info@ is not automatically a problem
A verification result has come back with a role flag on several thousand records, and somebody has to decide what happens to them. The default advice in this market is to remove them, and that advice is wrong about half the time.
Detection is the easy part. It's a list lookup against known local parts, entirely deterministic, and it makes no claim about whether the mailbox works.
The order the work happens in
Ask who reads the mailbox before you decide
At a company of eight people, info@ is somebody's actual inbox. At a company of eight thousand it is a queue nobody owns.
Split the decision by send type
A transactional message to support@ is correct. A cold pitch to the same address is a complaint waiting to happen, because nobody there asked for it.
Segment rather than delete
Keep the flag, send to role addresses at a lower frequency, and watch their complaint rate separately. That gives you evidence instead of an assumption.
Check whether they are your customers
A role address that has bought something is a customer contact, whatever the label says. Remove it because of the local part and that's how you lose accounts.
Filter at the form only where it matters
Blocking role addresses at signup makes sense for a per-person account and stops legitimate business customers registering for a B2B product.
What each result means here
The same four results and their flags, read against this job. A catch-all worth keeping in one situation is one to exclude in another.
| Result | What to do with it |
|---|---|
| Valid | Whether the mailbox works is settled. Whether you should mail it is a separate decision. |
| Invalid | Remove. A dead role address is as dead as any other. |
| Catch-all | A role-shaped address at a catch-all domain is doubly unconfirmable, and quite common at larger firms. |
| Unknown | Treat by the same rules as any unresolved result. |
| Role flag | The flag itself. Segment by send type: keep for transactional and customer mail, exclude from cold outreach. |
| Disposable flag | Remove regardless of the role flag. |
How you know it is finished
Role addresses carry a flag rather than having been deleted, cold campaigns exclude them, and their complaint rate is visible as a separate line rather than hidden inside the whole-list average.
What this does not fix
Role detection is a list lookup rather than an SMTP conversation, so it adds nothing to the cost of a check. Any vendor charging separately for it is charging for a lookup table.
Questions people ask
Should I remove role accounts from my list?
From cold outreach, usually yes. From your customer or transactional list, usually no, because at smaller companies a role address is frequently the only contact you have and the one that gets read.
Do role addresses bounce more often?
Not particularly. They exist and accept mail at normal rates. They complain more, which is the real reason people remove them from marketing sends.
How is a role address detected?
By matching the local part against a list of known ones such as info, sales, admin and support. It is deterministic, which also means it is only as good as the list.
Try it on the file in front of you
100 free checks a month, no card. Addresses we could not get an answer on come back labeled as unknown, and those are not billed.