Top 10 Email Verification Software & Tools 2023

At its most basic, email verification software tells us if an address is valid or not.

However, with the right features, it can provide much more value – whether you’re in the marketing, operations or risk management department.

Here’s one example you can try out right away by entering an email address below. Make sure you read our full coverabe below as well.

List of Best Software Verification Tools

• SEON: Best for Digital Profiling
• ZeroBounce: Best for Deliverability Tests
• Pabbly: Best for Slow But Accurate Results
• GetEmail.io: Best for Verification and Prospecting
• mailfloss: Best for Integration with Newsletter Tools
• Snov.io: Great for General Marketing
• Hunter: Best for Domain Searches
• Email Checker: Good to Find and Remove Temp Emails
• Clearout: Best for Syntax Correction and Spam Traps
• EmailListVerify: Great for Cleaning Up Marketing Lists

What Is Email Verification Software?

Email verification software lets you automatically check if an email address is valid or not. It’s a tool frequently used by marketers and sales teams to ensure their emails are received. This is to avoid email “bounces” which point to junk leads.

The rates at which recipients open marketing emails tend to be low worldwide, averaging 16–20% in 2020, according to Statista.

Marketers use email verification software to ensure their emails are at least deliverable. This helps reduce the costs of sending newsletters and email marketing campaigns.

Sophisticated email verification software also lets you extract more information about the email address, such as whether the domain is free or paid, and whether the email address owner has social media accounts. This makes email verification software a great tool when considering who to funnel into KYC processes, as well as for fraud prevention. 

Top Email Verification Software Features

Email verification software should, at the very least, tell you if an email address is valid or not. But there’s more to consider:

• Scalability: How many addresses can you check at once? Ten? Ten thousand? For ambitious businesses, you must ensure the tool can grow along with your needs.
  
• Real-time results: Admittedly, for a marketing campaign, it might not matter if there’s a little delay before you get your deliverability results. But for KYC or fraud prevention, though, you need results in real-time. More to the point, the results must come from fresh data, not ancient blocklists (as the latter could lead to false positives).
  
• Setup and integration: While most email verification software comes from SaaS companies, more complex solutions can also work via API. This is ideal if you want to speed things up and automate processes – as long as the integration time isn’t punitive.
  
• Reliability: Checking email addresses, like sending emails, requires decent server uptime.
  
• Pricing: Most email verification software providers offer a free starter plan. Be mindful of the limits on the number of checks you can make before they bump you up to more expensive subscription tiers. 

• Extra features: While email deliverability is the cornerstone, you’ll need more features for KYC and email profiling. For instance, technology to help you understand how legitimate the user appears to be, whether they’ve had the address for a while, or if they’ve used it to sign up to online services such as social media.

The Best Email Verification Software of 2023

Whether you’re looking to boost your marketing efforts or get a 360° view of your users, here’s our list of the best email verification tools of the year.

Disclaimer: Everything in this article was gleaned from online research and user reviews. We did not have time to manually test all the tools. However, we ensured the information was correct as of Q3 2022. Feel free to get in touch to request an update or correction.

SEON – Best for Digital Profiling

SEON is a fraud detection company that delivers powerful data enrichment. In the context of email verification, this means getting tons of information based on an email address only. 

Of course, you get real-time deliverability information via real-time SMTP-MX checks, but also a lot more. With SEON, you get all the results in real-time and integrate the tool however you see fit. That includes APIs (as pictured below), but also manual lookup and even a Google Chrome or Shopify extension. 

SEON Pros

• Email address maturity: SEON relies on email data breaches for user verification. This is a fantastic way to confirm if an email address is in use, and how long it’s been active.
• Social footprint: Email addresses linked to social profiles or other online accounts proves that the owner actively uses them, and so they are more likely to be real. Not to mention all the valuable data you can glean from checking the public sections of the social media profiles themselves.
• Domain information: Is it free to create an email address with that domain name? Are there any security checks? If the answer is no to both questions, it’s more possible you’re not dealing with a high value client – or worse, it could be a fully-fledged fraudster.

