Question 1

What does Hunter do?

Accepted Answer

Hunter.io is an email finding and verification platform that helps sales teams, recruiters, and marketers discover professional email addresses associated with any company domain and verify their deliverability. With over 4 million users globally, Hunter is the leading tool for B2B email prospecting, combining domain-level email discovery, individual email finding by name + company, multi-step email verification, and outreach campaign management in a single platform and REST API.

In July 2025, Hunter migrated to a Unified Credits system, consolidating search, finder, and verification operations into a single monthly credit pool — simplifying budget management across teams. Also in 2025, Hunter launched an official MCP server enabling AI agents (Claude, OpenAI, Google) to interact with Hunter's API using natural language.

## What the API Does

Hunter provides four core capabilities:

**Domain Search**: Given a company domain (e.g., dangote.com, gtbank.com), returns all publicly findable email addresses associated with that domain, along with the email pattern used by the organization (e.g., {first}.{last}@company.com), confidence scores, and source URLs.

**Email Finder**: Given a person's name and their company domain, Hunter uses its email pattern database and verification engine to find the most likely email address. Returns the email, a confidence score, and verification status.

**Email Verifier**: Multi-step verification that checks email syntax, domain MX records, and mailbox existence via SMTP connection — without sending an actual email. Returns deliverability status (deliverable, risky, undeliverable, unknown) and detailed sub-checks.

**Email Campaigns**: Send personalized cold email campaigns from Hunter's built-in outreach tool, with open/click tracking and automated follow-up sequences.

## How Developers Use It

REST API with JSON responses and API key authentication. Example:

```
GET https://api.hunter.io/v2/domain-search?domain=gtbank.com&api_key=YOUR_KEY
GET https://api.hunter.io/v2/email-finder?domain=gtbank.com&first_name=Emeka&last_name=Okafor&api_key=YOUR_KEY
GET https://api.hunter.io/v2/email-verifier?email=emeka.okafor@gtbank.com&api_key=YOUR_KEY
```

Rate limits: 15 req/sec (500 req/min) for Domain Search and Email Finder; 10 req/sec (300 req/min) for Email Verifier.

## Pricing & Fees

Unified Credits system (July 2025) — all operations draw from a single monthly pool:
- **Free**: 50 searches/month. No credit card required.
- **Starter**: $34/month (annual) / $49/month (monthly) — includes 500 searches/month.
- **Growth**: $73/month (annual) / $104/month (monthly) — 2,500 searches/month.
- **Business**: $244/month (annual) / $349/month (monthly) — 10,000 searches/month.
- **All paid plans**: Unlimited team seats.

## Authentication

API key passed as a query parameter (`api_key=YOUR_KEY`). Keys are found in the Hunter account dashboard.

## Rate Limits

Domain Search and Email Finder: 15 requests/second, 500 requests/minute. Email Verifier: 10 requests/second, 300 requests/minute. These limits apply across all plan tiers.

## Compliance & Regulations

Hunter.io is GDPR compliant. The platform sources email addresses from publicly available web sources (company websites, press releases, social media, etc.) — not from private databases or purchased lists. Hunter provides data subject access and deletion request support for GDPR compliance. For Nigerian deployments under NDPR, Hunter's data sourcing from public web data is generally compliant, but always confirm your specific use case with a legal review.

## Challenges & Gotchas for Nigerian Developers

1. **Nigerian business domain coverage**: Hunter's email database is strongest for international companies. Coverage of smaller Nigerian businesses and startups may be limited compared to large enterprises.
2. **Catch-all domains**: Many Nigerian corporate email domains are catch-all configured. Hunter may return emails with lower confidence scores or mark them as "risky" when the domain accepts all emails.
3. **Credits are shared across operations**: With Unified Credits, your monthly pool is consumed by domain searches, email finds, and verifications equally — budget accordingly if you need high verification volume.
4. **USD billing**: Hunter charges in USD. Nigerian teams need a USD-capable payment method.
5. **Not a list cleaning tool**: Hunter is optimized for finding and verifying individual emails, not cleaning large existing lists. Use ZeroBounce for bulk list hygiene.

## Company Background

Hunter.io was founded in 2015 in Paris, France by Antoine Finkelstein and François Grante. The company grew from a simple Chrome extension to a full email prospecting and outreach platform serving over 4 million users across marketing, sales, and recruitment teams globally.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Q: Is there a free tier?**
A: Yes. Hunter offers 50 free searches/month with no credit card required.

**Q: What changed with the Unified Credits system in July 2025?**
A: Previously, Hunter had separate Search Credits and Verification Credits pools. The July 2025 update consolidated these into a single monthly credit pool used by all operations.

**Q: Does Hunter have a Nigerian business email database?**
A: Yes, though coverage is stronger for large Nigerian enterprises (banks, telcos, multinationals) than for smaller local businesses.

**Q: Can I use Hunter with AI coding tools?**
A: Yes. Hunter launched an official MCP server in 2025 enabling Claude Code, OpenAI agents, and Google AI to interact with Hunter's API using natural language.

Question 2

How much does Hunter cost?

Accepted Answer

Hunter is free to start, with paid tiers for higher usage (freemium). Free: 50 searches/month. Starter: $34/month annual ($49 monthly). Growth: $73/month annual ($104 monthly). Business: $244/month annual ($349 monthly). Unified Credits system as of July 2025.

Question 3

How do I authenticate with the Hunter API?

Accepted Answer

API Key (query parameter: ?api_key=YOUR_KEY)

Question 4

Is there a rate limit on Hunter?

Accepted Answer

Domain Search & Email Finder: 15 req/sec, 500 req/min. Email Verifier: 10 req/sec, 300 req/min.

Question 5

Does Hunter offer a sandbox or test mode?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Hunter provides a sandbox or test environment so you can integrate and test before going live.

Question 6

What is Hunter best suited for?

Accepted Answer

Nigerian sales teams, recruiters, and outreach professionals who need to find and verify professional email addresses from company domains — with a generous free tier and MCP server for AI-native workflows.

Question 7

Is there anything else I should know before integrating Hunter?

Accepted Answer

Hunter migrated to a Unified Credits system in July 2025 — all operations (search, find, verify) draw from a single monthly pool. Launched an official MCP server in 2025 for AI agent integration with Claude, OpenAI, and Google. Unlimited team seats on all paid plans.

Question 8

Where can I find Hunter's documentation?

Accepted Answer

The official API documentation is at https://hunter.io/api. The provider's website is https://hunter.io.

Question 9

Does Hunter support Nigerian developers?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Hunter explicitly supports Nigerian developers/use cases.

Hunter

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