Spaw vs Hunter
Hunter is an outreach platform whose Email Verifier shares unified plan credits with its email finder, enrichment and campaign tools.
The table uses Hunter's public pricing and documentation pages as checked on 2026-09-13, and Spaw's own pricing page. A row those pages carry no value for is marked "not on the pages read" rather than guessed at, and that is a statement about the reading and not about what Hunter publishes.
| spaw | hunter | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | 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 | 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 tier | 100 free credits every month, no card required | Free plan with 50 credits a month; one verification costs 0.5 credit, so 100 verifications |
| Price per 1,000 at about 10k | $7.80 (Growth pack: 5,000 credits for $39), or $5.80 on the Growth monthly plan (5,000 credits for $29 a month) | $7.45 (Growth: $149 a month for 10,000 credits, 20,000 verifications at 0.5 credit each; $5.20 billed yearly) |
| Price per 1,000 at about 100k | $4.49 (Volume pack: 100,000 credits for $449), or $3.49 on the Volume monthly plan (100,000 credits for $349 a month) | $5.98 (Scale: $299 a month for 25,000 credits, 50,000 verifications; larger volumes need an Enterprise quote) |
| Unknown or catch-all results billed | No: an unconfirmed mailbox (reason unverified) and an answer Spaw could not obtain because its handshake partner was unavailable are free and leave no 7-day repeat marker, so a later lookup is a fresh one; a catch-all answer costs 1 credit like any risky answer, and an automatic re-check bills 1 credit only when it confirms the mailbox | No |
| Undeliverable results billed | No, within a fair use: undeliverable answers that needed a mailbox probe are free up to max(500, your billed email answers) in a rolling 30 days, then 1 credit each; the rest are always free | Yes |
| SMTP mailbox check | Yes | not on the pages read |
| 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 | accept_all is one of six statuses (valid, invalid, accept_all, webmail, disposable, unknown); a completed verification costs 0.5 credit, a failed one none |
| Bulk limit | 100,000 addresses per bulk job, with an HMAC-signed completion webhook | not on the pages read |
| Batch API | 50 addresses per synchronous request, probes sent concurrently | not on the pages read |
| Rate limit | 5 requests per second per key on the email and consistency endpoints | Email Verifier: 10 requests a second and 300 a minute per key |
| Official SDKs | Python, Node.js, PHP | not on the pages read |
| Data retention | Only email verification keeps a history row, for 30 days, then pruned; test addresses are never logged | not on the pages read |
checked 2026-09-13 · sources: Hunter pricing, Hunter plans (help center), Hunter pricing FAQ, Hunter rate limits, Hunter API documentation
When Hunter fits better
Sales teams that prospect with Hunter's finder and campaigns and verify addresses as part of that workflow.
- Verification is 0.5 credit; searches and enrichment use the same credits
- Monthly plan credits expire at the end of the billing cycle; yearly plans get the year's credits upfront
- Auto-verification included on paid plans
- USD prices as read on 2026-09-03: Starter $49, Growth $149, Scale $299 a month, or $34, $104, $209 billed yearly; the pricing page shows a visitor local prices, and to a UK reader on 2026-09-13 they were £41, £125 and £251 a month, or £28, £87 and £175 billed yearly
- The help centre still says credit packs are valid for 3 months while the pricing page says 12; the newer page is quoted above
When Spaw fits better
Developers who want one flat price per answered lookup across every signal a signup form produces, a transparent risk score, and an API that documents every field.
- Spaw sells verification alone, as pack credits that never expire or as plans whose unused credits roll over up to three months' allowance; Hunter's plan credits expire with the billing cycle
- Hunter's free plan allows 100 verifications a month against Spaw's monthly free grant, listed at spaw.co/pricing
- Both skip billing when a verification cannot be completed; Spaw also leaves undeliverable verdicts free within a fair-use allowance
- Spaw returns 46 named fields and a machine-readable reason; Hunter's verifier returns one of six statuses
Questions
Does Spaw charge for catch-all or unknown results?
Spaw bills per answer, not per probe outcome. A catch-all domain comes back risky with reason catch_all and costs 1 credit like any risky answer. A mailbox the handshake could not confirm (greylisting, a timeout, no definite answer) comes back risky with reason unverified and is free, and so is an answer Spaw could not obtain at all because its handshake partner was unavailable; neither leaves a 7-day repeat marker, so a later lookup is a fresh one (an uncertain result is reused for up to 15 minutes, then the mailbox is asked again) and bills 1 credit only once the mailbox is confirmed, and the automatic re-checks behind callback_url bill 1 credit only when they confirm it. Undeliverable verdicts are free within a fair use of max(500, your billed email answers) in a rolling 30 days, and invalid input and repeats within 7 days are free too. Hunter states that it does not bill unknown results.
Can I move a list from Hunter to Spaw?
Yes. Upload the CSV to the dashboard or POST it to the bulk endpoint; Spaw keeps your columns, adds the verdict columns, and lets you download only the deliverable, risky or undeliverable rows. Addresses that come back undeliverable join your suppression list so later runs skip them for free.
Is there a free tier?
Every Spaw account receives 100 free credits at the start of each month with no card on file, and unused free credits accumulate. Hunter offers: Free plan with 50 credits a month; one verification costs 0.5 credit, so 100 verifications.
Try Spaw on your own list
Free credits every month, no card. Upload a list, keep your columns, and download only the rows you want. See the pricing page for every rule, or the Hunter alternatives.
Hunter is a trademark of its owner. Spaw is not affiliated with it. Markdown version: /compare/hunter.md