Hunter.io

Before you send a cold email, you need the right address — and guessing costs you. An email to the wrong inbox bounces, hurts your sender reputation, or sits unread forever. Hunter.io does one specific job: it finds the professional email addresses behind a company's domain and verifies that they work, before you send anything.

Editorial assessment: research-based assessment of publicly documented features, product information, and pricing. This is not a claim of independent hands-on testing. Prices change, so check the official pricing page before buying.

What is Hunter.io?

Hunter.io searches a company's domain to find the email addresses associated with it — usually by crawling public sources and matching patterns — and then verifies whether each address can actually receive mail. You can look up a single person or a whole domain, run bulk searches across a list of companies, and use the Chrome extension to find addresses while you browse a website or a LinkedIn profile.

It is a companion tool, not a platform. Hunter finds and verifies the addresses; a separate tool sends the emails. That narrow focus is the point: it does one job well, at a low price, instead of doing five jobs adequately.

Key features

• Domain email search. Enter a company domain and see the email addresses associated with it, with names and roles where available.
• Email verification. Checks whether an address is deliverable before you send, so you are not burning your sender reputation on dead inboxes.
• Chrome extension. Find and verify addresses on the spot while browsing a company site or a LinkedIn profile.
• Bulk email finder. Process a list of domains at once instead of looking them up one by one.
• API access. Build Hunter into your own workflow or CRM if you need lookups at volume.

Pricing

The free plan covers light use with a monthly search allowance — enough for occasional lookups. Starter costs around $34 a month, and Growth around $104 a month, both billed annually. There is no free trial, but the free tier is the way to test it: if the search results are accurate for the companies you target, the paid plans pay for themselves quickly.

Compared with full outreach suites, Hunter is cheap. It should be — it does one job, and it does not include sending, sequencing, or a prospecting database.

What we like

• Does one job very well. Finding and verifying the right email address before you send is a small job with an outsized effect on deliverability.
• Generous free tier. Occasional use costs nothing, which makes it easy to keep in the toolkit permanently.
• Simple Chrome extension. Quick lookups without leaving the page you are already on.
• Low price point. Far cheaper than a full outreach suite, because it is not one.

Where it falls short

• Not a full outreach platform. Hunter finds addresses; it does not send sequences. You need to pair it with a sending tool like lemlist or Woodpecker.
• Accuracy varies. Search results depend on company size and domain quality — large companies with public data work best; small or obscure companies return thinner results.
• No database of its own. If you need to discover companies and contacts, not just find their emails, Apollo.io is the closer fit.

Who should use Hunter.io?

Anyone doing manual or lightweight outreach who needs verified emails: recruiters finding candidates, sales reps doing quick lookups, founders reaching out to partners. It is the right tool when you already know who you want to contact and just need their address — and need to know it works. Skip it if you need a full sequencing and outreach platform; that is lemlist's or Apollo's job.

Verdict

Hunter.io is a useful, low-cost complementary tool to pair with a full outreach platform rather than a standalone recommendation. It does exactly one thing, it does it well, and the free tier means there is no reason not to have it in the toolkit. Buy it for the verification, not the discovery — and pair it with a real sending tool.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hunter.io?

Hunter.io searches a company's domain to find associated email addresses and verify their deliverability, commonly used as a lightweight companion to outreach and lead-generation tools.

How much does Hunter.io cost?

Free (limited); Starter around $34 a month, Growth around $104 a month, billed annually. The free plan covers light use. Check the official pricing page for current terms.

Can I use Hunter.io for free?

Yes — the free plan covers light use with a monthly search allowance, enough for occasional lookups. Bulk searches and higher volume need a paid plan.

How do I use Hunter.io for outreach?

Use the Chrome extension on a company website or LinkedIn profile to find and verify addresses on the spot, or use the bulk tools for a list of domains. Export the verified addresses to your outreach tool to send.