Hunter.io pricing in 2026: plans, credits and what one email costs

Hunter Starter costs $49 a month for 2,000 credits, or $408 a year. One email found costs 1 credit, so a full month on Starter is $0.0245 an email. Scale billed yearly brings that down to $0.0084. We read every price on Hunter’s pricing page on October 21, 2026.

Hunter’s plans and credits

Hunter sells credits in a plan for the whole account. These are the plans on Hunter’s pricing page. Yearly billing is the page’s default toggle:

Every plan includes unlimited team members. Free is always monthly, and its credits don’t roll over. Connected email accounts for sequences: Free 1, Starter 3, Growth 10, Scale 20.

Hunter’s pricing page and its Help Center article on credits list what each action costs:

• Email found with Domain Search, Email Finder or Bulk Email Finder: 1 credit
• Email verified with Email Verifier or Bulk Email Verifier: 0.5 credit
• Bulk Domain Search: 1 credit for up to 10 emails found
• An email that can’t be found: free. The page says: “If the email address can’t be found, it’s free.”
• A verification that fails: no credit
• A repeat of the same search or verification: no new credit in the same billing period, or calendar month on yearly plans. Bulk uploads always use credits

With monthly billing, credits reset each month and don’t roll over. With yearly billing, all credits are available up front for the year. Extra credit packs are valid for 3 months from purchase. The pack prices weren’t in the text we read.

What one email costs in Hunter

The price of a credit depends on the plan, the billing and how many of your credits you use. If you use every credit your plan includes on found emails, each email costs this:

The plan also pays for sequences, connected mailboxes and seats. This table assumes the whole plan price goes to finding emails. Every credit you leave unused raises the price of the ones you use. If you verify an email by hand, that email costs 1.5 credits. Hunter’s cards say auto-verification is included, and we didn’t read whether it uses credits.

Hunter compared with Kairon’s price per find

Kairon doesn’t sell data credits. It finds work emails and mobile numbers itself. It charges each one it finds to your usage balance: $0.02 per email and $0.20 per mobile. A search that finds nothing is free. The Starter plan ($49 a month) includes $10 of that balance. Kairon’s data pricing page lists every price.

In plain words, at full use Kairon’s $0.02 per find costs less than Hunter Starter billed monthly ($0.0245). It costs more than every yearly plan and more than Growth and Scale billed monthly. A miss is free in both: Kairon’s search that finds nothing, and Hunter’s email that can’t be found.

Hunter’s plans also include email sequences and connected mailboxes.

Finding data needs a Kairon plan. So the next tables show two Kairon columns: the finds alone, and the finds with Starter. Starter runs LinkedIn campaigns from Claude, ChatGPT or another agent. Email needs one of three: your Instantly at no extra cost, your Gmail or Outlook at $10 a mailbox a month, or managed email.

The tables count found emails only. The Hunter column is the cheapest plan whose credits cover the month. Monthly billing first:

Yearly billing, with Hunter’s yearly total divided by 12:

Read the tables this way:

• Up to 50 emails a month: Hunter’s Free plan covers them.
• Kairon’s finds alone, monthly billing: from 51 to 7,449 emails a month, they cost less than Hunter. From 7,450 to 10,000, Growth ($149) costs the same or less. From 10,001 to 14,949, Kairon’s finds cost less than Scale ($299). From 14,950 to 25,000, Scale costs the same or less.
• Kairon with Starter, monthly billing: up to 50 emails, Hunter’s Free plan costs $0. From 51 to 500, both cost $49. From 501 to 2,000, Hunter Starter costs less. From 2,001 to 5,499, Kairon costs less than Growth. From 5,500 to 10,000, Growth costs the same or less. From 10,001 to 12,999, Kairon costs less than Scale. From 13,000 to 25,000, Scale costs the same or less.
• Yearly billing: Kairon’s finds alone cost less from 51 to 1,699 emails a month, from 2,001 to 5,199 and from 10,001 to 10,449. Counting Kairon’s Starter, Kairon costs less only from 2,001 to 3,249. At every other volume up to 25,000, Hunter costs the same or less.
• Phone numbers: Kairon finds mobile numbers at $0.20 each. We found no phone number product on Hunter’s pricing page, read October 21, 2026.

