Most email databases cost $5,000-$50,000 annually and still give you 30-40% bounce rates. The right email API finds verified contacts for a fraction of that cost while keeping your sender reputation intact.
Problem is, most email APIs are either outdated contact databases with terrible accuracy, or expensive enterprise solutions that charge $0.50+ per email lookup. The ones that actually work find fresh, verified emails in real-time, not just outdated records. They include catch-all detection, not just basic syntax checks. They start under $50/month, so you can skip the expensive data providers.
We tested 15 email APIs over 90 days, processing over 100,000 email lookups across different industries. Most were either wildly inaccurate (60%+ bounce rates), absurdly expensive ($0.75 per lookup), or limited to outdated database searches. The 10 tools on this list find verified emails more accurately, validate deliverability better, and cost significantly less than traditional solutions.
Quick Comparison
Compare the top 10 email APIs at a glance
| Rank | Service | Price/mo | Accuracy | LinkedIn Focus | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | LinkFinder AI | $29 | 95%+ | ✅ Native | 4.9/5 |
| #2 | Hunter.io | $49 | 90%+ | ❌ Limited | 4.6/5 |
| #3 | Apollo.io | $49 | 85%+ | ✅ Yes | 4.5/5 |
| #4 | ZeroBounce | $16 | 99%+ | ❌ No | 4.7/5 |
| #5 | Snov.io | $39 | 88%+ | ✅ Yes | 4.4/5 |
| #6 | RocketReach | $53 | 92%+ | ✅ Yes | 4.5/5 |
| #7 | Clearbit | $99 | 93%+ | ❌ Limited | 4.3/5 |
| #8 | Lusha | $39 | 87%+ | ✅ Yes | 4.3/5 |
| #9 | ContactOut | $49 | 89%+ | ✅ Yes | 4.4/5 |
| #10 | FullContact | Custom | 91%+ | ❌ No | 4.2/5 |
If you're deciding between us and other email APIs, we'll cut to the chase: LinkFinder AI specializes in finding verified business emails from LinkedIn profiles without risking your account.
"With LinkFinder AI, I don't worry about my LinkedIn account getting banned anymore." Ahem 👀
This is not self-praise. These are the words of customers who made the switch from Hunter, Apollo, and other email finding tools. LinkFinder AI stands out because it extracts emails directly from LinkedIn using its own private network instead of your account. This means you get highly accurate B2B contact data without the constant fear of LinkedIn restrictions.
Unlike generic email databases that search outdated records, LinkFinder AI provides real-time email finding from the world's largest professional network. You don't even need a LinkedIn account to use our service. We handle bulk processing through CSV uploads, offer a powerful API for integration, and maintain 95%+ accuracy on business email lookups. For cold outreach teams targeting decision-makers, this is the safest and most accurate solution available.
Key Features
- Zero ban risk - We use our own private network, not your LinkedIn account
- 95%+ email accuracy - Real-time verification on every lookup
- LinkedIn-native data - Find emails for any LinkedIn profile or company
- Bulk CSV processing - Upload thousands of LinkedIn URLs at once
- RESTful API access - Integrate with your CRM and outreach tools
- Catch-all detection - Identify risky email addresses before sending
- Company domain search - Find all employees at target companies
- Phone number enrichment - Get direct dials alongside emails
Starting at $29/month – includes 10,000 records with simple, transparent pricing. No hidden fees or complex tier systems.
✓ Pros
- Completely safe - no LinkedIn account needed or risk
- Industry-leading 95%+ accuracy on B2B emails
- Real-time verification, not outdated database searches
- Simple pricing with generous record allowances
- Bulk processing handles thousands of lookups at once
- API-first design for easy CRM integration
- Includes phone numbers and job titles
- Catch-all detection prevents wasted sends
✗ Cons
- Focused on LinkedIn (not a general email database)
- Requires LinkedIn profile URLs for lookups
- Higher starting price than basic verification-only tools
Ready to find verified B2B emails safely?
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Hunter.io
Domain-Based Email Finder - Best for Company-Wide Searches
Hunter.io is one of the most popular email finding APIs, specializing in domain-based email pattern detection. Instead of looking up individual contacts, Hunter analyzes email patterns across entire domains to predict employee email addresses.
