices elevated.

2. A Mature, Global Transfer Market (with Middlemen)

The moment RIRs ran out of freely allocatable IPv4, a formal transfer market solidified. Organizations can now legally transfer address blocks between each other under RIR policies. That is good for transparency, but it also introduces:

• Brokers and marketplaces that charge commissions on each deal.
• Price discovery – once everyone sees what a /24, /22 or /20 sells for, the “going rate” ratchets upward.
• Speculation and hoarding – some holders treat IPv4 blocks as an appreciating asset.

Every time a hosting provider acquires or leases IPv4 in this environment, part of that cost must be recovered through monthly IP fees, bundled plan pricing, or both. You can find more numbers‑oriented analysis in our article “Why IPv4 Address Prices Are Hitting Record Highs (And What You Can Do About It)”, where we walk through typical per‑IP price ranges and scenarios.

3. Compliance, Due Diligence and Risk Premiums

Buying or leasing IPv4 space today is not just an accounting entry; it is also a compliance and risk exercise. Before we at dchost.com accept or use a block, we must check:

• Past abuse and blacklisting history (spam, malware, DDoS origin).
• RIR whois and routing consistency, to avoid hijacked or disputed space.
• Contractual constraints (geographical use, routing region, sub‑allocation limits).

Cleaning up “dirty” ranges, handling complaints and maintaining reputation (especially for email) all cost time and money. Clean, well‑documented IPv4 space commands a premium, which again feeds into the prices end customers see.

4. Indirect Operational Costs

Beyond the sticker price of an IP block, IPv4 creates ongoing network and operational complexity:

• Larger routing tables and more BGP entries to maintain.
• More extensive firewall and DDoS protection rules across many ranges.
• Additional monitoring, logging and abuse response per IP or per subnet.

As the unit price of IPv4 rises, providers are more motivated to recoup these overheads through per‑IP charges, and to strongly encourage customers to use each address efficiently.

How Rising IPv4 Costs Impact Hosting, Domains and Servers

So what does all this mean when you are choosing hosting for a website, a SaaS app, email infrastructure or a fleet of client sites?

Shared Hosting: Fewer Dedicated IPs, More SNI

On shared hosting, it used to be common to hand out a dedicated IPv4 for every SSL website. Modern TLS and the Server Name Indication (SNI) extension changed that. Today, dozens or even hundreds of HTTPS sites can safely share the same IPv4, because the browser tells the server which hostname it wants during the TLS handshake.

This is why, if you are on shared hosting with us, you will typically see your domains sharing an IP with other customers, while still having valid SSL certificates. If you are curious how this works technically, we have a separate deep dive: “Hosting Multiple HTTPS Websites on One IP with SNI”.

End result: dedicated IPv4s on shared hosting are now treated as premium resources, primarily used for specific needs such as legacy clients, special whitelisting requirements or bespoke integrations.

VPS and Dedicated Servers: Paying Separately for Public IPs

On VPS and dedicated servers, public IPv4s are more visible as explicit line items. A typical pattern we see:

• One primary IPv4 included with the server for general use.
• Additional IPv4s available as add‑ons, charged monthly per IP or per small subnet.

Customers use these extra IPs for:

• Separate email sending IPs by project or client.
• Isolated reverse DNS and reputation per domain or brand.
• Dedicated API endpoints that partners hard‑code or firewall‑whitelist.
• Legacy VPN or remote access setups that assume static IPv4 endpoints.

As IPv4 gets more expensive, “IP sprawl” on a single server becomes costly. We increasingly help customers consolidate services behind fewer IPs using name‑based virtual hosts, SNI and port‑based separation, while reserving extra IPv4s only for cases where they truly add value.

Email Infrastructure: Where One IP Can Make or Break Reputation

Email sending is one area where IPv4 inflation bites hardest. For transactional mail, newsletters and marketing campaigns, having a dedicated, reputation‑managed IPv4 (or a small set of IPs) is often essential. That means:

• Paying for dedicated IPs instead of sharing a pool with unknown senders.
• Investing time into warming up IPs, managing feedback loops and blocklists.

If you manage your own mail stack or use a VPS/dedicated server for outbound mail, take a look at our guide “Dedicated IP Warmup and Email Reputation Management for Transactional Emails”. It explains how to get the most value out of each IP by building and protecting a clean reputation.

Agencies and Multi‑Tenant Stacks: IP Hygiene Becomes a Design Decision

Digital agencies, resellers and freelancers often host dozens of client websites and email domains under one umbrella. When IPv4 was cheap, it was tempting to hand out a dedicated IP per “important” client, just in case. Now, each of those decisions can add meaningful annual cost.

