# Email verification APIs compared

Spaw against Abstract API, Bouncer, Emailable, Hunter, Kickbox, Mailboxlayer, NeverBounce, Verifalia and ZeroBounce on pricing, billing rules, verification depth and limits, taken from each vendor's own pages on the date it was read.

Whether mail to an address will arrive, and how much to trust the answer: syntax, live MX, SPF and DMARC, the open disposable and role lists, typo-squats, and a mailbox handshake that never sends a message.

Below are the 9 services Spaw is measured against for email verification, each with the figures its own public pricing and documentation pages state. Every row carries the date that vendor's pages were read, which is its own and need not match the others'; a row those pages carry no value for reads "not on the pages read" rather than a guess. Corrections: support@spaw.co.

| Service | Pricing model | Free tier | Price per 1,000 at about 10k | SMTP mailbox check | Checked |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Spaw | Pay-as-you-go credit packs whose credits never expire, or optional plans, billed monthly or yearly, that deposit the same credits every month for less and roll unused plan credits over up to three months' allowance; both through Stripe Checkout | 100 free credits every month, no card required | $7.80 (Growth pack: 5,000 credits for $39), or $5.80 on the Growth monthly plan (5,000 credits for $29 a month) | Yes | own pricing page, https://spaw.co/pricing |
| [Spaw vs Abstract API](https://spaw.co/compare/abstract.md) | Monthly subscription tiers with a request slider from 5,000 to 150,000 requests a month; Starter from $17, Standard from $37, Professional from $39 a month | 100 requests on the Free plan | not on the pages read | Yes | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs Bouncer](https://spaw.co/compare/bouncer.md) | Pay-as-you-go credits that never expire (from 1,000 credits for $8 up to 1,000,000 for $2,000), auto-refill, plus a Deliverability Kit subscription at $25 to $250 a month | 100 free credits, no card required | $6.00 (10,000 credits for $60) | not on the pages read | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs Emailable](https://spaw.co/compare/emailable.md) | Pay-as-you-go credits that never expire, or a monthly subscription at a 15% discount; minimum purchase 5,000 credits | 250 free credits at signup | $7.60 (the pay-as-you-go rate printed for the 5,000-credit package, $0.0076 a credit; larger packages are priced in a calculator, and the 5,000-credit subscription is $32.30 a month after the 15% discount) | not on the pages read | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs Hunter](https://spaw.co/compare/hunter.md) | Monthly or yearly subscriptions with unified credits shared across search, verification and enrichment; credit packs on paid plans, usable for up to 12 months from purchase according to the pricing page | Free plan with 50 credits a month; one verification costs 0.5 credit, so 100 verifications | $7.45 (Growth: $149 a month for 10,000 credits, 20,000 verifications at 0.5 credit each; $5.20 billed yearly) | not on the pages read | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs Kickbox](https://spaw.co/compare/kickbox.md) | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | 2026-09-03 |
| [Spaw vs Mailboxlayer](https://spaw.co/compare/mailboxlayer.md) | Monthly or yearly subscription (10 to 15% off yearly) with a request quota per plan and per-request overage | 100 requests a month | $3.00 for the Basic quota (5,000 requests for $14.99 a month; overage $0.012 a request, so 10,000 requests on Basic cost about $74.95, $7.50 per 1,000); Professional Plus: 50,000 for $74.99, $1.50 per 1,000 | Yes | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs NeverBounce](https://spaw.co/compare/neverbounce.md) | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | 2026-09-03 |
| [Spaw vs Verifalia](https://spaw.co/compare/verifalia.md) | Pay-as-you-go credit packs that never expire, or monthly, quarterly and yearly subscriptions; verification depth is priced as quality levels; pack and plan prices are shown in a calculator rather than listed | 25 free credits a day on the Free plan; unused daily credits expire each day | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | 2026-09-13 |
| [Spaw vs ZeroBounce](https://spaw.co/compare/zerobounce.md) | Pay-as-you-go credits from $39 for 2,000 addresses, 15% off with autopay, or the ZeroBounce ONE subscription at $99 a month with unused credits rolling over; volume pricing shown through a calculator rather than fixed packs | 100 validation credits a month on the free account | not on the pages read | not on the pages read | 2026-09-13 |

## Spaw vs Abstract API

Abstract API's email validation endpoint is one of a family of utility APIs sold as monthly request quotas with a free 100-request plan.

Where it fits better: Developers who want one vendor for several small utility APIs under a monthly quota.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/abstract.md
- Abstract API alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/abstract.md
- Abstract API's own site: https://www.abstractapi.com
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs Bouncer

Bouncer is an email verification service with pay-as-you-go credits that never expire, high-throughput batch APIs, a real-time form product (Bouncer Shield) and a Deliverability Kit subscription.

