How-to guide

How to find a person's work email address

Give an email finder the person's name and company domain, or their LinkedIn URL. It returns the most likely work address with a status. Most finders charge only when they find one. Keep verified results only, and send misses to a second provider. In our 50-person pilot, one provider found 36 emails and two providers together found 39 (78%).

Verified 25 Oct 2026 · 7 ways to do it · 14 tools compared

Cost at your volume

Every way to do it

7 routes, from code to no-code: who each one suits and the tools that run it. Open a route for how it works and where it goes wrong.

A finder API
Code
Lists where one provider covers your audience.
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Send a name plus company domain, or a LinkedIn URL, to one provider's finder endpoint. Read the email and its status or confidence before you use it.
Pilot 50 rows first, because hit rates change from one audience to the next.
Where it goes wrong. Treating a pattern-built address as a confirmed find. Some finders return a pattern-generated address with a score. In our Hunter test the result came back marked source_type 'generated' and provenance 'inferred'. Filter on verified status.
Verify as you find
Code
Outbound lists going straight into a sequencer.
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Ask the finder for verified results only and accept nothing else. Prospeo takes an only_verified_email flag. Findymail and LeadMagic bill a find only when the email is valid. Re-verify the accepted list right before sending.
Where it goes wrong. An email at the person's old company. Provider data can lag a job change, so we accept an email only when its domain matches the live current-employer domain.
Waterfall
Low code
Lists where one provider tops out, and high-value contacts worth a second or third lookup.
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Send each miss from provider 1 to provider 2, and stop at the first verified email. Buy it ready-made (FullEnrich, BetterContact, Clay's Work Email waterfall, Apollo's waterfall flag, Lusha's Data Waterfall) or build it from single providers. See the related waterfall job for the build.
Where it goes wrong. Paying twice for one person. FullEnrich does not dedupe inside a bulk call, Apollo's waterfall email can cost 20+ credits, and LeadMagic may throttle accounts whose find rate falls below 10%, which its terms say includes use late in a waterfall.
No-code / Clay
No code
Teams whose lists already live in Clay tables.
- Clay
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Add Clay's Work Email waterfall column to a table, or pick one provider column. In the app on 25 Oct 2026 the waterfall showed about 1.1 data credits per row across 11 providers, and single providers 0.2 to 6 per row.
Where it goes wrong. Two meters: data credits for the data and Actions for every run. Top-ups cost a 30% premium on Launch and Growth.
Through an AI agent (MCP)
AI agent
Researching a handful of people while you work in an agent.
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Connect a finder's hosted MCP server to Claude and ask it to enrich a person by LinkedIn URL. Prospeo includes its MCP server on the Free plan.
Where it goes wrong. One prompt can fan out into several charged calls, as Clay's MCP docs warn. Set credit limits where the vendor offers them (per key at Lusha and FullEnrich, per rep at Clay).
Manual / UI
No code
A few lookups a week, or testing data quality before you buy an API plan.
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Search or upload a CSV in the vendor's web app, then export.
Where it goes wrong. Free plans stop early. Lusha Free enriches up to 100 CSV rows at a time, Prospeo Free has no API access, and a RocketReach Free account comes with 3 lookups.
A verifier API
Code
Checking a pattern-built address when no finder returns the person.
- ZeroBounce
How it works and where it goes wrongShow less
Build the likely address from the company's email pattern (first.last@, f.last@), then keep the one a verifier marks valid.
A verifier confirms that the mailbox accepts mail; it does not confirm who owns it. In our 50-person pilot the one wrong-person result came from this route: a pattern-built address that ZeroBounce marked valid belonged to a different person with the same first name.
Where it goes wrong. An address that passes verification but belongs to someone else. When you have the LinkedIn URL, a finder that matches on it also confirms identity. ZeroBounce also sells an Email Finder, at 20 credits per successful find.

What it costs at your volume

Move the slider to your monthly volume. Each row shows the cheapest published plan or pack that covers it.

