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@dzenanakajtazcs ・ Feb 15,2024 ・ 15 min read ・ 1123 views ・ Originally posted on mailtrap.io
Want better deliverability rates? Try verifying the email addresses on your contact list!
For that, you’ll need the help of email verification tools.
I took it upon myself to give 6 of them a test drive and, with that, help you pick one from the many available options.
So, if you’re looking for reviews and comparisons between some of the leading email verification solutions (which also double as email validation tools 🙌🏻), keep on reading!
Want better deliverability rates? Try verifying the email addresses on your contact list!
For that, you’ll need the help of email verification tools.
I took it upon myself to give 6 of them a test drive and, with that, help you pick one from the many available options.
So, if you’re looking for reviews and comparisons between some of the leading email verification solutions (which also double as email validation tools 🙌🏻), keep on reading!
As I know some of you might be looking to make a quick pick and start cleaning your email list ASAP, I’ll first provide you with a quick recap of how 6 of the best email verification tools stack up against each other.
During my test drives of the 6 email verification tools covered in this article, I can safely say that all have near-perfect accuracy, so it’s hard to pick one as the “most accurate”. That being said, as you’ll see in the table below, as well as the tool’s website, NeverBounce promises the highest accuracy of 99.9%.
If your email lists are quite large, a fast email verification tool is a must. And with an impressive verification speed of 0.012 seconds/email, Emailable significantly stands out among the tools I reviewed, making it the fastest of the bunch.
Emailable not only beats the competition in terms of speed but in terms of the number of integrations as well, as it offers 90+ covering a range of email service providers (ESPs), customer relationship management solutions (CRMs), eCommerce platforms, and marketing platforms.
Plenty of features is what you’ll get with each tool on my list. Still, if you really want to get the most bang for your buck, then you should consider giving Hunter a go. The comprehensiveness of this tool is truly impressive and, for some, might justify Hunter’s pretty high price (spoiler alert).
The team behind a tool should equip you with different kinds of resources along with reliable customer support in case you need help, especially as a new user. I found that Bouncer handles this aspect the best by providing not one, not two, but four types of resources.
If you want to save money on email verification tools, the good news is that all the tools mentioned in this article, except NeverBounce, offer a free plan. So, if you want to test out a few solutions before making any financial commitment or use a tool long-term without any costs, then you have plenty of options to choose from. On the other hand, if you’re ready to invest in your email verification efforts by paying for extra features/credits, Clearout will provide you with the most budget-friendly option, whether you choose a pay-as-you-go plan or a monthly subscription. The runner-up in terms of affordability is ZeroBounce, with its monthly subscription.
For this round of reviews, I used 6 criteria to help me pick out email verification solutions worth giving a try. Let’s take a loot at each one now!
To truly clean a list, an email verification tool should be able to accurately decipher between invalid email addresses, such as those with syntax errors/typos, spam traps, and so on. If the tool lacks in the accuracy department, that opens the door for bounces, deteriorated sender reputation, and lower deliverability for email campaigns.
Along with removing the task of verifying emails manually from my hands, I want the tool of my choice to be able to get the job done quickly, regardless of email list size. This way, I can see results fast and get my email deliverability back in shape even faster.
As email marketing, cold outreach, and other types of platforms are used by my team and me on a daily basis, the email verification tool we go for needs to have integrations with said platforms or at least support Zapier so we can create our own integrations. This way, we streamline our workflow and boost overall productivity.
Just as important as knowing that an email verification tool is doing its job is knowing what exactly the tool did after the email list cleaning is done. For that, I like to rely on reports and analytics provided by the tools, thus making them must-have features.
To make sure a tool doesn’t exceed my financial limits, I look for transparent and fair pricing. An added bonus is a free email verification tool trial or free credits/free plan. This way, I can get a sense of what using the tool is like before committing to any yearly or monthly subscriptions.
While one email verification tool might be a gem in my book, in someone else’s, it might be a total failure. That is why, in order to make the reviews in this article a bit more objective, I also took into consideration the reviews left by other users and, with that, their experience using a specific tool. That being said, even when simply assessing whether an email verification tool is good, reliable, and, most importantly, right for me, plenty of positive and non-paid-for reviews from users are what I look for.
Now, onto my experience using 6 great email verification tools!
First on this list is a platform with a primary function to help you clean lists quickly and when necessary. With NeverBounce’s Clean feature, you can do a quick initial check and know in an instant whether you need to clean up your entire list or not, thus saving time and effort.
Overview:
Along with the Clean feature, NeverBounce also offers services to help you achieve pristine email list cleanliness. One such service is recognizing an excessive number of dubious email addresses and alerting the NeverBounce team to come in and do personal quality assurance. And while I haven’t tested this service out myself, its potential handiness is evident.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Pay-as-you-go plans start at $0.008 per email.
Support: Email, phone, and live chat support
When doing email list verification on a regular or even semi-regular basis, chances are you won’t be uploading lists from the same source. For that reason, a tool such as Emailable comes in handy as it allows you to choose between uploading from a computer in CSV (.csv), Excel (.xlsx), or Text (.txt) format or connecting to an email marketing platform.
Overview:
Time efficiency is something you can expect to improve as an Emailable user, thanks to its bulk email verification and real-time verification features offered alongside single email verification. For me, the list-cleaning process using this tool usually took only a few minutes, after which I got to examine a detailed report generated by Emailable.
