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Hunter.io is the most-used email-finder in B2B outbound — and the easiest to misuse. This walks through the right setup path: plan choice, team workspace, integration baseline, and the credit-usage rules most teams learn the expensive way.
Who this is forFounders and SDRs running cold outreach. If you plan to hit 500+ prospects/month, the default plan and workflow will burn your credits in two weeks — read this before launching anything.
What you'll need
Step 1
Free = 25 searches + 50 verifications/month. Starter = $49/mo / 500 searches. Growth = $149/mo / 5K. Scale = $299/mo / 50K. Business = $499/mo / unlimited.
Hunter Free: 25 searches + 50 verifications/month. Useful for evaluating, useless for any real outbound.
Starter ($49/mo or $34 annual): 500 searches + 1K verifications. Right for 1-2 SDRs prospecting <500 leads/month.
Growth ($149/mo or $104 annual): 5,000 searches + 10K verifications. Right for a small outbound team or solo founder running 1,000-2,000 leads/month.
Scale ($299/mo): 50,000 searches + 100K verifications. For real outbound teams running 5K+ leads/month.
Business ($499/mo): unlimited searches + unlimited verifications. For agencies and high-volume programs.
Rule of thumb: estimate monthly prospect volume × 1.3 (for retries on low-confidence emails). That is your search-credit floor.
Step 2
Settings → Team → Invite users. Pool credits across the team instead of per-seat.
In Hunter, navigate to Settings → Team.
Invite each SDR/marketer via email. Each gets their own login but credits are pooled at the team level.
Pooled credits prevent the "one SDR hoards credits while another runs out" problem.
Assign roles: Admin (manage billing + users), Member (search + export), Viewer (read-only). Default everyone to Member.
Step 3
Settings → Defaults. Set minimum confidence to 80% and enable "Exclude disposable emails" by default. Saves cleanup later.
In Settings → Defaults, find "Minimum confidence score."
Set to 80% as a baseline. Hunter rates email guesses 0-100% based on verification signals. Below 80% is risky to email cold.
Enable "Exclude disposable emails" — catches throwaway addresses (mailinator, guerrillamail, etc.).
Enable "Exclude role-based emails" if you want to skip generic addresses (info@, contact@, support@) and only get personal emails.
These defaults apply to all searches across the team. Override per-search when needed.
Step 4
Hunter Chrome extension finds emails directly on LinkedIn, Twitter, and any company website. Saves 50% of search time.
In the Hunter dashboard, click "Get the Chrome extension."
Each team member installs separately and signs in with their Hunter account.
On LinkedIn profiles, the extension surfaces likely emails for the person. One-click save to a Hunter list.
On any company website, the extension shows the company's available emails sourced from public web.
Train the team on the extension — it is where 70%+ of efficient prospecting happens.
Step 5
Settings → Integrations. Native connections to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and direct sends to Lemlist, Instantly, Smartlead.
Open Settings → Integrations.
Connect your CRM first (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive). Hunter pushes verified contacts directly into contact records, avoiding manual CSV imports.
Connect your outreach tool (Lemlist, Smartlead, Instantly, Apollo Outreach). Lets you push a Hunter list directly into a sequence.
For tools without native integration, use Zapier — but native is faster and does not eat into Zap quota.
Step 6
Search a known domain (your own or a partner). Find an email you can verify. Confirm the workflow end-to-end.
In Hunter, click Domain Search. Enter your own company domain.
Hunter returns the list of emails for that domain. Pick one you know is valid.
Click "Verify" to confirm the email is deliverable.
Try the email finder on a contact you already know (a coworker or known partner). Confirm Hunter returns the right email.
Once both workflows work, the team is ready for production prospecting.
Common mistakes
Picking Starter when you need Growth
What goes wrong: Starter caps at 500 searches/month. Your SDR burns through it in 6 days. They either stop prospecting or you panic-upgrade mid-month at full price. ~$80-150 in wasted partial-month spend.
How to avoid: Calculate monthly prospect volume × 1.3 for retries. If above 500, go straight to Growth ($149/mo).
No team workspace — each rep on a separate account
What goes wrong: Each rep has their own credits. One rep runs out by mid-month, another has 400 unused. Credit allocation is forever frustrating. ~10-20% wasted credit capacity.
How to avoid: Single team workspace from day one. Pooled credits.
Accepting emails below 70% confidence
What goes wrong: Low-confidence emails bounce. Bounce rate creeps to 8-12%. Sender reputation drops. Inbox placement drops to 40%. ~30% of your outreach lands in spam.
How to avoid: Default minimum confidence to 80%. For below-80% emails, verify each manually before sending.
Not connecting CRM/outreach tools natively
What goes wrong: Manual CSV exports from Hunter → CSV imports to CRM/outreach. ~30 min per 100 contacts of data-entry waste. Errors compound.
How to avoid: Always use native integrations where available. Set them up on day one.
Ignoring the disposable-email and role-based defaults
What goes wrong: Your list fills with info@, contact@, hr@ addresses. Reply rate craters. Cold-email reputation tanks because Gmail/Outlook flag role-based outreach as spam more aggressively.
How to avoid: Enable "Exclude disposable" and "Exclude role-based" in Settings → Defaults. Override only when targeting a specific role.
Recap
Done — what's next
How to use Hunter.io Domain Search to find all emails at a company
Read the next tutorial
Hand it off
Setting up Hunter is a project. Running a full demand-gen pipeline that pulls verified leads from Hunter, enriches them, and sequences them is a job. A vetted demand-gen specialist will set up the stack and own ongoing optimization. From $14-16/hr — most engagements land at $500-1,200/mo depending on volume.
See specialist rates
Yes — Settings → Usage shows credits remaining per category (searches, verifications, etc.). Set up email alerts at 50% and 80% usage to avoid running out mid-campaign.
Yes, but credits do not refund. Downgrade at the start of the next billing cycle to avoid losing paid credits.
No. Hunter sources from public web only. Apollo and ZoomInfo have their own databases. Use Hunter for accuracy, Apollo for coverage.
On verified-confidence emails (80%+): 95-97% deliverable. On guess-only (no verification): 70-80%. Always verify before sending cold.
Yes — Bulks → Email Finder. Upload a CSV with name + company. Hunter returns the most likely email for each. Costs 1 search credit per row.
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Domain Search is Hunter's most-used feature — and the easiest to waste credits on. This walks through the filtered-export workflow that returns 10 useful contacts instead of 50 noisy ones.
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Email Finder is the 'I know who I want to email — find their address' tool. It is more accurate than guessing patterns by hand, and the verification step is what separates a 95% deliverable list from a 65% deliverable one.
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The Chrome extension is where most efficient Hunter prospecting happens. It surfaces emails on LinkedIn, company sites, and any page — without leaving the browser. This walks through setup and the workflows that save real time.
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DIY cold email is great — until reply rate caps at 1.5% and you cannot tell why. Here is the honest framework: when the cost of self-managing exceeds the cost of hiring.