Your volume a month1,000

Tool	Cheapest option that covers it	Billing basis	Cost	Per email
Prospeo	1,000 credits	One-off pack	$10 one-off	$0.01
Hunter	2,000 credits	Annual plan, per month	$34/mo, billed annually	$0.034
Findymail	1,000 credits	Annual plan, per month	$41/mo, billed annually	$0.041
LeadMagic	5,000 credits	Annual plan, per month	$83/mo, billed annually	$0.083
AI Ark	5,000 credits	Annual plan, per month	$39.17/mo, billed annually	$0.0392
Forager	2,250 credits	Annual plan, per month	$45/mo, billed annually	$0.045
Apollo	2,500 credits	Annual plan, per month	$49/mo, billed annually	$0.049
RocketReach	1,667 credits	Annual plan, per month	$142/mo, billed annually	$0.142
Lusha	3,400 credits	Annual plan, per month	$299.95/mo, billed annually	$0.30
People Data Labs	Above the largest listed option (350)		Contact the vendor
FullEnrich	1,000 credits	Annual plan, per month	$49/mo, billed annually	$0.049
BetterContact	1,000 credits	Monthly plan	$49/mo	$0.049
Clay	2,500 credits	Annual plan, per month	$167/mo, billed annually	$0.167
ZeroBounce	2,000 credits	One-off pack	$39 one-off	$0.0195

Each option is a published plan or credit pack from the tool's own pricing page (linked on its review). Plans renew every month; packs are paid once. Per-action cost: for a pack, its price per credit (unused credits stay for later); for a plan, the month's price divided by your volume, so a plan you do not fill costs more per action. Notes per tool are in the list below.

Step by step

The calls in order, with the endpoint for each step.

A finder API

Copy your Hunter key from the API page in the sidebar (Show or Copy API key).
Check credits for free and read requests.credits.
GET /v2/account
Call Email Finder with the domain and first and last name (or a LinkedIn handle). 1 credit if found, free if not.
GET /v2/email-finder
Read the score, sources and verification fields. A 'generated' source_type means the address was built from the domain's pattern, so verify it.
Verify anything you are unsure of for 0.5 credit. Unknown results are free.
GET /v2/email-verifier

Verify as you find

Call Prospeo's enrich-person with the LinkedIn URL and only_verified_email set to true.
POST /enrich-person
For lists, send up to 50 people per request. The same per-record rules apply.
POST /bulk-enrich-person
Treat HTTP 400 with NO_MATCH as 'no data, no charge' and pass the person to your next provider.
Accept the email only when its domain matches the person's live current-employer domain.
Right before upload, re-verify every accepted email.

Waterfall

Send up to 100 contacts to FullEnrich (name plus domain, or LinkedIn URL) with enrich_fields set to contact.work_emails and a webhook_url.
POST /contact/enrich/bulk
Wait for the webhook. Polling counts against the 60 calls a minute limit.
GET /contact/enrich/bulk/{enrichment_id}
Read the most_probable fields. If none came back, nothing passed verification and no credit was used.
Filter on status if you want only DELIVERABLE emails, since catch-all results are charged too.

No-code / Clay

In a table, choose Add column, then Add enrichment, and search for Work Email.
Map the inputs. The waterfall shows 'Data providers configured 0/11' until you do.
Check the per-row cost in Run settings (about 1.1 for the waterfall), then Save.

Through an AI agent (MCP)

Add Prospeo's hosted MCP server to Claude and sign in with OAuth, or send your key in the X-KEY header.
https://mcp.prospeo.io
Ask the agent to run get_account_info to check credits.
Ask for enrich_person on a LinkedIn URL, or bulk_enrich_person for up to 25 people per call.

Manual / UI

In Lusha, open the CSV enrichment page and upload your list. The Free plan takes up to 100 rows at a time.
Reveal emails at 1 credit each and phones at 5.

What goes wrong, and the fix

A clean-looking email goes to the wrong person.
Why
A name-only match or a pattern-built address, confirmed only by a verifier.
Fix
Pass the LinkedIn URL on every lookup and accept provider-verified results only.
Emails land at the person's previous company.
Why
The provider's employer data is older than the job change.
Fix
Accept an email only when its domain matches the live current-employer domain.
The waterfall bill is far above the plan.
Why
The same person sent twice with slightly different inputs, or a higher-cost waterfall step on every row.
Fix
Dedupe on exact inputs before sending, put cheap providers first, and cap the number of providers per person.
LeadMagic throttles the account mid-run.
Why
Its fair-use clause covers sustained find rates under 10%, including use late in a waterfall.
Fix
Call it early in the chain, or keep it for lists it covers well.
A search returns people but no emails.
Why
Apollo, Prospeo and LeadMagic search endpoints never return emails.
Fix
Search first, then enrich only the people you keep. Prospeo charges for both steps; Apollo's people search is free on paid plans.
One provider goes down and the whole run stops.
Why
The pipeline depended on that provider.
Fix
Make every provider optional and let the person move to the next stage.
A retry charges twice.
Why
BetterContact submissions are not idempotent.
Fix
Check GET /account before you resubmit after a timeout.
Old FullEnrich results return an error.
Why
Results are kept for 3 months only.
Fix
Store the full result when it arrives.