Where it fits better: Teams that want the lowest published per-check price with high batch throughput and a real-time form product.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/bouncer.md
- Bouncer alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/bouncer.md
- Bouncer's own site: https://www.usebouncer.com
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs Emailable

Emailable is an email verification service with pay-as-you-go credits, a bulk verifier, a widget and an API, with Node.js, Ruby and Python libraries.

Where it fits better: Marketers who want a simple per-credit price, a fast bulk cleaner and a stated 30-day deletion policy.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/emailable.md
- Emailable alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/emailable.md
- Emailable's own site: https://emailable.com
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs Hunter

Hunter is an outreach platform whose Email Verifier shares unified plan credits with its email finder, enrichment and campaign tools.

Where it fits better: Sales teams that prospect with Hunter's finder and campaigns and verify addresses as part of that workflow.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/hunter.md
- Hunter alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/hunter.md
- Hunter's own site: https://hunter.io
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs Kickbox

Kickbox is an email verification API that returns deliverable, undeliverable, risky or unknown plus a 0 to 1 Sendex quality score, with official libraries for PHP, Node.js, Ruby and Python.

Where it fits better: Teams that want a single quality score next to the verdict and already build on one of Kickbox's four official libraries.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/kickbox.md
- Kickbox alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/kickbox.md
- Kickbox's own site: https://kickbox.com
- Checked on 2026-09-03

## Spaw vs Mailboxlayer

Mailboxlayer is apilayer's email validation API, sold as monthly request quotas from a free 100-request plan up to 250,000 requests a month.

Where it fits better: Developers who prefer a flat monthly quota and already use other apilayer APIs.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/mailboxlayer.md
- Mailboxlayer alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/mailboxlayer.md
- Mailboxlayer's own site: https://mailboxlayer.com
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs NeverBounce

NeverBounce is a ZoomInfo-owned email verification service with a bulk list-cleaning workflow, a real-time API and official client libraries in six languages.

Where it fits better: Teams that clean large lists through jobs and want official wrappers in six languages plus an n8n node.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/neverbounce.md
- NeverBounce alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/neverbounce.md
- NeverBounce's own site: https://www.neverbounce.com
- Checked on 2026-09-03

## Spaw vs Verifalia

Verifalia is an email verification service with selectable quality levels, credit packs that never expire, subscriptions with daily free credits, and official SDKs in six languages.

Where it fits better: Developers who want to tune verification depth per request, official SDKs in six languages, and configurable retention.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/verifalia.md
- Verifalia alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/verifalia.md
- Verifalia's own site: https://verifalia.com
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## Spaw vs ZeroBounce

ZeroBounce is an email validation service with a pay-as-you-go credit model and a subscription (ZeroBounce ONE) that bundles deliverability tools such as activity data, inbox placement tests and blacklist monitoring.

Where it fits better: Marketing teams that want a deliverability suite around verification and prefer a subscription with bundled tools.

- Full comparison: https://spaw.co/compare/zerobounce.md
- ZeroBounce alternatives: https://spaw.co/alternatives/zerobounce.md
- ZeroBounce's own site: https://www.zerobounce.net
- Checked on 2026-09-13

## What Spaw answers

- **SMTP mailbox check:** Yes
- **Catch-all handling:** A catch-all answer is remembered per domain for 7 days, and every unconfirmed mailbox carries a published 0 to 100 mailbox_confidence estimate

`POST /v1/email` — 1 credit for a deliverable or risky verdict, or for an undeliverable one past fair use. Free: unverified answers, invalid syntax, a suppressed address, undeliverable verdicts within fair use. Every rule is on the pricing page: https://spaw.co/pricing

- Documentation: https://spaw.co/docs/email-verification
- Product page: https://spaw.co/products/email-verification
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/email-checker
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/mx-lookup
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/spf-dmarc-checker
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/disposable-email-checker
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/dkim-checker
- Free tool: https://spaw.co/tools/mta-sts-checker

## The other signals

- [Phone intelligence](https://spaw.co/compare/phone.md): 9 services compared
- [IP intelligence](https://spaw.co/compare/ip.md): 13 services compared
- [Address verification](https://spaw.co/compare/address.md): 10 services compared
- [Business verification](https://spaw.co/compare/entity.md): 2 services compared
- [Cross-signal consistency](https://spaw.co/compare/consistency.md): no comparable vendor publishes figures for it
- [Every comparison on one page](https://spaw.co/compare)

## Check the table against your own data

Every Spaw account gets free credits every month with no card, and one key answers every signal. Upload a list, keep your columns, and download only the rows you want. The pricing page has every billing rule in full: https://spaw.co/pricing. Get your API key: https://spaw.co/register

Product names are trademarks of their owners. Spaw is not affiliated with any of them.

Reference: https://spaw.co/compare/email