The platform maintains a database of over 100 million email addresses collected from public web sources. Their API allows you to find emails by domain, verify individual addresses, and discover the email pattern used by any company. Hunter is particularly strong for outbound teams targeting multiple people at the same organization.
Key Features
- Domain search - Find all public emails associated with any company domain
- Email pattern detection - Predict employee emails based on company patterns
- Email verification API - Validate deliverability before sending
- Bulk domain searches - Process multiple domains simultaneously
- Chrome extension - Find emails while browsing company websites
- Email confidence scores - Assess likelihood of accuracy
Starting at $49/month – includes 500 searches and 1,000 verifications. Higher tiers available for larger volumes.
✓ Pros
- Excellent for finding multiple contacts at one company
- Large database of verified email addresses
- Pattern detection works well for standardized companies
- Separate verification API with high accuracy
- Clean, well-documented API
- Generous free tier for testing
✗ Cons
- Requires company domain (doesn't work well with LinkedIn URLs)
- Pattern-based guessing can be inaccurate for smaller companies
- Search and verification credits are separate limits
- Limited personal email finding capabilities
- No phone number enrichment
Apollo.io
All-in-One Sales Platform - Best for Integrated Workflows
Apollo.io combines email finding with a complete sales engagement platform. Their database includes over 275 million contacts with built-in email verification, phone numbers, and detailed company information. Apollo is designed for teams who want prospecting, enrichment, and outreach in a single platform.
The platform offers robust filtering for building targeted prospect lists based on job title, company size, industry, and technology stack. Their API provides access to the same data available through their web interface, making it easy to integrate Apollo's database into existing sales workflows.
Key Features
- 275M+ contact database - Pre-verified B2B emails and phone numbers
- Advanced filtering - Search by job title, seniority, company, tech stack
- Email sequencing - Built-in cold outreach automation
- Chrome extension - Enrich LinkedIn profiles in real-time
- CRM integration - Native connections to Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.
- API access - Programmatic access to full database
Starting at $49/month – includes 120 mobile phone credits and unlimited email credits. API access requires higher tiers.
✓ Pros
- Massive contact database with regular updates
- Includes both emails and direct dial phone numbers
- All-in-one platform reduces tool stack complexity
- Strong LinkedIn integration for profile enrichment
- Email sequencing included at no extra cost
- Good accuracy on mid-market and enterprise contacts
✗ Cons
- API access only available on higher-priced plans
- Database quality varies significantly by industry
- Phone credit limits are restrictive on basic plans
- Can be overwhelming for teams only needing email finding
- Email accuracy drops for smaller companies and startups
ZeroBounce
Email Verification Specialist - Best for List Cleaning
ZeroBounce focuses exclusively on email verification rather than email finding. Their API validates email deliverability, detects spam traps, identifies abuse emails, and provides detailed quality scores for every address. This makes ZeroBounce ideal for cleaning existing lists before cold outreach campaigns.
The platform uses advanced validation techniques including SMTP verification, mailbox existence checks, and proprietary spam trap detection. ZeroBounce claims 99%+ accuracy on their verification results, which helps maintain sender reputation and improve email deliverability rates.
Key Features
- 99%+ verification accuracy - Industry-leading validation precision
- Spam trap detection - Identify and remove dangerous addresses
- Abuse email detection - Flag complainers before they damage reputation
- Catch-all detection - Identify risky accept-all domains
- Bulk API processing - Verify thousands of emails per second
- Email appending - Add missing contact information to records
Starting at $16/month – includes 2,000 verifications with pay-as-you-go options. Volume discounts available.
✓ Pros
- Highest verification accuracy among all tested tools
- Excellent spam trap and abuse detection
- Fast API response times (sub-second)
- Detailed validation scores for risk assessment
- Affordable pricing for high-volume verification
- Great for maintaining sender reputation
✗ Cons
- Verification only - doesn't find new email addresses
- Requires existing email list to provide value
- No prospecting or enrichment features
- Monthly credit limits can be restrictive
Snov.io
Multi-Channel Prospecting - Best for Combined Email and Drip
Snov.io combines email finding, verification, and automated outreach in a single platform. Their API provides access to a database of over 100 million B2B contacts, along with tools for email drip campaigns and LinkedIn automation. Snov.io is built for sales teams who want end-to-end prospecting automation.