Tools that do this job

What each tool charges for this job and what to watch for. Every tool links to its full API review.

Prospeo

MCP

Matches on LinkedIn URL, email, or name plus company, and can return verified emails only. It was the strongest single provider in our pilot.

Cost1 credit per verified email found; 10 per mobile (email included).

Units are credits per month, per user; plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually, credits delivered up front. Add-ons start at $10 per 1,000 credits. Credits do not roll over. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?No match costs 0 (we checked). The same record within 90 days is free.

Watch outThe Free plan has no API access (MCP is included).

Search results never contain emails; you pay again to reveal them. No-match answers come back as HTTP 400 with error_code NO_MATCH.

Prospeo API review

Hunter

MCP

Open-web finder with a free domain email count, a verifier in the same credit pool and a hosted MCP on every plan.

Cost1 credit per email found; verification 0.5 credit.

Units are credits per month; plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually. Monthly credits do not roll over. The API-only Data Platform sells search credits from $0.05 down to $0.0056 each. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Free when no email is found.

Watch outResults marked 'generated' are built from the domain's email pattern, so verify them before sending.

A rate-limit hit returns 403, and 429 means you are out of credits. The pricing FAQ counts Domain Search credits per email found, while the API reference says a query is counted for calls returning at least one result. Read requests.credits in /account; the older counters moved inconsistently in our test.

Hunter API review

Findymail

MCP

Finds and verifies each email in real time, with a credit refund if bounces pass 5%.

Cost1 finder credit per verified email found; 10 per phone (non-EU).

Credit-based plans include the same number of verifier credits (units are finder credits per month). Rollover capped at 2x. No pay-as-you-go. plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Free when not found. The same find within 30 days is not charged again.

Watch outUsage-based plans ($99, $399, $999) publish no numeric usage allowance and are for your own team only.

The bounce guarantee pays out in credits. A zero balance returns 402 before the lookup runs.

Findymail API review

LeadMagic

MCP

Pay per valid email, with name-plus-domain and LinkedIn-URL finders, bulk jobs up to 500,000 rows and a hosted MCP.

Cost1 credit per valid email from name and domain; 5 credits from a LinkedIn profile URL.

Credit price runs from $0.0198 (Essential, monthly) to $0.0071 (Ultimate, annual). Units are credits per month; plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually. No free plan. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Not found is free.

Watch outFair-use clause: if your sustained find rate falls below 10%, including late in a waterfall, LeadMagic may throttle or suspend the account.

Self-serve plans are for internal use only. MCP is OAuth only.

LeadMagic API review

AI Ark

MCP

Returns a work email verified at request time from a LinkedIn URL or its own person id, charges only when a valid email is found, and can export a search with verified emails in one job.

Cost1 credit per valid email found (0.5 profile plus 0.5 verified email) on the single-person and trackId finders; 5 credits per mobile found.

Bulk export charges 0.5 per person plus 0.5 per email found. Units are credits per month; plan_annual is $470 a year for 60,000 credits, shown per month, with all credits granted on day one. Larger packages are priced in its credit calculator; the pricing FAQ quotes $2 to $4 per 1,000 credits on plans above 30K credits a month. Unused credits roll over up to 2x the monthly allowance. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?0 credits when no valid email is found on the single-person and trackId finders. Export People with Email still charges 0.5 per person without an email, and the pricing FAQ says a person export with no valid email costs the 0.5 profile credit.

Watch outThe single-person finder takes a LinkedIn URL or an AI Ark person id, not a name plus domain.

To start from filters, run a People Search, then find emails by its trackId, which works once and expires 6 hours after the search. The MCP server takes the API key in the URL, and the default rate limit is 5 requests a second per key.

AI Ark API review

Forager

OneGTMLab works with Forager. Work email by name plus domain or LinkedIn identifier, as single or bulk async jobs, alongside people, company and job data.

Cost5 credits per email found, which is $0.11 (Starter) to $0.08 (Pro) on monthly billing and $0.10 to $0.07 yearly.

Units are credits per month; plan_annual is the monthly price with yearly billing (credits up front). Monthly credits roll over. Card payments can carry up to a 3% surcharge. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Charged only when an address is found. A bulk batch your balance cannot cover is rejected with no charge.

