Hunter bundles verification into a finder subscription. Plans run from $49 to $299 a month, each verification uses half a credit, and credits lapse after 12 months (hunter.io, read September 2026). ZapBounce is a dedicated verifier, from $5 for 1,000 checks, and its credits stay on your account forever.
Prospecting teams usually find a contact in Hunter's Domain Search or Email Finder and verify it on the spot. After the move, the finding happens exactly as before and the checking happens at ZapBounce, ahead of any outreach. Pricing and capabilities in one table are on the ZapBounce vs Hunter page; this guide walks through the handover.
The short version
- Hunter exports for the prospect lists you plan to contact, and a note of each tool that filters on Hunter's status
- A ZapBounce account (100 free checks a month, no card) with a live key and a zb_test_ sandbox key
The steps
Export Hunter's last verdicts
From Hunter, pull the verification columns for each lead list you plan to contact. Keep every address's status beside the date Hunter produced it, so you know how stale each one is.
Inventory where Hunter's status drives a decision
Look through your CRM filters, outreach tool conditions, spreadsheets and Zaps for Hunter's status values. Note the action each one triggers: enrol the prospect, skip them, or park them for a human.
Translate six statuses into four results and three flags
Hunter's Email Verifier returns valid, invalid, accept_all, webmail, disposable and unknown (Hunter API docs, read September 2026). ZapBounce returns
valid,invalid,catch_allandunknown, and carries webmail and disposable as thefree_provideranddisposablebooleans. Any filter that keyed on webmail or disposable now keys on the matching boolean.Swap the request in a test key first
Hunter verifies with a GET. ZapBounce takes
POST https://api.zapbounce.com/v1/verifywith a JSON body holdingemailand your key in anAuthorization: Bearerheader. Requests made with azb_test_key are free, so your integration tests cost nothing. The single verification docs list each response property.Send prospect exports as files
Post a CSV or TXT export to
POST /v1/files, or send up to 100,000 addresses as JSON toPOST /v1/batches. Every column Hunter exported, from company to job title, returns intact with the verdict appended.Replace the Hunter step in your automations
In Zapier, swap the Hunter verify action for the ZapBounce Verify email action. For API pipelines, listen for the
batch.completedevent and validate theZapBounce-Signatureheader before trusting a payload.Re-verify prospects Hunter saw long ago
Load any lead list Hunter verified more than a month back into the bulk page. Sales contacts move employers constantly, and a stale valid points at an inbox that may already be closed.
Go live
Swap
zb_test_forzb_live_in your environment, scan the first day of verdicts for any filter the translation overlooked, then disable the Hunter verifier calls.
Hunter statuses translated to ZapBounce fields
Hunter valid stays valid. Hunter invalid stays invalid, now paired with a reason like mailbox_not_found or domain_not_found explaining the bounce. Hunter unknown stays unknown, and ZapBounce charges nothing for it.
Hunter accept_all is ZapBounce catch_all: the company's server accepts any local part, so SMTP alone can't prove a particular employee's inbox exists. Hunter's webmail and disposable describe the provider rather than the inbox. ZapBounce keeps them as booleans, so a Gmail prospect still receives a genuine valid or invalid verdict.
If older integrations read Hunter's deprecated result property (deliverable, undeliverable, risky), treat deliverable as valid, undeliverable as invalid, and risky as a manual look at catch_all and unknown rows.
Finder in Hunter, verifier in ZapBounce
The two jobs split cleanly. Hunter finds and enriches the prospect; ZapBounce verifies the export before a cold sequence launches. The cold email cleaning answer explains which rows to drop ahead of outreach.
ZapBounce accepts verification only as a POST, so a prospect's address stays out of URLs, access logs and proxy caches.
How the charges work
ZapBounce charges one credit per definitive verdict: valid, invalid and catch_all. An unknown, a repeated address inside one batch, a malformed address and any fault on our end are free, and each row's billed property lets you audit it.
Packs are $5 for 1,000, $25 for 10,000 and $139 for 100,000, with no plan needed. Credits stay forever, so a quarterly prospecting push never has to beat an expiry date. Every tier sits on the pricing page.
Questions people ask
How do I move from Hunter email verification to another tool?
Export Hunter's verification columns, translate its six statuses into the new tool's fields, swap the API request and file uploads, and re-verify lists older than a month. ZapBounce test keys are free, so the whole handover can be rehearsed at no cost.
What does accept_all mean in Hunter?
Hunter returns accept_all when a company's mail server takes mail for any address, so one employee's inbox can't be proven. ZapBounce names that verdict catch_all and charges one credit, at $5 per 1,000 checks.
Do Hunter credits expire?
Yes. Hunter credits lapse after 12 months, per hunter.io read in September 2026. ZapBounce credits stay on your account forever, from a $5 pack of 1,000 upward.
Can I keep using Hunter to find emails?
Yes. Find prospects in Hunter, export them, and verify that export with ZapBounce before outreach begins. Finding and verifying live in two tools, and each 1,000 checks costs $5.