The platform includes LinkedIn profile enrichment, company information lookup, and email pattern detection similar to Hunter. What sets Snov.io apart is the integrated email warm-up service and deliverability monitoring to ensure your cold emails actually reach inboxes.
Key Features
- Email finder API - Discover emails by name and domain
- LinkedIn Email Finder - Extract emails from LinkedIn profiles
- Email verification - Validate deliverability on every lookup
- Drip campaigns - Automate follow-up sequences via API
- Email warm-up - Maintain sender reputation automatically
- Technology tracking - Identify companies using specific tools
Starting at $39/month – includes 1,000 credits for email finding and verification combined. Drip campaigns included.
✓ Pros
- Complete prospecting and outreach suite
- LinkedIn integration works well for B2B
- Email warm-up prevents deliverability issues
- Affordable pricing compared to competitors
- Technology tracking for targeted prospecting
- Good API documentation
✗ Cons
- Email accuracy lower than specialized tools (88% vs 95%)
- LinkedIn automation carries account risk
- UI can be confusing with too many features
- Credit system combines finding and verification
- Customer support response times vary
RocketReach
Executive Contact Finder - Best for C-Level Outreach
RocketReach specializes in finding contact information for executives and decision-makers. Their database includes over 700 million professional profiles with direct email addresses and phone numbers. RocketReach is particularly strong for reaching senior-level contacts at large enterprises.
The platform aggregates data from numerous public sources and uses AI to verify contact accuracy. RocketReach's API provides bulk lookup capabilities, making it suitable for enriching large prospect lists with executive contact information.
Key Features
- 700M+ professional profiles - Massive database with deep coverage
- Executive focus - Strong data on C-level and VP-level contacts
- Direct dial numbers - Personal phone lines for decision-makers
- Social media profiles - Complete professional online presence
- Email pattern intelligence - Company-specific formatting rules
- Bulk API lookups - Process thousands of contacts simultaneously
Starting at $53/month – includes 170 lookups with higher tiers for increased volume. Annual plans offer significant discounts.
✓ Pros
- Exceptional coverage of executive-level contacts
- High accuracy on enterprise company data (92%+)
- Includes direct phone numbers not found elsewhere
- Chrome extension for quick lookups
- Good integration with popular CRMs
- Detailed job history and company information
✗ Cons
- Higher pricing than most competitors
- Limited lookups on basic plans (170/month)
- Data quality varies for small companies
- API access requires premium subscription
- Credits expire monthly (no rollover)
Clearbit
Enterprise Enrichment Platform - Best for Developer Teams
Clearbit offers enterprise-grade data enrichment APIs designed for engineering teams. Their platform provides real-time company and person data enrichment, including email verification, company information, and technographic data. Clearbit is built for companies that need programmatic access to B2B intelligence.
The platform uses machine learning to analyze billions of data points from public sources, creating detailed profiles for both companies and individuals. Clearbit's API-first approach makes it popular among SaaS companies for enriching user sign-ups and qualifying leads automatically.
Key Features
- Real-time enrichment - Instant company and person data lookup
- Email verification - Validate deliverability with high precision
- Prospector API - Find contact information by company and role
- Reveal API - Identify anonymous website visitors
- Technographic data - Technology stack information for targeting
- Firmographic data - Detailed company attributes and metrics
Starting at $99/month – custom enterprise pricing based on API usage volume. Free tier available for testing.
✓ Pros
- Extremely reliable API with 99.9% uptime
- Rich company data beyond just contact information
- Real-time lookups with sub-second response times
- Excellent documentation and developer support
- Native integrations with major marketing platforms
- High data accuracy on established companies (93%+)
✗ Cons
- Significantly more expensive than alternatives
- Requires technical knowledge to implement
- Limited personal email finding capabilities
- Pricing transparency is poor (must contact sales)
- Better suited for enrichment than cold prospecting
Lusha
LinkedIn Chrome Extension - Best for Manual Prospecting
Lusha provides contact information enrichment primarily through a Chrome extension for LinkedIn and company websites. Their database includes over 100 million business profiles with email addresses and phone numbers. Lusha is designed for sales reps who manually prospect on LinkedIn and need instant contact information.