On our side, we increasingly approach IP allocation as part of the overall hosting architecture discussion: which clients can share, who truly needs isolation, how to partition email reputations, and how to plan for IPv6. If you run an agency stack, you may also find our broader architecture guide helpful: “Hosting Architecture for Agencies: Managing 20+ WordPress Sites on One Stack”.

Strategic Options: Buy, Lease or Optimize IPv4 Usage

The good news: you are not powerless in the face of IPv4 inflation. There are several levers you can pull to control costs without sacrificing stability or growth.

1. Use Fewer Public IPv4s Per Project

Start with an honest inventory. On each server or cluster, ask:

• How many IPv4s are actually in use right now?
• Which ones are tied to hard dependencies (partner ACLs, IP whitelists, legacy devices)?
• Which could be replaced with hostnames plus SNI or port‑level separation?

Then, consider consolidation moves such as:

• Hosting multiple HTTPS sites on a single IP using name‑based virtual hosting + SNI.
• Separating projects logically via domains and subdomains, not IPs.
• Using proxy/load balancers to place several backend services behind one public IP.

On our infrastructure, we regularly help customers reduce their IPv4 footprint by carefully redesigning how SSL, reverse proxies and DNS are used, often without any visible change to end‑users.

2. Decide When You Really Need Dedicated IPv4s

Dedicated IPv4s still make sense in several situations:

• Email: You want separate reputation per brand, or you send high volume.
• Security/compliance: Partners demand static IPv4s to whitelist in firewalls or compliance documents.
• Legacy clients/devices: Some older systems do not handle SNI or IPv6 correctly.

Instead of a blanket policy of “one project, one IP”, we recommend a tiered approach:

• Tier 1: Shared IPv4 + SNI for standard websites and low‑risk apps.
• Tier 2: One dedicated IPv4 for high‑value sites or email sending pools.
• Tier 3: Small dedicated subnets (e.g. /29, /28) only for specialized network appliances, VPNs or multi‑IP routing needs.

This way, you concentrate IPv4 cost where it adds real isolation or flexibility, and you accept shared IPs for everything else.

3. Choose Between Owning and Leasing IPv4 (For Larger Networks)

If you operate your own AS number and route your own IP space (for example, in a sizeable colocation or multi‑region deployment), you face a different decision: acquire IPv4 blocks directly, or lease them from other holders or your hosting provider.

In simplified terms:

• Buying address space is capital‑intensive up front but gives you long‑term control and insulation from short‑term price spikes.
• Leasing reduces capital expenditure but exposes you to future price increases and contractual renewals.

Either way, the underlying economics are governed by the same scarcity we have discussed. If you are in this category, it is even more critical to have a clear IPv6 roadmap, which we will cover below.

4. Implement NAT and Private Addressing Where Appropriate

Not every server or container needs its own public IPv4. Common patterns include:

• Using private RFC1918 ranges (10.x, 192.168.x, 172.16‑31.x) inside your cluster or VPS, with a single public IPv4 fronting a load balancer or reverse proxy.
• Running NAT or NAPT on edge nodes to allow many backend services to share one outbound IPv4 for updates, API calls and downloads.
• Reserving distinct IPv4s only for incoming services where clients connect directly.

In our experience, a carefully designed NAT and private addressing plan can cut the number of public IPv4s a project needs by 50–80%, without reducing redundancy or security – especially when combined with IPv6.

IPv6: The Long‑Term Pressure Valve for IPv4 Costs

Whenever IPv4 prices come up, someone asks: “Why not just switch to IPv6 and be done with it?” The reality is more nuanced. IPv6 is absolutely the long‑term answer, but the transition is gradual and dual‑stack for a long time.

What IPv6 Actually Solves

IPv6 provides a 128‑bit address space – effectively limitless at our scale. That means:

• You can give public, globally‑routable IPv6s to every server, VM, container or even device.
• You can design clean subnetting and routing without worrying about “wasting” addresses.
• There is no need for NAT in the classic IPv4 sense; end‑to‑end connectivity is possible.

As more networks and users support IPv6, the relative pressure on IPv4 demand can finally ease. That does not make existing IPv4 cheaper overnight, but it slows down how many new IPv4s you truly need.

Dual‑Stack Reality: You Still Need Some IPv4

For the foreseeable future, most serious production deployments will be dual‑stack:

• IPv4 + IPv6 on public‑facing websites and APIs.
• IPv6‑preferred inside your infrastructure where all components support it.
• IPv4 fallbacks for visitors, apps or partners that do not yet speak IPv6.

That means your strategy is less about eliminating IPv4 and more about reducing how many you need. For example, one IPv4 plus a /64 IPv6 subnet per VPS can be enough for many modern stacks, if you design with dual‑stack in mind.