Examples of data you can get with the SEON email API

SEON Cons

• Fraud and risk-focused: As it’s primarily focused on revealing customers’ true intentions to mitigate fraudulent attacks, SEON’s email data enrichment can help catch fraudsters, segment your users, and do due diligence – but not conduct some more technical email checks.

SEON Pricing

• You can start fighting fraud, learning more about users, and getting extra data based on an email address, phone number or IP address for a minimum of $299 per month. And there’s a completely free version to get an idea of what SEON can do, as well as a custom demo!

Choose SEON If:

• You want to verify the legitimacy of email addresses, catch fraudsters and segment customers.

ZeroBounce – Best for Deliverability Tests

The first thing you should know about ZeroBounce is that it claims a 98% accurate email validation rate. The company also offers blacklist monitoring tools and even email quality scoring to assess whether the address is active or not.

ZeroBounce is the email verifier of choice for renowned companies such as Hotjar, Samsung, and Airbnb. You can test a single email address on their website but you’ll need a subscription to check more than 100 emails a month.

ZeroBounce Pros

• 98% email validation rate: According to the official website, the software is 98% accurate in validating emails and assigning email quality scores.
• Leading compliance frameworks: ZeroBounce is AICPA SOC 2 certified, SOC 2 Type II certified, CCPA compliant and also compliant with the EU’s GDPR.
• Blacklist monitoring: Working in real-time, this feature will alert you if your own email addresses are found to be part of blacklists, so you can take all necessary steps to minimize the damage.

ZeroBounce Cons

• Not intuitive: Some online reviewers mention how they would appreciate more user-friendliness, especially at deployment stage.

ZeroBounce Pricing

• There is a free tier if you check fewer than 100 emails a month. After that, you can choose the pay-as-you-go options (starting at $16 per month), or the monthly payments (starting at $15 per month). The price of each check depends on the volume. 

Choose ZeroBounce If:

• You want to make sure your mailing lists are free from fake and inactive email addresses.

Pabbly – Best for Slow but Accurate Results

Marketing and sales software vendor Pabbly takes an interesting approach to email verification: slower is better. For these specialists, that means a higher accuracy rate when verifying email lists.

Of course, the downside is that you have to wait for the results. For marketers who only need to scan their lists for deliverability issues, though, this could be a sacrifice worth making, considering the insights you will be getting.

Pabbly Pros

• Specialized features: Enjoy syntax elimination, domain confirmation, duplicate removal, anti-greylisting and other tools of use to several types of professionals.
• Marketing focus: Pabbly was built with marketing and sales teams in mind, considering the additional products on offer, which include email marketing solutions and form builders. Overall, these professionals will appreciate the functionality.
• 100% support: This is a term used by Pabbly to indicate their eagerness to provide always-on, easy-to-reach support to their customers, via live chat as well as email.

Pabbly Cons

• Less-than-ideal speed: The obvious compromise that Pabbly users will have to make is speed. However, once these expectations are managed, its depth and accuracy are much appreciated by customers. After all, Pabbly itself doesn’t hide how it prioritizes quality over speed.

Pabbly Pricing

• The pricing is simple, starting from $5 for 1,000 emails, to $2999 for 10 million emails. There is also a free trial.

Choose Pabbly If:

• If you’ve already used less meticulous products and they didn’t cover your needs.

GetEmail.io – Best for Verification and Prospecting

Companies such as Oracle, IBM, Google, and Shopify all rely on GetEmail.io to, well… get emails. For leads. And partnerships. And several other uses.

How does it work? Using a simple first name and last name, plus a company name, GetEmail will scan through websites to capture email addresses in seconds. 

GetEmail.io Pros

• Excellent for prospecting: Will both source and verify the email address of “anyone on Earth” to help your prospecting, so that you always have a way to contact who you want.
• Tech-forward: GetEmail.io uses machine learning AI to harness the power of big data and ensure the best possible results every time.
• Search operators: The solution support search operator-style queries, which means you can easily focus your efforts on a platform of your choice – LinkedIn, for example.

GetEmail.io Cons

• No validation: This vendor does not validate the email address, strictly speaking – but the thesis is that the methodology is so accurate that one can rest assured of the accuracy of the results.

