Email verification
What each verification status means, how long a result stays valid, what one check costs, and what to do when a check is inconclusive.
Last updated 2026-10-23
An address that exists is not the same as an address that receives mail. Verification checks one address and stores the result with a date, so you know how much to trust it before a campaign.
Verify an address
- Open a company's contacts panel.
- Find the contact and click the shield icon in its row; the tooltip says Verify email.
- The icon turns into a spinner and the tooltip changes to Verifying email....
- When the check finishes, the Status column shows the new result.
The check applies to the address stored on the contact. If the contact has no address, there is no verify action: the panel shows — in the Email column and the button is absent.
If the check does not finish within 40 seconds, the panel stops waiting and shows a timeout message that names the contact, for example Email verification timed out for Anna Müller. The check may still complete in the background; reopen the panel later to see the result.
What each status means
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Verified | The mailbox exists and accepts mail |
| Invalid | The mailbox does not exist, or the domain rejects it |
| Catch-all | The domain accepts every address, so a specific mailbox cannot be confirmed |
| Unverified | No check has produced a usable answer, or the old answer has expired |
| Unknown | No address to check, or the provider recognised neither state |
Catch-all is not success and not failure. A domain that accepts everything will accept a wrong address too, so treat these as lower confidence.
Contacts found by reading a company website start as Unverified. A published address is an observation, not a check.
How long a result lasts
A verification is valid for 30 days. After that, the stored status degrades to Unverified and the capsule shows a small clock icon; the tooltip says Email verification aged out (>30 days) and degraded to unverified.
The date is when the check ran, not when the address was found. Freshness affects what a campaign should trust, not whether the contact is still usable.
TIP
Verify again shortly before a large send, not when you first collect contacts. A check made today says little about an address two months from now.
What it costs
One check costs 0.2 credits, so five checks cost one credit. The credits page states the same rule as Email verification — per address (1 credit / 5 verifications).
- The charge is reserved when the check starts and settles when it completes.
- A check that fails to run is refunded.
- Checking the same address again is a new check and is charged again.
- Adding a contact by hand is free; only the check costs.
Reading status in a campaign
Before Smart Outreach sends to a contact, the address's status is part of what decides whether the contact is reachable, and Verified addresses are preferred when a company has more contacts than the plan allows per company. Contacts without a usable address are not sent to.
The verification status travels with the contact into the CSV export, in the Status column, and the export uses the effective status after the 30-day rule. See Import and export.
FAQ
Why is a fresh contact already Invalid? The domain rejected the address outright, for example an employee who left or a typo in the source. Edit the address or delete the contact.
Does verifying change the address? No. It stores a status and a date next to the address you already have.
Do website contacts get verified automatically? No. They start as Unverified; the check is a separate action with its own cost.
Is a Catch-all address safe to send to? It may be, but the check cannot prove it. Treat it as a guess and expect more bounces.