Every lookup in DataTaper runs one of two ways: metered through us, or directly from your machine using your own provider key. They look identical on screen. Underneath they are different enough that the choice is worth five minutes of your attention.
Metered: we call the provider for you
A metered lookup is proxied through our servers, which call the provider on your behalf and bill your credit balance. Results may be cached for up to 120 days, so an identical request does not trigger a second chargeable provider call. The request and its result therefore pass through our infrastructure.
The trade is convenience: one bill, one balance, no vendor contracts, nothing to configure. Start here.
BYO: your key, your direct connection
With bring-your-own-key, the request goes straight from your device to the provider. We never receive or store the content of the lookup or its results — we record only a usage count, to bill the small per-action fee. Your relationship with that provider, including its pricing and rate limits, is yours.
The trade is control: you keep your own rates and your own data path, in exchange for managing keys and vendor accounts yourself.
| Metered | BYO key | |
|---|---|---|
| Who calls the provider | Our servers | Your device |
| We store results | Cached up to 120 days | Never |
| We store | Usage + result cache | Usage count only |
| Billing | Credits | Your provider + per-action fee |
The part people miss: your IP address
Some features automate a browser rather than call an API, and that changes whose network is exposed.
Premium Search runs through the Serper API on our servers, so your IP address is not used to contact the search engine and your network is not exposed to search-engine rate-limiting.
Free-plan Search and browser-based LinkedIn discovery run on your own device and IP. Search engines and sites may respond with CAPTCHAs, rate limits, or temporary blocks, and some runs need a human present. The URL Scanner also fetches pages directly from your IP, which exposes it to the sites you scan.
None of that is a defect — it is the honest consequence of retrieving public pages from your own machine. It just means the free path is the wrong tool for an unattended overnight run.
How to choose
Start metered. It is the fewest moving parts, and one balance covers every service. Move a service to your own key when your volume there is high enough that your negotiated rate beats ours, or when your policy says lookup content must not transit a third party. Run browser-based discovery when you are around to babysit it, and premium search when you are not.
Whichever you pick, the allowances and per-action rates are laid out on the pricing page, and the full data-handling detail is in our privacy policy.