Struggling with IP Geolocation API for region-specific content

Hey everyone, super new to this whole SaaS thing and trying to figure out how to do basic stuff like showing different content based on a user's location. I'm building a simple tool and want to offer region-specific features or even just currency. I'm a complete noob when it comes to location tech, so please bear with my probably silly questions.

My initial goal is pretty straightforward: I want to display different content or even just the correct currency based on a user's country. It sounds simple enough, right? But I'm hitting a major roadblock when it comes to getting accurate and reliable user location data. This is where I'm completely stuck.

I've looked at a few things already. Initially, I thought about using browser APIs, but I quickly realized that's client-side and easily spoofed, plus it's not really ideal for making server-side decisions, which is what I need. So, I started researching IP geolocation APIs. I found a few free ones, but they seem really inconsistent or have very low request limits, which isn't going to scale even for my small project. I even tried integrating one of the free APIs, but I struggled quite a bit with parsing the JSON response correctly and then immediately ran into issues handling rate limits, which just made the whole thing feel unreliable.

So, I'm really hoping some of you seasoned pros can help me out here. What's the best practice for getting reliable country-level geolocation data on the server-side? Are there any recommended, and ideally affordable for a bootstrapped founder like myself, IP geolocation API services that are both accurate and easy to integrate? I'm also wondering, what are the common pitfalls or things a beginner like me should absolutely avoid when dealing with IP-based location? And how do you even handle edge cases like users on VPNs or those from very small countries where data might be sparse? Ultimately, I'm looking for practical, beginner-friendly advice to reliably implement geo-targeting without breaking the bank or my code. Help a brother out please...