ContactOut vs Hunter.io: Which Is the Better Email Finder in 2022?

Cold email outreach may sound easy, but finding your lead’s contact details can be a steep, uphill battle. You will have to dig into the deepest corners of the Internet to find the smallest speck of someone’s contact information. That should not be the case with email search tools, however; these software applications make life so much easier for online sleuths, saving them a lot of time and effort in finding their lead’s contact details.

But with so many email search tools on the market, it can be hard to choose which one is right for you. In this article, we’re comparing two of the most popular email finders: Contactout vs Hunter.io

First off: What’s an email finder?

An email finder is precisely what it says on the label: it is a tool that finds anyone’s email address. No matter how hidden someone’s email address may be, an email finder will help you track it down in a matter of seconds.

How is that possible, you ask? Well, what these tools do is that they crawl the Internet for contact information. The email addresses that they find are usually out in the open, in public virtual spaces, but are hidden in plain sight. You can find such information manually, but it will take time to hunt them down.

They are often tucked in some obscure site’s contact directory or in a PDF file or webpage that’s not indexed by the search engines. Others can be found in a site’s previous iteration via Wayback Machine. Sometimes, you can find them in a social media post if you scroll down long enough.

Imagine all the effort it will take you to track such information down. It will require plenty of time sleuthing for contact details, and even if you are able to find one, you will still need to verify its validity. This problem can easily be solved by an email search tool. They’ll save you time by doing all the work for you.

They will crawl the Internet and find contact information that you may not have been able to find on your own. After that, they will verify the email address and provide you with a list of working email addresses you can use for your outreach efforts.

Now that it’s out of the way, it’s time that we talk about two popular email search tools: Hunter.io and ContactOut. Which should fare well, you ask? Let’s take a closer look.

ContactOut vs Hunter.io: Comparing The Features

First off, let’s talk about what these tools have to offer. Both tools let you find anyone’s email address online, but each has its own set of features that practically set them apart from each other and the competition. Below are some of their key features.

Hunter.io

Hunter.io is a simple and straightforward email search tool that gives you the ability to find email addresses by domain name. It is built with businesses in mind, allowing entrepreneurs and managers to connect with people and organizations that matter to their enterprise — something that should not surprise you given the tool’s focus on professional contact information. In this regard, the tool has a range of useful features, which include the following:

Domain Search – Hunter.io lets you find email addresses by domain name. This is useful if you’re looking to target a specific company or website. You only need to enter the domain name (e. g. companyname.com), and Hunter.io will give you a list of all the email addresses associated with that domain.
Email Verification – One of the best features that Hunter.io offers is email verification. This is a process where the tool verifies an email address to see if it’s valid and working. This feature is important because you don’t want to waste your time sending emails to addresses that no longer work.
Bulk Tasks – The tool helps you find or verify email addresses in bulk. This is useful, especially if you are working on a large project. This feature also comes with bulk domain search and email verification, but most notable of these is the Author Finder. This feature is useful if you are looking to reach out to writers that you wish to contribute to your site or hire for your content team.
Leads – Hunter.io lets you save and manage leads in a single, easy-to-use location. The tool also lets you export your list into a CSV file that you can then upload into your CRM or company database.
Chrome Extension – Hunter’s browser extension lets you extract email addresses found on any site. It used to work on the professional social networking platform LinkedIn. However, that is no longer the case these days due to unresolved issues with the latter’s terms of service.
Integrations – The tool integrates with a number of major CRMs, including Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Zapier, and Zoho. Hunter.io also works with a broad range of third-party integrations such as Automations.io, Buzzstream, CaptainData, and Syncspider.