To save even more time, I didn’t shy away from trying Emailable’s automated email verification directly inside my team’s database.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free version with limited credits available. Subscription plans start at 25,50€/month, while pay-as-you-go plans start at 0,006€ per credit.
Support: Email and chat support
The easy-to-use and well-known email verification tool, Clearout, is great at ensuring an accuracy of 98%+. The tool does over 20 comprehensive validation checks to verify email addresses. Along with that, it checks for greylisting, detects spam traps, verifies MX records, and does much more.
Overview:
Whether it’s a small number of email addresses or large lists, Clearout has both an instant email verifier and a bulk email verifier to check them. All you have to do is upload your email lists in .CSV or .XLSX format. Exporting files in .CSV format is also possible!
Besides its instant and bulk email verifiers, Clearout does have a Google Sheets add-on to quickly verify email addresses directly in your spreadsheets without having to juggle between lists or multiple uploads and downloads.
Another cool feature I found in Clearout is its API for instant and bulk email validation. This allows for high flexibility as the API can be integrated into software written in a range of programming languages.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free version with limited credits available. Subscription plans start at $31.5/month, while pay-as-you-go plans start at $0.007 per credit.
Support: Email and chat support
Comprehensiveness is Hunter’s second name, as this email outreach platform is equipped with email address verification and email finder tools which will check an address on multiple levels – format, presence of MX records, usage of webmail such as Gmail or Yahoo, mail server response, and more. On top of that, it will also verify whether the email address is publicly visible on the web.
Overview:
If you really want to dig in deep with your email verification, then Hunter may well have all you’re looking for.
Besides the email address verification status, this tool will also provide you with information on the sources and make a comparison with a unique database of professional email addresses.
Along with that, what I found especially convenient about this tool is that it comes in the form of a Google Sheets add-on facilitating email verification directly within the spreadsheet software.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free version with limited credits available. Subscription plans start at 34€/month.
Support: Email and chat support
If simplicity is what you’re after, then Bouncer could be the tool for you. With it, verifying email lists of up to 250k email addresses will be a breeze as a drag-and-drop mechanism is at your disposal.
Overview:
Along with the mentioned ease-of-use, Bouncer’s reliance on proprietary algorithms supported by Artificial Intelligence is what made me include it on this list. These algorithms negotiate with SMTP servers so you can get the most accurate results possible, which was certainly the case during my usage of the tool.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free version with limited credits available. Subscription plans start at $50/month, while pay-as-you-go plans start at $0.008 per email.
Support: Email, chat, and in-person support
“Military-grade security” is a bold statement, but it is also how ZeroBounce describes its email verification tool. So, if you’re a data security enthusiast, you should consider ZeroBounce as your tool of choice.
Overview:
ZeroBounce definitely passed my “accurate and easy-to-use email verificator” test. But what made this tool stand out, in particular, is the email deliverability toolkit it provides. This toolkit helps its users improve their email deliverability even further after cleaning their email list, which is not something you get with every email verification tool.
Rating:
Best for:
Pros:
Cons:
Pricing: Free version with limited credits available. Subscription plans start at $15/month, while pay-as-you-go plans start at $0,008 per credit.
Support: Email, chat, and phone support
Email testing is a complex process consisting of many “layers”, and depending on how detailed you want to be during this process, email verification might be a part of it.
You see, along with testing email content and design, running spam checks, checking email responsiveness as well as rendering, and doing other tasks necessary to ensure your email campaigns are effective, efficient, and deliver the intended user experience, diligent email marketers also clean the lists these campaigns will be sent to.
And while we have covered 6 great tools you can use to do said list cleaning, we have yet to touch upon a proper email testing solution.
A testing tool I use on a daily basis is the one offered by Mailtrap.
With Mailtrap Email Testing, you can inspect and debug emails in staging, dev, and QA environments before sending them to recipients. This way, if any errors are present in the email content or even the HTML/CSS code, you can spot and fix them, all while having no risk of spamming recipients with testing emails.
Some of the most notable features of this testing include:
So, if you are looking for a tool that solves multiple email testing challenges, Mailtrap Email Testing might be for you. But, if you are in need of something to help you get rid of email addresses causing high bounce rates and hurting your deliverability, then one of the email verification services reviewed earlier in the article is worth giving a try!
Phew! What a long, information-packed journey this article has taken us on. Hopefully, it will be really useful for you when making your pick for the best email verification tool.
Remember, all the tools mentioned have great ratings backed by hundreds and even thousands of reviews. But, to make sure a tool will truly be what you need it to be and you don’t end up with a “bad email checker”, identify what your non-negotiables are and move from there.
So, say you want ease of use, then Bouncer won’t disappoint. Or maybe you need lots of flexibility when it comes to importing options? In that case, Emailable is a top candidate.
Hunter will provide you with a collection of features that will make any email marketer jealous. While ZeroBounce’s metadata will come in handy when making data-driven decisions.
Lastly, if you go for NeverBounce, you’ll be using a tool that is hard to beat in catch-all and disposable email detection.
Some pretty solid options for email verification tools if you ask me!
Want more content on email verification or email testing? Check out Mailtrap blog.
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Technical Content Writer, Mailtrap
@dzenanakajtazcsInfluence
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