Hunter

Machine learning sits under Hunter's data: it extracts professional names from public pages, recognizes company email patterns, scores confidence and organizes the contact database. On top of that, Discover accepts natural language prospect searches through an AI assistant, and the paid writing assistant drafts sequences from the audience, business context and campaign goal, then offers per recipient personalization for review.

Domain Search starts from a company website, and Email Finder uses a person's name and employer to locate an address. Finding, verification and Sequences all work without the optional assistants, so the AI improves a data product rather than replacing it.

Sequence content is drafted and previewed before launch. AI personalization replaces a message only after the user confirms it, and switching it off restores the original wording. Launched sequences must be paused before most content changes, while removing a recipient or canceling stops the selected future messages. Individual edits override later template changes. Replies, unsubscribes and hard bounces end a recipient's sequence, and bounces also cancel later messages. API and MCP connections can start campaign actions too, so the permissions given to a connected assistant become part of the approval boundary.

OpenAI supplies the language models for email writing, and Google's Gemini API supports Discover enrichment. Hunter also runs its own extraction, pattern recognition and confidence scoring systems, which produce the per address scores shown in results. Exact model versions are not named. The writing assistant presents itself as AI to the person composing the campaign, who can inspect and change the proposed wording before launch. Discover accepts natural language instructions to find companies and contacts, and the writing assistant works in English, French, Spanish and German.

Canva's SEO team uses Domain Search and Email Verifier for publisher outreach, then moves selected contacts into Buzzstream for the rest of its process; its account describes fewer bounces and faster research. Acquire.com uses Hunter Sequences to reach potential business buyers from a prepared audience. Both are named customer workflows rather than measured results: neither gives a bounce rate, time saved, campaign size or comparison period. Hunter's confidence scores and verification statuses give a per address quality signal, and the free plan's 50 monthly credits let a team run them against its own list.

Unsubscribes and hard bounces block future sending across the whole Hunter team, including from other connected mailboxes. Genuine opt outs cannot be removed from the list, while manually added exclusions can, and entire domains can be excluded. A reply that asks to unsubscribe near its beginning can enter the same suppression list automatically. The unsubscribe sentence starts enabled in each sequence but can be switched off before launch, which leaves that choice with the campaign owner. The suppression list exports as CSV, so do not contact records can travel with the team.

Hunter separates its controller role for public professional profiles from its processor role for customer campaigns and uploaded leads, and its DPA forms part of the service terms. Subprocessors are listed with purposes and countries, and international transfers rely on Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK addendum.

The privacy policy sets retention by data type: website visitor data no longer than 14 months, email search and verification history three months, transactional email history and automated bug reports 90 days, session recordings 30 days. People in the database have a defined route to access, correct or remove their profile, while customers stay responsible for the lawful basis of their outreach.

Domain Search returns the public source locations and discovery dates behind each sourced address, and Email Finder distinguishes those addresses from ones built from a person's name and the company's email pattern, with a confidence score on each. Public crawling follows robots.txt, and people can claim or remove their profiles. Removal periods conflict: records whose source has disappeared leave within three months under the privacy policy and six months under the data principles. Customer search and verification history is kept for three months. Uploaded leads remain the customer's data, processed under the DPA.

Hunter connects Gmail, Outlook and SMTP mailboxes and offers an API for customer applications. Paid outreach plans rotate sending across connected accounts, from three on Starter to twenty on Scale. Inbox Protection runs warmup exchanges through a private inbox network, while normal sequences use configured sending limits that rise gradually. Hunter's public crawling follows robots.txt when collecting professional data. Sending volume and reputation still depend on each mailbox provider's rules, since connecting an account does not lift the provider's restrictions.

Hunter forbids its AI providers from training on data passed through the integration and keeps customer contact search activity out of training for its own models. OpenAI processing has an abuse monitoring window of up to 30 days, a retention detail Hunter does not give for its other AI providers, including Google's Gemini API. Harmful content and sensitive attribute filters constrain generated material, and a person reviews campaign content before it sends. Session recordings are kept for 30 days and search history for three months, which bounds how long usage traces stay with Hunter.