GetEmail.io Pricing

• You purchase one credit for each email address you gather. It’s free for up to 10 credits a month. The Basic plan, for 300 credits a month, is $49.

Choose GetEmail.io If:

• You want to find professional contact information for leads, no matter where they work.

mailfloss – Best for Integration with Newsletter Tools

Fake email addresses on a company’s lists are more than just nuisances, explains mailfloss, as they directly affect the way email providers handle your messages and are more likely to land you in junk and spam email folders.

So, this email verification provider promises to help you remove fake emails before they become a problem.

mailfloss Pros

• Integrations aplenty: One of the key benefits of mailfloss is the number of integrations with other newsletter providers. You can link it to your MailChimp, HubSpot, AWeber or ActiveCampaign accounts to ensure you never waste an email by sending it to the wrong inbox.
• Batch verification & automatic cleaning: Scan your entire mailing list quickly and stress-free with real-time API and one-time setup, for maximum efficiency.
• Identifies and fixes mistyped addresses: Sometimes, the reason you do not have the correct email is a simple typo. mailfloss will identify these and automatically fix them.

mailfloss Cons

• Occasionally confusing: Some online reviewers report difficulty interpreting the detailed reports, as well as going through the numerous additional options.

mailfloss Pricing

• You get a free seven-day trial. After that, it’s a three-tiered pricing system, starting at $17 a month (10,000 scanned emails) all the way up to $250 a month (125,000 scanned emails). 

Choose mailfloss If:

• You want to ensure your newsletters are well-received by subscribers.

Snov.io – Good for General Marketing

Snovio (also known as Snov.io) boasts all the features you’d expect for good email marketing, including email address validation and email finder to enable prospecting.

The deliverability checks come courtesy of the standard real-time SMTP-MX checks, available via API or bulk upload. 

And the integrations aren’t half-baked either, with support for more than 2,000 other providers, including sales tools, teamwork apps, and form builders.

Snov.io Pros

• Fast validation and verification: Verifies and validates email addresses from mailing lists in under a minute, working in bulk and exporting into various formats.
• Excellent support: Online reviews rave about the quality of customer service provided by Snov.io, which is always welcome when considering a new tool.
• Freemium system: Everyone gets up to 150 free checks a month and only needs to pay for additional credits.

Snov.io Cons

• Credits expire: Keep in mind that unused credits purchased for Snov.io do not roll over to the next month, so you are better off timing purchase to your needs, if they are not constant.

Snov.io Pricing

• There are five monthly plans, ranging from $30 per month (1,000 credits) to $554 per month (100,000 credits).

Choose Snov.io If:

• You can use a suite of sales tools that enable growth, including email verification.

Hunter – Good for Domain Search

Hunter proudly claims that its tool is used by more than 3 million professionals at companies such as Adobe, IBM, Google and Microsoft, among others.

Features include the popular “domain search”, which automatically gets lists of people working at a certain company.

Hunter Pros

• Real-time checks: Automatically verify addresses in real-time – be they single or bulk checks, or even API verifications.
• Extra tools: In addition to verifying email addresses, Hunter allows you to run domain searches and searches for a specific person’s email address, as well as run cold email campaigns, etc.
• Promises results: On the verification and validation side, Hunter has Email Verifier, which relies on a proprietary system to “return a result even when other standard verification tools would fail”. Admittedly, it’s hard to verify the veracity of these claims though reviews are positive.

Hunter Cons

• Credits system: Though Hunter’s choice of a credit system is very similar to what other companies in the niche are using and by no means a shortcoming, some customers report how with Hunter, they dislike that even searches that do not return any results use up credits.

Hunter Pricing

• Hunter has plans based on the number of requests you make, starting at $49 per month for 1,000 verifications. There is also a free plan for 50 monthly verifications. 

Choose Hunter If:

• You want to verify emails as well as find verified email addresses at a company.

Email Checker – Ideal for Removing Temporary Emails

Email Checker by Emailable offers “email verification you can trust”, and it has unique technology to prove it, including being able to verify Office 365 and other tricky mail servers.

Another key feature of Email Checker is the ability to remove email addresses from temporary email providers. You also get syntax correction – for example, turning address@gmail.co into address@gmail.com. 

