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Hunter.io runs five pricing tiers as of August 2026: Free ($0), Starter ($49/mo, or $34/mo billed annually), Growth ($149/mo, or $104/mo annually), Scale ($299/mo, or $209/mo annually), and Enterprise (custom quote). The free plan is real, not a trick — it gives you 50 credits a month, one connected email account, and a 500-recipient sequence cap, permanently, with no credit card required. Where it runs out is volume: once you need more than a few dozen new contacts a month, or more than one inbox sending outreach, you’re into Starter or above. This guide breaks down exactly what each tier includes, what a “credit” actually buys you, and how the separate API/data-platform pricing works.
Tip: try code CASRAI at checkout for 15% off, if the offer is currently active for this program — codes vary by vendor and aren’t guaranteed.
Later in this guide we compare Hunter against paying for a broader all-in-one platform like Apollo.io — which folds prospecting, email finding, and outreach sequencing into one subscription — and when that’s the more sensible call instead.
Hunter.io pricing at a glance (verified August 2026)
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price | Credits/mo | Connected email accounts | Sequence recipients |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 50 | 1 | 500 |
| Starter | $49 | $34/mo ($408/yr) | 2,000 | 3 | 2,500 |
| Growth | $149 | $104/mo ($1,248/yr) | 10,000 | 10 | 5,000 |
| Scale | $299 | $209/mo ($2,508/yr) | 25,000 | 20 | 15,000 |
| Enterprise | Custom — credits, seats and connected accounts scaled to the account, with a dedicated account manager | ||||
Annual billing carries a flat 30% discount across every paid tier — that’s the difference between, say, Starter’s $49/mo month-to-month rate and its $34/mo annual rate, not a different plan.
Is Hunter.io free? What the free plan actually covers
Yes — Hunter.io has a genuine, permanent free plan, not a time-limited trial. As of August 2026 it includes 50 credits a month, one connected email account for sending, a 500-recipient cap per outreach sequence, basic Discover search filters, 10 AI Assistant searches a month, and unlimited team members on the account. The credit system is what determines how far that goes: Hunter charges 1 credit per email address found through its finder or domain search, 1 credit per up to 10 emails in a bulk domain search, and 0.5 credit per email verification. So 50 monthly credits is roughly 50 new email discoveries, or up to 100 verification-only checks, or some mix of the two — genuinely usable for light, occasional prospecting, not a crippled teaser.
Where the free plan stops being enough is volume and outreach capacity, not a feature you’re locked out of: the finder and verifier both work identically on Free, you just run out of credits and hit the one-inbox, 500-recipient ceiling faster than a team doing regular outreach can tolerate. A single founder or a research team doing occasional cold outreach to funders or industry partners can often stay on Free indefinitely. A small business-development function running sequences every week usually can’t.
Compare Apollo.io’s free plan →
Hunter.io Starter plan: $34/mo (annual) or $49/mo
Starter is the first paid tier and the one most solo users and small teams land on. For $34/mo billed annually ($408/year) or $49/mo month-to-month, you get 2,000 credits a month (24,000/year), three connected email accounts instead of one, a 2,500-recipient sequence cap, advanced Discover filters, the AI writing assistant, and priority support. At Hunter’s own 1-credit-per-email-found rate, 2,000 credits covers roughly 2,000 new contacts a month before verification cost — enough for most individual and small-team prospecting workloads without needing Growth-tier volume.
Hunter.io Growth and Scale plans: when volume actually justifies the jump
Growth ($104/mo annual, $149/mo monthly) steps up to 10,000 credits a month, 10 connected email accounts, and a 5,000-recipient sequence cap — built for a team running outreach from multiple inboxes rather than one person prospecting alone. Scale ($209/mo annual, $299/mo monthly) goes further still: 25,000 credits a month, 20 connected accounts, a 15,000-recipient cap, and an assigned account manager. The jump from Starter to Growth is really about how many people in an organization need their own connected sending account and sequence allowance, not just needing more total credits — a single power user rarely needs Growth’s 10 connected accounts even if they’d use its 10,000 credits.
Hunter.io Enterprise pricing
Enterprise pricing is not published — it’s a custom quote scaled to the account’s credit volume, number of connected accounts and seats, with a dedicated account manager and the full feature set. If your requirement is genuinely large multi-department outreach volume with procurement/security review needs, that’s the tier to talk to sales about; for most single-team use cases, Scale is the practical ceiling.