Hunter's usage rules reject synthetic profiles attributed to real people and content that impersonates individuals. AI assistance is labeled in the composer but adds no default label to the message the recipient receives, and Hunter takes no public Article 50 position. Personalization draws on professional context such as the recipient's name, company and role, and the composer sees each proposed message before launch. The connected mailbox supplies the sender identity, and the person preparing the campaign controls its final wording and whether the unsubscribe sentence stays in.

Native connections send contacts into Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho, and HubSpot also receives sequence activity and supports lead and deal creation. Connector scope decides which records move: creating a lead does not synchronize every CRM object or historical activity. Zapier and Make cover other workflows, and the API and MCP expose prospecting and campaign actions, with a separate Data Platform for teams that want Hunter data inside their own systems. A Chrome extension looks up companies from the browser, and a Google Sheets add on finds and verifies addresses inside a spreadsheet.

Hunter runs its hosted service on Google Cloud in Belgium, with encrypted customer storage and restricted internal database access, and offers no customer managed installation. The processing chain also includes providers in the United States and elsewhere for AI, verification, analytics and support, and transfers outside the EU use Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK addendum. A Belgian primary location therefore does not keep all processing inside the EU. The web application, browser extension, Sheets add on and API all connect to that one hosted service.

Access controls protect encrypted tokens and restricted production networks, and vulnerability scans and independent penetration tests support the service. An ongoing bug bounty program takes outside reports, and sign up rejects any password found in a public breach database. The enterprise offering includes SOC 2 assurance, with the report available on request. Hunter's public CASA Tier 2 letter, which covers its Google mailbox access, expired in February 2026. Backups run on and off site, and logs record support access and sensitive account actions. Team members each have their own access, with no charge per teammate, so shared logins are unnecessary.

Paid outreach plans are $49, $149 and $299 a month, or $408, $1,248 and $2,508 a year, with unlimited team members. They include 2,000, 10,000 and 25,000 credits a month and three, ten and twenty connected email accounts; annual credits are available upfront for the whole year. Finding an email costs one credit and verifying one costs half a credit, and monthly credits reset without rolling over.

Extra mailbox slots, managed accounts, credit packs and Inbox Protection are add ons, and Enterprise is quoted. The free plan includes 50 credits a month, one sender and 500 recipients per sequence, while paid plans add the writing assistant.

Saved leads and the suppression list export as CSV, so a team can carry contacts and do not contact records into its next tool. Canceling takes effect at the end of the billing period and leaves the account on Free with saved data still accessible, rather than deleting it. Account data stays until the user deletes the account, apart from search and verification history, which is kept for three months, and transactional email history, kept for 90 days. The DPA supports deletion after services end. Sequence settings and campaign artifacts have no complete export path, though sent messages remain in each connected mailbox.

Email verification, progressive sending limits and account health checks support campaign preparation, and every address can be verified before a sequence starts. Bounces cancel later messages and join the team suppression list. Paid Inbox Protection adds automated warmup exchanges through a private inbox network and ongoing reputation maintenance, separate from the gradual rise in a normal sending limit. Managed domains arrive with authentication records already configured. Paid plans rotate sending across connected mailboxes. Hunter is explicit that none of this guarantees inbox placement, which still depends on the recipient's provider.

Hunter serves sales prospecting, recruitment, partnership outreach and SEO link building, with Canva illustrating publisher outreach and Acquire.com buyer outreach. Small teams can start on the free plan, and paid plans expand data and connected mailbox capacity without charging for each teammate. The writing assistant offers English, French, Spanish and German. Professional email sourcing is the center of the product rather than a full calling or social selling workspace. The separate Data Platform serves companies that want Hunter's data through an API at volume.