Watch outThe documented work-email endpoint is now the async v2 one; the older v1 path still bills but is gone from the docs.

No numeric rate limit is published for work email; single lookups are rate limited for interactive use, so run lists through the bulk endpoint. The default licence is internal use only, so agencies enriching for clients should check the licence tier first. No official MCP server.

Forager API review

Apollo

MCP

A 240M-contact database with search, enrichment and sequencing in one account, plus a waterfall flag on person enrichment.

Cost1 credit per matched person with email; +8 for a mobile.

Units are credits per seat per month; plan_annual is the monthly seat price billed annually (Organization is annual only, minimum 3 seats). Email credits are capped at the lesser of amount paid / $0.025 or 1M a year. Credits do not roll over. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?0 credits when nothing is found. Waterfall email typically costs 1 to 4 credits and can pass 20, and some waterfall vendors charge per lookup even with no result.

Watch outPeople search returns no emails; enrich to get them.

Bulk enrichment takes 10 people per call. Waterfall and phone flags return results asynchronously, to a webhook_url or by polling with poll_only. 'Get complete person info' returns the placeholder email_not_unlocked@domain.com for non-contacts. The terms ban reselling the data.

Apollo API review

RocketReach

MCP

Person lookup by LinkedIn URL, email or name plus employer, with graded emails, bulk lookups to a webhook and a hosted MCP.

Cost1 export per lookup that returns data.

Units are lookups or exports per month: monthly billing gives 100 / 250 / 1,000; annual gives 1,200 / 3,600 / 20,000 exports a year ($399 / $899 / $1,699, shown per month). USD list price; in the app on 25 Oct 2026 the pricing page showed lower INR prices from an Indian IP. Verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?No charge when a lookup returns no data or only B or F-grade emails.

Watch outLookups are async: the first response can say 'searching'.

Cached emails are returned by default (return_cached_emails is true). Universal endpoints work only on custom plans. Running out of lookups returns 403.

RocketReach API review

Lusha

MCP

Search-then-reveal contact data with clear per-reveal prices and a 50-tool hosted MCP.

Cost1 credit per email reveal, 5 per phone.

Search costs 1 credit per 1 to 25 results. Units are credits per month; plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually (25% off). Pro is the first plan that lists the API as a feature; Free and Starter have strict API limits. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Two NOT_FOUND searches cost 0 in our test. Lusha's docs disagree: one page says a minimum of 1 credit per request.

Watch outOnce Data Waterfall is enabled on the account, it runs on every enrich call and fills gaps from other vendors at 2 credits per email; pass waterfallEnabled: false to keep Lusha-only data.

The header is api_key exactly. The account usage counter moved up and back down in our test, so trust creditsCharged on each response.

Lusha API review

People Data Labs

Developer-first person data with 100-record bulk enrichment and lookups by LinkedIn URL, email or name plus company.

Cost1 credit per matched person.

Pro starts at 350 records a month for $98 ($0.28 a credit in the app); annual starts at $940 a year, shown here per month. Free gives 100 records a month with contact fields hidden. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?No match (404) is free on enrichment. Person Identify bills 404s too.

Watch outFree plan hides emails, phones and addresses.

Search bills per record returned, so always set size. Every response is capped at 1MB. The usage policy bans FCRA uses and training generative AI models.

People Data Labs API review

FullEnrich

MCP

A ready-made waterfall across 20+ providers in one async call, with verification on every email.

Cost1 credit per work email found; 10 per mobile, 3 per personal email.

Credit price runs from $0.058 (500 a month) to $0.035 (100,000 a month), and $0.052 to $0.032 on annual billing. Units are credits per month. Free trial: 50 credits. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?0 credits when nothing passes verification. Catch-all emails cost 1 credit like deliverable ones.

Watch outIt does not publish which providers it uses or their order.

No dedupe inside one bulk call. Results are kept for 3 months, and re-enriching after that costs again. 60 API calls a minute across all endpoints.

FullEnrich API review

BetterContact

A ready-made waterfall across 20+ providers that charges only for valid results.

Cost1 credit per valid work email; 10 per verified mobile.

Units are credits per month. Annual billing gives 2 months free. Enterprise from $799 a month supports your own provider keys. Free signup credits: 50 on the pricing page, 100 on the signup page. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?0 for undeliverable or not found. Catch-alls are charged unless catch-all verification (Pro or add-on) is on, although the pricing page says catch-alls are never charged.

