Looking for the best email validation API?
Sending emails to the wrong email IDs can lead to high bounce rates and low deliverability, ultimately damaging your sender reputation. To avoid this, an email validation API helps you identify and remove inauthentic email addresses from your mailing list.
In this article, I’ll highlight the top 7 email validation APIs along with their features, pricing, and ratings.
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Let’s jump right into it.
What Is Email Validation API?
Email validation is the process of identifying incorrect email addresses from an email list.
An email validation API (also called email verification API) is a tool that automatically checks your mailing list for mistyped email addresses, domains (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.), or disposable email IDs to ensure deliverability.
What’s a disposable email address?
A disposable email address (or a fake ID) is a temporary email ID that expires after a certain time period.
People create and use disposable emails to avoid spammers and phishers when visiting blogs and websites that require them to fill in marketing forms or subscriptions to continue browsing.
Emails sent to these addresses go unnoticed or don’t get delivered at all — affecting your deliverability and sender reputation.
How Does Email Verification Work?
Each email address is systematically analyzed using a variety of factors to verify it.
Here’s a quick look at these stages:
Note: If you’re familiar with the email verification process, skip ahead to the seven best email validation API tools section.
1. Syntax Check
All email addresses follow a particular syntax standardized by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and RFC (Request for Comments).
An email verifier identifies email addresses that don’t correspond with these standards and removes them from the mailing list.
It usually checks:
- The email prefix (sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols before the “@” sign).
- Email domain (email service provider’s name) that comes after the “@” sign. For example, gmail.com.
An example of an incorrect email address syntax is xyz#[email protected].
2. Address Name Detection
This step detects and flags email names that are role-based or suspicious, as they affect deliverability due to blacklisting: info@, admin@, [email protected], etc., are examples of such email names.
3. DEA Detection
DEA detection identifies and removes disposable email addresses (DEA), which are usually temporarily used by people for signups and subscriptions to avoid spam emails.
4. Spam Trap Detection
Spam traps are fraud management tools disguised as email addresses. They are created by major ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to identify spammers and block them.
If you send email marketing campaigns to these addresses, they will be marked as spam — which affects your sender reputation.
To prevent this from happening to you, email verifiers help remove spam traps from your email list.
5. DNSBL and URI DNSBL Check
An email checker runs your email through a DNSBL (DNS-based blackhole list) and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).
DNSBL is a list of IP addresses used for spamming, while URI DNSBL is a list of domain names found only in spam email bodies.
6. MX Record Lookup
Checks and verifies the MX records of an email address to identify invalid domains.
MX (mail exchange) records are resource records within the DNS (Domain Name System) that clarify which mail servers accept emails from a domain and which don’t.
When the verifier identifies an invalid domain, it removes that particular email address from your email list.
7. Active Mailbox Check
An email verifier also sends ping requests to an email address’ server to verify whether it’s active. Once the request is received and responded to, it recognizes the mailbox as authentic and active.
Top 7 Email Validation API Tools
Here are the best email validation API tools that help you validate email addresses.
1. SendGrid Validation API
Twilio’s SendGrid is an excellent cloud-based email marketing platform that helps you send massive marketing campaigns across the world.
To use its API endpoint, all you need to do is generate an API key from its settings. Once you get the key, the Email Validation API dashboard will automatically appear in the SendGrid UI.
Check out my detailed SendGrid review to know more.
SendGrid Validation API Key Features
- Offers real-time email address verification using machine learning
- Identifies inactive, temporary, fake, and shared email addresses
- Connects to lead capture forms to avoid email address typos
- Provides risk/validity scores of email addresses
- Helps test inbox rendering to see how an email appears across several mailbox providers and devices
SendGrid Validation API Email List Format
(This is how you can upload and download the data about the emails you’ve submitted for verification)
- Upload: CSV format
- Download: CSV format
SendGrid Pricing
SendGrid’s Email Validation API is available in its Pro and Premier Plans only.
Starting at $89.95/month, the Pro plan offers 2,500 email validations.
SendGrid Ratings
2. Mailgun Email Validation
Read my in-depth Mailgun Review to know more about the tool.
Mailgun Email Validation Key Features
- Verifies emails at the point of capture (submission) via its Real-Time Email Validation API
- Automatically tracks bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, and hard bounces via webhooks
- Quickly identifies and removes bad email addresses from email lists through the Bulk List Validation Tool
- Follows both RFC standards and multiple ESP (email service provider) syntax constraints
- Reporting Dashboard provides hourly and daily tracking of validation API usage, types of API calls made, etc.
Mailgun Email Validation Email List Format
Here are the formats to upload and download email lists for verification:
- Upload: CSV, JSON format
- Download: CSV and JSON format
Mailgun Pricing
Mailgun’s email validation API is available with its paid plans, starting at $35/month.
Mailgun Ratings
3. ZeroBounce
ZeroBounce can help you by easily verifying email addresses and IP addresses.
ZeroBounce Key Features
- Removes invalid emails, spam traps, and email addresses with invalid domains, etc.
- Provides activity level scoring for every email address in a list of emails
- The email list scrubbing system offers additional lead information like full names, gender, and geolocation data.
- Offers APIs with SDK (Software Development Kits), which are compatible with Java, PHP, Python, etc., to automate the email collection process
- Integrates with multiple other platforms like Asana, Gmail, and Facebook
ZeroBounce Email List Format
Here’s how you can upload and download your mail lists for verification in ZeroBounce:
- Upload: CSV, .txt, .xlsx, .xls
- Download: CSV
ZeroBounce Pricing
ZeroBounce comes with a Freemium plan that includes 100 credits/month (email address validations) and 18 validation tools (like Spam Trap and Abuse Email Verifier, A.I. Email Scoring, etc.)