ContactOut

While they are both email address finders, ContactOut differs from Hunter.io largely due to its focus on personal email addresses and webmail accounts. This is because ContactOut is developed with more contextual outreach in mind, and its main target audience are sales people and recruiters. It primarily features the following:

Chrome Extension – The main feature of ContactOut is a Chrome extension that adds a sidebar overlay on LinkedIn profiles. This sidebar reveals your LinkedIn lead’s email addresses and phone numbers, and finds professional email addresses based on your prospect’s company domain. This extension also works on Github profiles, although the tool pulls significantly less data from that site.
Sidebar – The sidebar appears when you open any LinkedIn page. It has the same menu options as the extension, and it basically makes the
Dashboard – You can save your leads in the dashboard. Here, you can also organise your discovered contacts, share your leads with your team, or export your list into a CSV or ATS file.
Search Portal – The search portal is accessible via the Chrome extension and the dashboard, and this brilliant feature lets you find leads and their contact information, even if they are not on LinkedIn or Github. You can use the search portal to find email addresses of just about anyone with a web presence.
Data Enrichment – A relatively recent addition, this feature practically completes and adds more context to your list. When you have a list of email addresses, ContactOut will try to find the name, job title, and company associated with each address. You’ll find this useful if you’re trying to personalise your outreach.
Email Campaigns – ContactOut lets you create email templates that you can then send straight to your prospects as soon as you’ve revealed their contact information. This feature is still under development, but it you might find it useful if you need to contact a prospect quickly.
Integrations – ContactOut has far fewer integrations than that of Hunter. However, the tool also integrates with popular CRMs such as Greenhouse, SalesForce, and Zapier. The tool’s integrations mainly focus on recruitment, although this can easily translate to sales and marketing as well.

Which Has The Better Features?

In terms of features, then, ContactOut seems to have the upper hand. However, that does not mean that Hunter.io is inferior by a large margin; it simply has a different focus. We find it a great tool for those who are looking for a fast and easy way to find email addresses by domain name.

On the other hand, ContactOut allows users to do more than simply look for contact information, as it also offers data enrichment and search capabilities. If you’re looking for an email finder that can help you with your sales and recruiting efforts, then ContactOut is the way to go. However, if you simply need a tool to quickly find email addresses, Hunter.io will do the job just fine.

Ease of use

When it comes to email search tools, ease of use is always a major consideration. After all, no one wants to waste hours trying to figure out how to use a complex tool when there are simpler alternatives available.

Hunter.io is dead-simple to use. Just enter the domain name you want to search and hit the “Search” button. The results should show up in a matter of seconds. In this regard, Hunter.io wins hands down. The user interface is clean, straightforward, and intuitive with its layout.

All the features are easy to find and use, and even first-time users will have no trouble getting the hang of things. Even the dashboard is not complicated; it has one page dedicated to each feature, although the Leads page can be a little more complicated with its many list management options.

ContactOut, on the other hand, is a bit more complex. While the user interface is still clean and easy to understand, there are simply more features available, which some users might find overwhelming. That being said, ContactOut does offer extensive documentation that covers all the basics

so users should have no trouble getting started. On the flip side, the tool has an edge with its compact and non-obtrusive layout. Whereas Hunter.io’s interface can be a little overwhelming at first glance, ContactOut’s is much more subdued.

Unlike direct competitors like Apollo and Zoominfo, ContactOut’s sidebar and extension do not take up a large portion of the screen, plus the tool is lightweight and easy to hide or open as needed.

What’s easier to use?

Hunter.io is definitely more user-friendly, although ContactOut is also not that complicated to use. However, the latter comes with a sleek layout that does not take up a lot of space and disrupts your browser workflow. Both tools come at a tie when it comes to ease of use, although ContactOut’s more subdued interface gives it a slight edge.

Pricing

As with everything, price is always a major consideration when choosing any kind of software application. After all, SaaS applications incur recurring fees. You will need to consider your budget in this situation, particularly how much you are willing to add to your overhead costs.

Thankfully, you can use both Hunter.io and ContactOut for free. In both tools, you get a limited amount of credits and restricted access to certain features. However, if you are looking to employ them in heavy-duty applications such as data scraping and list building, you might want to consider going for the premium versions.