Hunter also sells a Data Platform plan for API access only, with its own credit system. Its slider printed these prices for search credits: 1,000 for $50, 10,000 for $209, 25,000 for $382.50 and 100,000 for $950. The page also printed $250 at 5,000, a higher price than 10,000 credits. We didn’t test values between them. Those credits are bought once and can be used for 12 months. For the same counts, Kairon’s finds alone cost $20, $200, $500 and $2,000. They cost less at 1,000 and 10,000, and the Data Platform costs less at 25,000 and 100,000. Counting Kairon’s Starter for one month, the Data Platform costs less at all four counts.

When Hunter is the better buy

Hunter costs less, or gives you more for the price, when:

• You look up 50 emails a month or fewer, which the Free plan covers.
• You would buy Kairon’s Starter and find more than 500 emails a month. Hunter Starter then costs less, up to its 2,000 credits.
• You pay yearly and use most of your credits. Every Hunter yearly plan then costs less per email than Kairon’s $0.02. At 2,000 emails a month, Hunter’s yearly Starter ($34) costs less than Kairon’s finds alone ($40).
• You find 5,500 to 10,000 emails a month, or 13,000 to 25,000, billed monthly. Growth ($149) or Scale ($299) then costs the same or less than Kairon with Starter.
• You need seats. Every Hunter plan includes unlimited team members.
• You want sequences in the same plan. Hunter includes connected mailboxes: 3 on Starter, 10 on Growth, 20 on Scale.

For what Starter runs past the lookup, see Kairon’s pricing.

How we calculated these numbers

Every number on this page comes from these sources and rules:

• Hunter’s prices: Hunter’s pricing page, read in a browser on October 21, 2026. We read monthly and yearly billing and its Data Platform slider. We read Hunter’s Help Center article on how credits work the same day.
• Price per email: the plan price divided by the credits it includes, rounded to four decimals because the amounts are small. For yearly billing, the yearly total Hunter prints ($408, $1,248, $2,508) divided by the year’s credits (24,000, 120,000, 300,000). Starter monthly: 49 / 2,000 = $0.0245. Scale yearly: 2,508 / 300,000 = $0.0084.
• Volume tables: found emails only, each one found with Email Finder at 1 credit. Bulk Domain Search finds up to 10 emails per credit, which costs less. The Hunter column is the cheapest plan whose credits cover the month. For yearly billing, the cost is the yearly total divided by 12. Kairon, finds only: emails times $0.02. Kairon with Starter: $49 plus the finds above the included $10, which is $49 + max(0, emails × $0.02 − $10). The Starter column assumes the whole $10 balance goes to finding data. If your campaigns spend part of it on AI, Kairon costs more.
• Break-even points: Kairon’s finds alone equal Growth when emails × $0.02 = $149, at 7,450. Kairon with Starter equals $49 up to 500 emails, because $10 / $0.02 = 500. It equals Growth when $49 + emails × $0.02 − $10 = $149, at 5,500, and Scale ($299) at 13,000. Kairon’s finds alone equal Scale at 14,950.
• Yearly break-even points: Kairon’s finds alone equal Hunter’s yearly Starter ($34 a month) at 1,700 emails, Growth ($104) at 5,200 and Scale ($209) at 10,450. Kairon with Starter equals yearly Growth at 3,250.
• Data Platform: the prices the slider printed on October 21, 2026, for search credits only. We left verification credits out. Kairon’s finds alone are emails times $0.02. With Starter, they are $49 + emails × $0.02 − $10: $59, $239, $539 and $2,039.
• Kairon’s prices: Kairon’s pricing and data pricing pages, as of October 19, 2026. An email found costs $0.02 and a mobile found $0.20. A search that finds nothing is free. Starter costs $49 a month with $10 of balance.