The paid plan starts at $15/month and offers 2,000 credits/month.
ZeroBounce Ratings
4. DeBounce
DeBounce’s email verification service even allows you to connect your DeBounce account with Sendinblue, WordPress, and Moosend for bulk email verification.
DeBounce Key Features
- Identifies disposable emails, catch-all domains, and syntax errors
- Locates and removes duplicate email addresses from email lists
- Offers anti-greylisting technology to safeguard emails from getting spammed by any mail transfer agent (MTA)
- Can easily upload email lists directly from your computer or ESP (email service provider)
- Allows team members to use DeBounce from a single team account
DeBounce List Format
Here are the formats in which you can upload and download email lists in DeBounce for verification:
- Upload: TXT, CSV format
- Download: Offers multiple export and download format options
DeBounce Pricing
DeBounce has pay-as-you-go pricing plans where you only pay for the number of email verifications you require.
The starting price is $10 for 5,000 verifications, and new users get 100 credits for free.
DeBounce Ratings
5. NeverBounce
NeverBounce is an excellent email verification tool that cleans up long email lists in a jiffy.
NeverBounce Key Features
- The validation API helps you create custom integrations to add email verification to your own apps and software.
- Can add its product, Verify, to your lead pages, query forms, etc., to validate emails in real time
- Provides API wrappers like PHP, .NET, Ruby, and NodeJS — giving developers full control over creating API integrations from scratch
- Integrates with multiple CRMs and runs automated email list cleaning via its product, Sync.
NeverBounce List Format
Here’s how you can upload and download email lists in NeverBounce:
- Upload: CSV format
- Download: CSV format
NeverBounce Pricing
NeverBounce follows a pay-for-what-you-use pricing model where you only pay for the number of emails you verify. For up to 10,000 emails, the cost per email verification is $0.008.
NeverBounce Ratings
6. Clearout
Clearout Key Features
- Identifies and removes duplicate emails, catch-all email addresses, and erroneous syntaxes from your lists
- Runs DNSBL and URI DNSBL checks to remove spam traps
- Automatically corrects typos in email addresses
- Verifies domains, MX records, free email accounts, SMTP servers, etc.
- Secures the entire email validation process via SSL encryption
Clearout List Format
Here are the formats for uploading and downloading your email lists in Clearout:
- Upload: CSV and .xlsx formats
- Download: CSV format
Clearout Pricing
Clearout offers a pay-as-you-go price structure for one-time use and a monthly subscription for regular users.
In the pay-as-you-go plan, you pay for the number of email validations (credits) you need — for up to 9,999 email validations, you pay $0.0050/email validation.
Its monthly subscription plan starts at $20/month and offers 5,000 credits.
Clearout Ratings
7. Hunter
Hunter offers email verification; however, it doesn’t provide many native integrations.
Hunter Key Features
- Works both as an email finder and an email verifier
- Offers multi-level validations that include SMTP checks and domain information verification
- Provides detailed validation data including a confidence score to show whether an email address is deliverable or undeliverable
- Has a Google Sheets add-on to help you instantly verify emails from your Google Sheets email list
Hunter List Format
Here’s how you can upload and download email lists in Hunter:
- Upload: CSV, .txt formats
- Download: CSV, .txt formats
Hunter Pricing
Hunter offers a free monthly plan of 50 email verifications and domain searches. Its paid plan starts at $49/month and provides 500 verifications.
Hunter Ratings
The 4 Benefits of Validating Emails
Here are four key reasons why email validation is a necessary step in email marketing:
1. Boosts Deliverability and Engagement Rates
Email validation helps you send emails to authentic customers to enjoy high deliverability, engagement, and sender reputation. By removing temporary email addresses, spam traps, and catch-all email accounts, you’ll be dealing with a clean email list.
2. Prevents Hard Bounces
Hard bounces are emails that remain undelivered because you sent them to invalid email addresses. As email verification refines your email list and includes only valid email addresses, it reduces the risk of hard bounces.
3. Helps Choose Better Email Sourcing Method
Verification helps you sort through all the emails you receive from various sources. As a validation API highlights invalid emails, you can compare how many came from each source — such as your web form, sign-up form, or landing page, etc.
This way, you can analyze and fine-tune your email collection process — helping you acquire more valid email addresses than invalid ones.
4. Helps Keep Your Email List Updated
Email addresses of leads and subscribers don’t stay the same forever — an email ID that’s valid today may not be so a year from now. Email verification helps keep your email list up-to-date, ensuring that you always send emails only to existing and authentic email addresses.
Final Thoughts
With an in-depth verification process, email validation APIs not only help you maintain a clean email list, but also they boost your email deliverability and sending reputation.
Check out the tools I’ve covered here to see what email verification API works best for you. Once you’ve found the right tool, say goodbye to spam traps, fake email IDs, and inactive mailboxes!
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Ajay is the founder of GMass and has been developing email sending software for 20 years.
Hello,
Any integration Gmass – Sendgrid email validation? Like I click on Verify box ( Advance in the Gmass sending tool?
Nice article Ajay. But there are a number of vendors out there that provide different levels of email validation service now. Check out Antideo Email Validation that has both an API and well as a WordPress plugin, which combines IP Reputation Check and Phone number validation with Email validation to further improve spam protection. Would greatly appreciate if you can include us in your list too.
Great list. We’d love to integrate some of those into our marketing automation solution at vibetrace.com.
I was just searching for pro and cons and this article is great!