Hunter.io Plans

Hunter.io’s payment plans come in five different flavors:

Free – The aforementioned free plan comes with 25 credits for email search and 50 for email address verification, plus limited email campaign features. With this plan, only one email account (Gmail or Outlook) can use the tool for email outreach campaigns, and they can send up to 500 emails.
Starter ($49 per month/$408 per year) – This basic plan gives you 500 searches and 1000 verifications each month. A maximum of five email accounts can use the email campaigns feature, and they can send a total of 2,500 emails. Plus, they can upload attachments and add link tracking to their emails.
Growth ($99 per month/$828 per year) – At 2,500 email searches and 5,000 verifications for each month, this plan has five times the volume of the Starter plan. All the email campaign features unlocked, and it can be used by up to 10 email accounts, who can then send up to 5,000 emails.
Pro ($199 per month/$1,668 per year) – This plan has 10,000 email address searches and 20,000 verifications, making it suitable for heavy individual users. Up to 20 Gmail or Outlook accounts can use the tool for email campaigns, and they are allowed to send 7,500 emails in total.
Business ($399 per month/$3,348 per year) – With 30,000 search credits and 60,000 email verifications, this is the best option for marketing and data scraping teams. A whopping 40 email accounts can use the email campaigns feature, and they can send a total of 10,000 emails.

Note that, while only a plan-specific number of email accounts can use the email campaigns feature, an unlimited number of users can use the tool for email search and verification under any of these plans. The absence of an additional charge for team usage makes Hunter a useful tool for small businesses.

ContactOut Plans

Meanwhile, ContactOut has the following pricing plans:

Free – ContactOut’s free plan comes with 40 credits for email search and three credits for finding phone numbers, and it works on standard LinkedIn accounts.
Personal ($29 per month/$348 per year) – This plan supplies users 150 emails and 15 phone numbers per month, or 1,800 email credits and 180 phone number credits per year. Like the free plan, it only works on standard LinkedIn.
Sales ($99 per month/$1,188 per year) – The monthly version of this plan comes with 500 emails and 50 phone numbers. Meanwhile, the yearly Sales plan has 6,000 emails and 600 phone numbers. In any case, this plan allows you to find contact details in LinkedIn Recruiter Lite and Sales Navigator, plus it comes with limited ATS integration.
Recruiter ($199 per month/$2,388 per year) – For the monthly version, you will get 1,000 emails and 100 phone numbers, while opting for the yearly version of this plan gets you a 12,000 credits for emails and 1,200 for phone numbers. It works in practically any version of LinkedIn and has full ATS and SalesForce integration.
Team (custom pricing) – Team plans are priced according to the data volume used

All versions of ContactOut work in Github, although it is very apparent that the developers did not focus on the site. Regardless of how limited it is, having the ability to find emails in Github is still helpful, especially for tech recruiters.

Which offers more value for your money?

Weighing these two tools simply based on their price tags may not do both justice. Instead, it is more prudent to look at both the price points and how much users can get out of them. Both tools can be used for free, albeit on a limited scope, and both have different premium plan tiers designed to work with their users’ specific needs.

ContactOut has, on average, appears to have cheaper monthly price points, and the Team plan allows you only to purchase the plan that works best with the size of your organization. On the other hand, Hunter is more affordable if you get the yearly plans, and offers greater volume in terms of search credits. It also allows an unlimited number of team members to use the tool without charging additional fees.

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Contactout vs Hunter.io Pros & Cons

Before we hand over our final judgment, here’s a quick comparison of both tools’ pros and cons:

Tool	Pros	Cons
Hunter.io	Higher data volume per plan	Does not work on LinkedIn
	Easy to use	Can’t find personal emails
	Less expensive yearly plans
	Works on most sites
	Unlimited users
ContactOut	More contextual searches
	Works on LinkedIn and Github	Does not work in other sites
	Data includes personal emails
	Can find phone numbers
	Unobtrusive interface

So Which Is Better?

Although ContactOut and Hunter are both email search tools, comparing them side by side is actually quite complicated. Beyond the basic features, they diverge in their focus, with ContactOut being geared towards sales and recruitment and Hunter being more beneficial for marketing purposes.

Furthermore, while ContactOut has more features, Hunter has a higher credit volume, which easily offsets each tool’s perceived disadvantages.

That said, both tools have their own merits. In the end, the tool that is better for you will ultimately depend on your specific needs. If you are looking to contact business clients or B2B partners, Hunter.io is your best bet. However, if you need an email search tool for sales and recruitment, ContactOut is a great choice.

ContactOut vs Hunter.io: Which Is the Better Email Finder in 2022?

First off: What’s an email finder?