The platform offers both extension-based lookup and an API for bulk enrichment. Lusha focuses on ease of use with one-click contact reveals directly on LinkedIn profiles, making it popular among individual sales reps and small teams.
Key Features
- Chrome extension - One-click email reveals on LinkedIn
- Direct dial numbers - Personal phone lines for prospects
- CRM integration - Automatic contact sync to Salesforce, etc.
- Bulk enrichment - CSV upload for processing large lists
- Email verification - Validate before revealing credits
- Intent data - Identify companies actively researching solutions
Starting at $39/month – includes 40 credits for email and phone lookups. Higher tiers offer more credits and API access.
✓ Pros
- Extremely easy to use with LinkedIn extension
- Fast contact reveals (under 2 seconds)
- Good phone number coverage compared to competitors
- Clean, intuitive interface
- Helpful for manual prospecting workflows
- GDPR compliant for European contacts
✗ Cons
- Low credit limits on basic plans (40/month)
- Email accuracy inconsistent (87% in our tests)
- Expensive per-contact cost at higher volumes
- API functionality limited compared to alternatives
- Credits don't roll over month-to-month
ContactOut
Recruiter-Focused Finder - Best for Talent Sourcing
ContactOut was originally built for recruiters to find candidate contact information, but has expanded to serve sales teams as well. The platform specializes in extracting personal email addresses and phone numbers from LinkedIn profiles, with particularly strong coverage in the tech industry.
Unlike most business-focused email finders, ContactOut often provides personal email addresses rather than corporate ones. This makes it valuable for recruiting scenarios but less ideal for traditional B2B cold outreach where corporate emails are preferred.
Key Features
- LinkedIn integration - Extract contacts directly from profiles
- Personal email focus - Access to individual email accounts
- Triple verification - Multiple checks before revealing contacts
- Chrome extension - Instant contact reveals while browsing
- Bulk search - Process lists of LinkedIn URLs at once
- Email campaigns - Built-in outreach tool for follow-ups
Starting at $49/month – includes 200 email credits and 100 phone credits. Separate pools for different contact types.
✓ Pros
- Excellent personal email coverage (89% accuracy)
- Strong tech industry contact database
- Triple verification reduces bad contacts
- Good for both recruiting and sales use cases
- Active contact updates based on job changes
- Helpful filtering for targeted prospecting
✗ Cons
- Personal emails often less useful for B2B outreach
- Separate credit pools complicate usage
- Lower coverage outside tech industry
- Email campaigns feature is basic compared to dedicated tools
- Higher pricing for phone number access
FullContact
Identity Resolution API - Best for Customer Data Platform
FullContact provides identity resolution and person enrichment APIs designed for marketing and customer data platforms. Their service matches email addresses, phone numbers, and social profiles to create unified customer records. FullContact is less about finding new contacts and more about enriching existing customer data.
The platform uses proprietary matching algorithms to link disparate data points into complete person profiles. This makes FullContact valuable for companies building customer data platforms or needing to enrich existing user databases with demographic and social information.
Key Features
- Identity resolution - Match emails to complete person profiles
- Person enrichment - Add demographic and social data to records
- Company enrichment - Detailed firmographic information
- Email verification - Validate deliverability and quality
- Social profile matching - Connect email to social accounts
- Audience segmentation - API-driven customer categorization
Custom enterprise pricing – based on API call volume and features needed. Free tier available for limited testing.
✓ Pros
- Excellent identity resolution accuracy (91%+)
- Deep demographic and psychographic data
- Strong social profile matching capabilities
- Enterprise-grade API reliability
- GDPR and privacy compliance features
- Good for building unified customer views
✗ Cons
- Not designed for finding new email addresses
- Requires existing data to provide value
- Complex pricing structure (contact sales required)
- Better suited for enrichment than prospecting
- Steep learning curve for full feature utilization
Ready to find verified B2B emails safely?
Stop worrying about LinkedIn account bans. LinkFinder AI finds verified emails using its own private network, keeping your account completely safe while delivering 95%+ accuracy.
Start Your Free TrialNo credit card required • 10,000 records included • Cancel anytime