September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › GTM › GTM data and infrastructure › Email verification · September 2026 Edition

Email verification

Asked as “email verification service”, and as “email list validation tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 51 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
29%
Contested · Bouncer 24%
29ZeroBounce24Bouncer10Hunter Email Verifier37others

29% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01ZeroBounce29%8%53accepted challenger
02Bouncer24%0%40accepted challenger
03Hunter Email Verifier10%10%41accepted challenger
04Clearout6%3%33accepted challenger
05Kickbox4%0%27accepted challenger
06EmailListVerify4%10%20accepted challenger
07DeBounce4%12%17accepted challenger
08NeverBounce2%8%39accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11MillionVerifier0%50%14criticized challenger
10Snov.io0%20%10accepted challenger
09Emailable0%11%18accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative40%
Key
01ZeroBounce29%
02Bouncer24%
03Hunter Email Verifier10%
04Clearout6%
05Kickbox4%
06EmailListVerify4%
07DeBounce4%
08NeverBounce2%
09Emailable0%
10Snov.io0%
11MillionVerifier0%

What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Grok 4.20, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash and GLM 4.7 FlashX changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
MillionVerifier
50%
7 of 14 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“MillionVerifier — questionable support and billing. The cheapest options often hide the most pain” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
NeverBounce
8%
3 of 39 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Verdict: Avoid for critical campaigns due to reliability and support issues” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Hunter Email Verifier
10%
4 of 41 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“Many prospecting suites (like Hunter.io or Snov.io) bundle email verification into their monthly subscriptions... avoid tools that force you into recurring plans” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
ZeroBounce
8%
4 of 53 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“Several providers (ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, Bouncer's monthly credits) expire credits, which punishes infrequent users” DeepSeek V4 Flash, budget prompt

What they cite

Four of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited.

Sites the answers cite

21 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 4 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 276 links across 107 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. The other 8 models searched through a gateway that returned no source list on this edition.

vendor site · Hunter14 answers · 15 citations · 4 models
vendor site · ZeroBounce10 answers · 13 citations · 3 models
10 answers · 10 citations · 3 models
9 answers · 16 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Overloop7 answers · 7 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Allegrow6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · Mailtrap6 answers · 6 citations · 3 models
vendor site · DeBounce5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Snov.io5 answers · 5 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Reddit4 answers · 12 citations · 2 models
vendor site · ZoomInfo4 answers · 9 citations · 2 models
vendor site · Clearout4 answers · 4 citations · 2 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best email verification service”, “email verification service”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
ZeroBounce zerobounce.net29%2509,90011838,183$7781202
Bouncer usebouncer.com24%12427,1006,6219,553246
Hunter Email Verifier hunter.io10%465,4000152,78265
Clearout clearout.io6%461,6004910,29822
MyEmailVerifier myemailverifier.com6%2317003,2225
Kickbox kickbox.com4%14074,00015,51439,93631
EmailListVerify emaillistverify.com4%36480111,19224
DeBounce debounce.com4%423,6006614,116
QuickEmailVerification quickemailverification.com4%4
NeverBounce neverbounce.com2%1558,1006473,30116