We have written several practical guides on this transition, including “Accelerating IPv6 Adoption: How to Transform Your Network Without Falling Behind” and a hands‑on “IPv6 Setup and Configuration Guide for Your VPS Server”.

Concrete Ways IPv6 Reduces Your IPv4 Bill

Here are some realistic, incremental wins we see with customers who embrace IPv6:

• Internal services (databases, caches, microservices) move to IPv6 only, while the external load balancer keeps a single IPv4.
• APIs and dashboards exposed to technical users can be reachable over IPv6, letting you avoid some additional IPv4s per region.
• Monitoring and management tools (Prometheus, Loki, SSH, etc.) talk to servers over IPv6, simplifying addressing on internal links.

The earlier you start enabling IPv6 on new servers and domains, the easier it is to avoid “IPv4‑only lock‑in” that later forces you to buy more expensive IPv4 blocks.

Practical Planning: How We Recommend You Respond

At dchost.com, we are on the same playing field as you: we also acquire, route and manage IPv4, and we also invest heavily into IPv6. That dual perspective shapes the recommendations we give our customers when they plan hosting and network architecture.

For Small Businesses and Standard Websites

If your main footprint is a website (or a few sites), email and perhaps a small internal tool, you can usually keep IPv4 costs very controlled by:

• Running your websites on shared IPv4 + SNI instead of dedicated IPs.
• Using your provider’s shared outbound email IPs if volume is modest and quality is high.
• Enabling IPv6 on your domains and hosting early, even if you don’t “need” it yet.

From our side, we make sure you get HTTPS and modern protocols without burning extra IPv4s per site, and we help you migrate to dual‑stack (IPv4 + IPv6) when ready.

For Agencies, Freelancers and Resellers

Agencies should treat IPv4 planning as part of their service design, not a footnote:

• Standardize most clients on shared IPv4 hosting with SNI.
• Reserve dedicated IPv4s for premium clients that truly need them (email reputation, custom integrations).
• Design your stack to be IPv6‑ready from day one, so future growth doesn’t multiply IPv4 costs.

We often sit down with agencies to review their client list and map out which projects can share, which need isolation and how to structure IP usage so it stays predictable and transparent when you quote your own customers.

For SaaS and High‑Traffic Platforms

If you run a SaaS product, marketplace or large e‑commerce platform, IPv4 is both a cost and a risk surface. Our typical recommendations:

• Architect public traffic through a small number of anycast or regional IPv4s fronting load balancers or reverse proxies.
• Run internal services on IPv6 with clear subnetting and firewall rules.
• Segment email sending IPs by product line or geography rather than per‑tenant, to avoid uncontrolled IP growth.
• Include IP lifecycle and reputation in your incident response: blacklisted IPs can be just as damaging as failing hardware.

In some cases, it makes sense to reserve a dedicated small IPv4 subnet for your core control plane and security‑sensitive integrations, while pushing everything else toward dual‑stack and IPv6‑first patterns.

For Colocation and Custom Network Deployments

When you bring your own servers into our data centers via colocation, IPv4 planning is a joint exercise between your network team and ours. We look at:

• How many public IPv4s you truly need on the edge.
• Whether some workloads can sit behind NAT or reverse proxies.
• How aggressively you can adopt IPv6 for server‑to‑server and inter‑rack traffic.

The goal is to keep your routing clean, your IP costs predictable and your infrastructure prepared for an IPv6‑heavy future, without forcing a risky overnight migration.

Bringing It All Together

Rising IPv4 address costs are not a temporary anomaly; they are the natural outcome of a finite resource hitting widespread global demand. As a customer, you feel this in the form of per‑IP fees, less “free” dedicated IPv4s in hosting plans and more careful policies around IP allocation. As a provider, we feel it in the effort and expense of acquiring, cleaning, routing and defending IPv4 space.

The way forward is not to panic or postpone decisions, but to treat IP planning as a normal part of your infrastructure design. Use dedicated IPv4s where they truly matter – email reputation, strict firewall integrations, specialized appliances – and be comfortable with shared IPs and SNI for everything else. At the same time, start moving decisively toward dual‑stack: enable IPv6 on new servers, add AAAA records to your domains and get your team comfortable operating in an IPv6‑rich environment. Our guides on IPv4 price surges and accelerating IPv6 adoption are a good next step if you want to go deeper.

If you are planning a new project, consolidating client sites, or rethinking your email and network architecture, our team at dchost.com is happy to review your current IP usage and propose a concrete, budget‑aware plan. The earlier you bring IPv4 economics and IPv6 strategy into the conversation, the easier it is to keep performance high, costs under control and your infrastructure ready for the next decade of growth.