Hunter.io API pricing: the separate Data platform
Hunter’s API/data-platform access is priced separately from the connected-account plans above, on its own configurable credit bundles rather than a fixed monthly-tier allotment. As of August 2026, Hunter’s own example bundle is 1,000 search credits plus 200,000 verification credits for $6,500 — a one-time or recurring purchase you size to your own integration’s call volume, not something included automatically inside Free through Enterprise. If you’re integrating Hunter into your own CRM or internal tooling rather than using its web app and Chrome extension, budget for this as a distinct line item from whichever connected-account plan your team is also on.
The honest tradeoff: when Hunter.io beats paying for an all-in-one platform
If your actual need is domain-pattern email finding and verification at modest volume — you know which companies you want to reach and just need a working, verified email address for the right person — Hunter’s free or Starter tier is cheaper and more focused than paying for Apollo.io‘s much broader all-in-one platform just to get an email address. Apollo bundles a contact database, a CRM-adjacent sequencing engine, dialer, and enrichment on top of email finding; that’s real value if you need those things, but it’s overhead — both in cost and in onboarding a team onto a heavier tool — if email discovery and verification are genuinely the whole job.
Who should stay on Hunter.io (or its free plan) rather than upgrade to a broader platform: solo founders and small research/BD teams doing occasional, targeted outreach; anyone whose workflow is “find this person’s email, verify it, send a handful of emails from my own inbox” rather than running multi-stage sequences across a large prospect list; and teams that already have a CRM and just need the finder/verifier piece, not a replacement for that CRM.
Who should look at Apollo.io instead
The case for Apollo.io over Hunter.io is volume and scope, not a better version of the same tool: it’s the right call once you need a searchable contact/company database to build lists from (rather than finding one email at a time from a domain you already know), multi-step sequencing with call/dialer functionality, or CRM-adjacent pipeline tracking alongside prospecting — a genuinely different, broader job than what Hunter is built to do. If that’s your actual requirement, paying for one consolidated platform is usually more sensible than stacking Hunter plus a separate sequencing tool plus a separate mini-CRM.
FAQ: Hunter.io pricing, plans and cost
What is Hunter.io’s pricing, in short?
Five tiers as of August 2026: Free ($0), Starter ($34/mo annual, $49/mo monthly), Growth ($104/mo annual, $149/mo monthly), Scale ($209/mo annual, $299/mo monthly), and Enterprise (custom quote). Annual billing applies a flat 30% discount versus the monthly rate on every paid tier.
Is Hunter.io actually free, or is that just a trial?
It’s a genuine, ongoing free plan with no time limit and no credit card required — not a trial. It includes 50 credits a month, one connected email account, and a 500-recipient sequence cap, permanently, as long as you stay within those limits.
What exactly does the Hunter.io free plan include?
50 monthly credits (1 credit per email found via the finder/domain search, 0.5 credit per verification), one connected email account for sending sequences, a 500-recipient cap per sequence, basic Discover search filters, 10 AI Assistant searches a month, and unlimited team members on the workspace.
How much does Hunter.io’s API cost?
API/data-platform access is priced separately from the plans above, on configurable credit bundles rather than a fixed monthly allotment — Hunter’s own published example is 1,000 search credits plus 200,000 verification credits for $6,500 (as of August 2026). Size the bundle to your integration’s actual call volume rather than assuming it’s included in a Free-through-Enterprise seat plan.
What are all of Hunter.io’s plans called?
Free, Starter, Growth, Scale, and Enterprise — plus the separately-priced Data platform (API) tier for programmatic access outside the web app.
What does Hunter.io actually cost per year?
Billed annually: Starter is $408/year, Growth is $1,248/year, and Scale is $2,508/year. Billed monthly instead, those same three tiers run $588, $1,788 and $3,588/year respectively — annual billing saves 30% across the board. Free is $0 either way, and Enterprise is quoted individually.
Does Hunter.io’s free email finder and reverse-lookup still work on the free plan, or only on paid tiers?
The finder, domain search, and verifier all function identically on every tier, including Free — Hunter doesn’t gate the core lookup functionality behind a paywall. What Free limits is volume (50 credits/month) and account capacity (one connected inbox, 500 sequence recipients), not which tools you’re allowed to use.