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 16 sites; 6 of them are among the sites the models cited here (emailvendorselection.com, hunter.io, mailtrap.io, reddit.com, usebouncer.com, zerobounce.net). The first result for “best email verification service” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best email verification service for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which email list validation tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top email verification services and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best email verification service for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating an email verification service. What should we look at?”Negative“Which email verification services should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Bouncer, Skrapp
Two alternativesNeverBounce, ZeroBounce
Kickbox, NeverBounceChanged
One alternativeClearout
Hunter Email Verifier
Six alternativesClearout, DeBounce, Kickbox, NeverBounce, Skrapp, ZeroBounce
MyEmailVerifier
Four alternativesClearout, EmailListVerify, Proofy.io, VerifiedEmail
no first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniZeroBounce
One alternativeHunter Email Verifier
ZeroBounceHeldZeroBounce
Four alternativesBriteVerify, Hunter Email Verifier, Kickbox, NeverBounce
Hunter Email Verifier, ZeroBounceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashBouncer
Four alternativesAllegrow, BounceBan, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
ZeroBounceChanged
Three alternativesBouncer, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce
ZeroBounce
Four alternativesBouncer, Emailable, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce
Reoon Email Verifier
Three alternativesDeBounce, EmailListVerify, MillionVerifier
against: ZeroBounce
no first choiceagainst: Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce, Snov.io, Validity BriteVerify, Verifalia, ZeroBounce
Perplexity SonarBouncer
Three alternativesHunter Email Verifier, MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce
BouncerHeld
Four alternativesClearout, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
Bouncer
Eight alternativesClearout, EmailListVerify, Hunter Email Verifier, Kickbox, MillionVerifier, NeverBounce, Snov.io, ZeroBounce
Bouncer, EmailListVerify
One alternativeMyEmailVerifier
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.20Hunter Email Verifier, ZeroBounce
Three alternativesBouncer, Clearout, Kickbox
BouncerChanged
Three alternativesEmailListVerify, Hunter Email Verifier, ZeroBounce
Bouncer
Six alternativesClearout, EmailListVerify, Emailable, Kickbox, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: Hunter Email Verifier
QuickEmailVerification, Verifalia
Four alternativesBouncer, Clearout, Emailable, ZeroBounce
no first choice
Six alternativesBouncer, Clearout, Emailable, Kickbox, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: MillionVerifier
against: Mails.so, Verifications.io, VerifyEmailAddress.org
Mistral SmallZeroBounce
Four alternativesBouncer, Clearout, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce
BouncerChanged
Five alternativesClearout, DeBounce, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: Emailable, MailerCheck
BillionVerify
Two alternativesNeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: DeBounce
Bouncer, EmailListVerify
One alternativeZeroBounce
no first choiceagainst: EmailVerify.io, MyEmailVerifier.com, NeverBounce
DeepSeek V4 FlashBouncer
Three alternativesHunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
ZeroBounceChanged
Four alternativesBouncer, EmailListVerify, Hunter Email Verifier, NeverBounce
against: MillionVerifier
Bouncer
Six alternativesClearout, Emailable, Hunter Email Verifier, Kickbox, Prospeo, ZeroBounce
against: MillionVerifier, NeverBounce
Bouncer
Three alternativesDeBounce, EmailListVerify, MillionVerifier
against: EmailMarker, ZeroBounce
Bouncer
Four alternativesClearout, Emailable, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: Emailable, MillionVerifier, Snov.io
Llama 4 MaverickClearout, Hunter Email Verifier, KickboxClearout, Hunter Email Verifier, ZeroBounceChangedno first choiceMyEmailVerifier
Three alternativesDeBounce, Hunter Email Verifier, Tomba
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashZeroBounce
Four alternativesBouncer, EmailListVerify, Kickbox, MillionVerifier
against: Hunter Email Verifier
Hunter Email VerifierChanged
Two alternativesClearout, ZeroBounce
Bouncer
Six alternativesCleanlist, Clearout, DeBounce, Emailable, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce
against: EmailListVerify
API League
Three alternativesDeBounce, HaltBounce, NeverBounce
against: MyEmailVerifier
ZeroBounce
Three alternativesAbstract, Kickbox, NeverBounce
against: Apollo.io, Hunter Email Verifier, ZeroBounce
Kimi K2ZeroBounce
Three alternativesBouncer, Clearout, Hunter Email Verifier
ZeroBounceHeld
Two alternativesClearout, Hunter Email Verifier
Bouncer
Eight alternativesClearout, EmailListVerify, Emailable, Hunter Email Verifier, Kickbox, NeverBounce, Snov.io, ZeroBounce
DeBounce, QuickEmailVerification
Three alternativesBouncer, Emailable, ZeroBounce
no first choiceagainst: Clearout, DeBounce, EmailListVerify, IPQS, MillionVerifier, MyEmailVerifier
GLM 4.7 FlashXClearout
Two alternativesHunter Email Verifier, Kickbox
ZeroBounceChanged
Three alternativesBouncer, Clearout, NeverBounce
Bouncer, ZeroBounce
Seven alternativesEmailListVerify, Emailable, Hunter Email Verifier, Kickbox, MillionVerifier, NeverBounce, Snov.io
Bouncer
Four alternativesEmailListVerify, NeverBounce, VerifiedEmail, ZeroBounce
no first choiceagainst: Bouncify, Email List Validation, FindEmails.com, MillionVerifier, Verifications.io
MiniMax M2.5ZeroBounce
One alternativeHunter Email Verifier
ZeroBounceHeld
Two alternativesHunter Email Verifier, ZoomInfo
Bouncer
Seven alternativesClearout, EmailListVerify, Hunter Email Verifier, Mailfloss, NeverBounce, Snov.io, ZeroBounce
DeBounce, MyEmailVerifier
One alternativeBillionVerify
no first choiceagainst: Bouncify, Email List Validation, FindEmails.com, MillionVerifier
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 04:14yes88 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:54yes24 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:45yes1524 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 01:00yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 02:38yes08 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-14 23:35yes014 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 03:23yes037 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:54yes01 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 03:48yes039 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 23:15yes032 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 00:47yes013 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:21yes020 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 22:52yes149 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 00:24yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 01:28yes1020 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 00:59yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 03:58yes08 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:40yes07 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:53yes014 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:56yes02 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:48yes041 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:22yes024 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:03yes010 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 02:57yes011 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 00:13yes810 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 03:31yes810 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 00:43yes1017 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:48yes206 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 03:29yes07 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:21yes09 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 00:07yes017 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 03:49yes02 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:35yes044 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 02:45yes048 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:09yes0129 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:29yes018 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 03:46yes76 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:34yes36 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-14 23:17yes1820 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 02:17yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 03:05yes08 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 03:29yes07 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 00:43yes012 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 04:29yes01 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 00:59yes048 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-14 22:59yes024 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 02:50yes0124 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 04:26yes018 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-14 23:24no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 04:32no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 04:25no013 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 04:08yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-14 23:48yes08 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 02:58no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-15 01:05yes067 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 02:49yes02 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-14 23:39no028 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:57yes038 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:05yes056 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 05:03yes013 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-15 05:03yes3212 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-15 01:27yes56 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-15 02:38yes1422 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-15 03:02yes205 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-15 04:43yes06 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-15 04:05yes011 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-15 04:12yes024 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-15 00:43yes01 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-15 01:53yes068 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-15 01:45yes055 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-15 05:05yes024 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-15 01:53yes016 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Hunter read as Hunter Email Verifier
Hunter (Email Verifier) read as Hunter Email Verifier
Hunter.io read as Hunter Email Verifier
Reoon read as Reoon Email Verifier
Validity (BriteVerify) read as Validity BriteVerify
Unresolved, counted raw
API League
Alfred
HaltBounce
MyEmailVerifier.com
Scrubby
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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