ZapBounce vs MailerCheck
MailerCheck prices everything at a penny a credit and then spends those credits at radically different rates: one for an address, two hundred for an inbox-placement test. That structure is the comparison. It is generous to a team that runs placement tests and expensive to one that only cleans lists.
| ZapBounce | MailerCheck | |
|---|---|---|
| Accuracy reporting | Coverage stated: the share of your list with a definite verdict | None published |
| 1,000 addresses | $5 | $10, which is their 1,000-credit minimum |
| 10,000 addresses | $25 | $0.01 a credit, with no volume tier published |
| 100,000 addresses | $139 | $0.01 a credit, with no volume tier published |
| Free tier | 100 a month, no card | 10 credits on a new account, no card |
| Credit expiry | Never | Credits never expire |
| Billed for unknowns | No | Not stated |
MailerCheck figures read from their own pricing page in September 2026.
How MailerCheck prices it
A single flat rate of $0.01 a credit with a 1,000-credit minimum, and one wallet spent across three products at different rates. Verification is one credit an address; an inbox-placement test is two hundred credits; email insights the same. No volume tier is published, so the arithmetic above the minimum is just multiplication.
Why teams pick ZapBounce over MailerCheck
What changes when your list runs through ZapBounce instead.
The short version
- A rate that falls with volume: $25 for 10,000 and $139 for 100,000, against a flat $0.01 a credit, which is $1,000 at a hundred thousand.
- Unknowns are never billed. Their terms do not address it.
- 100 free credits every month, recurring. Theirs is 10 credits on a new account.
- One credit is one checked address, never a share of a wallet also spent on placement tests.
- A lower entry: $5 buys 1,000 checks, where their 1,000-credit minimum costs $10.
Moving off MailerCheck
The flat rate. A penny an address never improves, and on any list above a few thousand the volume-tiered challengers pull away quickly. Nobody notices at ten thousand and everybody notices at a million.
Straightforward for the verification. The complication is the shared wallet: inbox-placement tests cost two hundred credits each, so a team using both is buying one thing and spending it on two. Work out the split before you price a verification-only replacement.
The hard addresses, and how they come back
Questions people ask about MailerCheck
Is a penny an address expensive?
At a thousand addresses it is $10 and nobody cares. At a hundred thousand it is $1,000 against $139 with ZapBounce. The flat rate is the whole story and it only becomes visible at volume.
What does an inbox-placement test actually cost?
Two hundred credits, so two dollars at their rate, and two hundred addresses you did not verify. Whether that is good value depends on how often you run one, and the shared wallet makes it easy to lose track.
Do they publish volume discounts?
Not on their pricing page where we read it in September 2026. The page states a rate and a minimum, so anything above the minimum is arithmetic rather than a tier.
Is ZapBounce cheaper than MailerCheck?
At 100,000 addresses we list $139 and they list $0.01 a credit, with no volume tier published. Compare the per-address rate rather than the headline, and check what each side does with unknowns: ours are never billed.
Can I test both before deciding?
Yes, and you should. Run the same sample of a few thousand addresses through each and compare how many came back unresolved. That difference matters more than either accuracy claim.
Multiply a penny by your actual list size. That one sum decides this comparison, and it decides it later than most people expect.
Run the same sample through us and MailerCheck
100 free checks a month, no card, and the unknowns come back labeled.