Watch outSubmissions are not idempotent: retrying a POST that succeeded charges twice, so check GET /account first.

Use the X-API-Key header; Bearer returns 401. Its MCP only searches the docs.

BetterContact API review

Clay

MCP

Runs a work-email waterfall or any single provider as a table column, next to the rest of your enrichment.

CostUnits are data credits per month (Launch also includes 15,000 Actions, Growth 40,000).

In the app on 25 Oct 2026: Work Email waterfall about 1.1 data credits per row; single providers from 0.2 (Icypeas, Enrow) to 6 (SMARTe), with Prospeo and Findymail at 0.5. With your own provider key a column uses 0 data credits and still uses Actions. plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?No data-credit charge when a provider returns no result.

Watch outNew workspaces start on a 14-day Growth trial (1,000 data credits, 5,000 Actions) where phone enrichment is blocked.

The HTTP API column needs Growth ($495 a month, monthly billing) or Enterprise. Top-ups cost a 30% premium.

Clay API review

ZeroBounce

MCP

Validates any address before you use it, which makes it the check in the verifier route and our last pass before upload. It also sells its own Email Finder.

CostEmail Finder costs 20 credits per successful find, or 1 subscription query; validation is 1 credit.

Freemium includes 10 Email Finder searches. Plan rows show credits per month; plan_annual is the monthly price billed annually. USD, verified 2026-10-25.

Charged on a miss?Email Finder: 0 credits when undetermined.

Watch outEmail Finder uses 20 credits per successful find, against 1 credit per validation.

A valid result confirms the mailbox accepts mail, not who owns it.

ZeroBounce API review

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Questions people ask

How does the email finder work?

You send the person's name and company domain, or their LinkedIn URL, and the finder returns its best work address with a status. Hunter, Findymail and LeadMagic take a name plus a domain; Prospeo, Findymail and LeadMagic also take a LinkedIn URL. Some finders check the mailbox at request time (Findymail says it verifies every find in real time). Others return a stored record with a status attached (Apollo marks emails verified or extrapolated). Most charge only when they return an email.

What if you can't find the email?

First, check the miss was free. Prospeo, Hunter, Findymail, LeadMagic, Forager and FullEnrich charge only for found emails. Then send the miss to a second provider. In our 50-person pilot, one provider found 36 emails, a second lifted the total to 39 (78%), and a third added none. The same 11 people stayed unfindable in every design. If you fill the gap with a pattern-built address, check identity separately: the pilot's one wrong-person result was a pattern-built address that a verifier marked valid.

How many providers should a waterfall have?

Measure it on your own list. In our 50-person pilot, two providers covered every email we could find (39 of 50), and the third added no unique finds. Changing the order of providers did not change the output. It changed cost only, because each later provider sees only the earlier misses. Hit rates differ by audience, so we pilot 50 rows on every new list before a full run.

Why not just use FullEnrich, since it is already a waterfall?

You can, and it is the least work: one call across 20+ providers (its docs; the pricing page says 25+) at 1 credit per work email found. Weigh three things. It does not publish which providers it uses or in what order. It charges catch-all results like deliverable ones, so filter on status. And it can repeat providers you already pay for. In one client build we left FullEnrich and BetterContact out of a hand-built waterfall for that reason, and because neither could run on the client's own provider keys inside the routing tool.

Do I need Clay to build this?

No. Every finder on this page has its own REST API, and most have a hosted MCP server you can use from Claude. Clay helps when your list already lives in a Clay table. In the app on 25 Oct 2026 its Work Email waterfall cost about 1.1 data credits per row across 11 providers, plus Actions. Calling an arbitrary API from Clay needs Growth ($495 a month on monthly billing) or Enterprise.

Which tools do waterfall enrichment?

Several sell it ready-made: FullEnrich (20+ providers), BetterContact (20+, including RocketReach, Apollo, People Data Labs, Prospeo and Hunter), Clay's Work Email waterfall (11 providers in the app), Apollo's waterfall flag on person enrichment (typically 1 to 4 credits per email, sometimes 20+) and Lusha's Data Waterfall (2 credits per work email from another vendor). You can also build your own by calling single providers in order and stopping at the first verified email.

Read from each tool's own pricing and API pages, such as prospeo.io/pricing, hunter.io/pricing and findymail.com/pricing. Verified 25 Oct 2026.

How to find a person's work email address