Email Checker Pros

• Proven results: The company claims to get deliverability up to 99%, and it has verified more than 19.96 million emails at the time of writing.
• Verifies catch-all emails: Runs email verification twice, employing both traditional methodology and “enhanced clean” to sort through catch-alls. This is why it can claim to be the sole provider that can verify Office 365 emails.
• Convenient options: The solutions are all available via API and either a pay-as-you-go pricing model or monthly subscription. 

Email Checker Cons

• Unimpressive GUI: Though aesthetics are subjective, the fact that the vast majority of online reviews of Email Checker can’t find any downside apart from its look is a testament to its efficiency.

Email Checker Pricing

• It starts at $30 for 5,000 email credits, or you can pay $25.5 for the same features but with a monthly contract. After that, the price goes up depending on usage.  

Choose Email Checker If:

• You require deep email verification that also fixes typos and removes temporary and throwaway emails.

Clearout – Good for Syntax Correction and Spam Traps

Clearout is an email verification solution that specializes in removing unwanted emails from your lists. Detection methods allow you to clean up subscriber lists by removing duplicate emails, syntax errors and temporary email providers.

What the company focuses on in its marketing, however, are honeypots, hard bounces and spam traps. It’s the tool of choice for companies such as truecaller, WhatFix and Adobe, among others. 

Clearout Pros

• Diverse collection points: Captures leads at several different points of entry, which include chatbots, surveys, polls, newsletters, WooCommerce, websites, etc.
• Results-focused: Clearout can be viewed as a solution that solves several pain points of lead generation and marketing, as it can stop spammy leads, optimize the efficiency of cold outreach, reduce spam complaints, and safeguard your sender reputation.
• Interesting integrations: From the proprietary add-on for Google Sheets to API calls and Hubspot and WordPress plugins, there are several methods to make Clearout work around your needs.

Clearout Cons

• Steep learning curve: Some online reviews state that Clearout is not as easy to get used to as they would like – both in terms of everyday usage and reporting.

Clearout Pricing

• You can get 100 free credits by signing up. Paid options include pay-as-you-go ($21 for 3,000 checks), or subscription, starting at $31.5 for 5,000 credits paid monthly. Annual payments reduce the price by 20% on average.

Choose Clearout If:

• Your email communications have been at risk of being classed as spam.

EmailListVerify – Good for Cleaning Up Marketing Lists

Another full-featured email verification tool, EmailListVerify claims to achieve the same results as its competitors for half the price. Supported bulk verification formats include CSV, XLS and even TXT.

 The idea is that you should be able to upload “dirty” lists and deliver a clean list of deliverable, valid email addresses – with no duplicates either. EmailListVerify is GDPR compliant and online reviews rave about the exceptional quality of its customer service.

EmailListVerify Pros

• Cost-effective: Starting at $4 to check 1,000 emails, it seems on par with other providers’ pricing – but things get interesting when you get to higher volumes. For instance, you could save 93% on verifying 10 million emails (for $3,290). 
• Checks catch-all domains: This functionality isn’t always provided by email checking tools, and can go a long way towards amping up your ROI.
• Efficient cleaning: In this simple but very useful solution, you get domain and SMTP validation, disposable email cleaner, duplicate remover, spam trap checker, and syntax verification, among others.

EmailListVerify Cons

• Tardiness: Always subject to list size, a few current users report in online reviews that results would ideally be faster.

EmailListVerify Pricing

• You get 100 email verifications for free. Then, pricing starts as low as $4 for 1,000 checks. You can also pay $139 per month to check up to 5,000 emails per day. 

Choose EmailListVerify If:

• You want a straightforward way to bulk clean lists of emails.

Choosing the Right Email Verification Software

Email verification software, at its most basic level, will tell you if an address is valid or not. You can also clean up your lists using syntax verification, duplicate removal, and even by scanning for temporary email domains. 

But email addresses are also a fantastic data point to learn more about your users. By leveraging reverse email lookup at the onboarding stage, for instance, you can learn a ton about your users – whether it’s to boost KYC, improve compliance, reduce chargeback rates, or simply keep your business safer.

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