Hunter.io vs Icypeas (2026): Data, Pricing and API Compared

Icypeas is cheaper per email at volume, and Hunter is the better fit when people also work in the tool. Both find work emails from a name and a domain, both have an API and an MCP server, and both charge per found email. At 1M records, Icypeas lists $3,992 a month and Hunter lists $6,900 for a one-off pack.

Verdict

• Pick Hunter if you want email finding, a Chrome extension, a Sheets add-on and Sequences in one product, or a free plan that renews 50 credits every month (Hunter pricing, September 2026).
• Pick Icypeas if you call an API for work emails at volume and want the lowest credit price, a cheap verifier and credits that roll over with no expiry (Icypeas pricing, September 2026).
• Pick neither if you need to search a market by title, seniority and industry before you look up an address. Both tools start from a name and a domain. LeadOcean is one option, covered below.

Side by side

Data and coverage

Icypeas quotes the bigger numbers, but the two sites count different things. Icypeas quotes 575M business professionals, 1.8B emails and 62M company profiles (Icypeas features, September 2026). Hunter's homepage shows 150,430,313 verified email addresses (Hunter, September 2026). One counts emails, the other counts verified emails, and neither is a count of people with a work email.

Both find an address from a first name, a last name and a domain. Hunter also lists every address it has found on a domain with Domain Search. Icypeas has a domain search too, at 1 credit when it finds emails (Icypeas docs, September 2026).

Phones are thin on both sides. Hunter's API returns a phone_number field when it has one and publishes no phone count (Hunter API docs, September 2026). Icypeas quotes 280M phone numbers, yet its pricing page lists Phone Finder as coming soon (Icypeas pricing, September 2026). Test a sample of your own list before you buy for phones.

API and developer experience

Both give you a plain REST API and a key. Hunter answers in one call. Icypeas takes a search, returns an id, and you read the result a few seconds later.

Hunter, find an email by name and domain. Placeholders stand in for a real person.

curl -G "https://api.hunter.io/v2/email-finder" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: $HUNTER_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "domain=acme.com" \
  --data-urlencode "first_name=Jane" \
  --data-urlencode "last_name=Doe"

Hunter accepts the key as a query parameter, an X-API-KEY header or a Bearer token (Hunter API docs, September 2026). One quirk: a rate-limited call returns 403, and 429 means you ran out of credits or plan quota.

Icypeas, submit the same search, then read it.

curl -X POST "https://app.icypeas.com/api/email-search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $ICYPEAS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{ "firstname": "Jane", "lastname": "Doe", "domainOrCompany": "acme.com" }'

curl -X POST "https://app.icypeas.com/api/bulk-single-searchs/read" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: $ICYPEAS_API_KEY" \
  -d '{ "id": "RETURNED_ID" }'

The first call returns an _id. The second returns the emails, each with a certainty value (Icypeas docs, September 2026). The docs tell you to use bulk search, not this route, for many lookups (Icypeas docs, September 2026).

Limits favor Hunter on single calls and Icypeas on batches. Hunter allows 15 a second and 500 a minute on Email Finder, so 1M lookups take 1,000,000 / 500 = 2,000 minutes, about 33 hours. Icypeas bulk search takes up to 5,000 rows per call at 1 call a second, so 1M rows is 200 submit calls. Reading results is limited to 30 a minute, and Icypeas says limits can change at any time (Icypeas docs, September 2026).

Both ship an MCP server on every plan. Hunter's takes your API key in a header and spends your plan credits (Hunter MCP, September 2026). Icypeas hosts one with 21 tools that you sign in to with your API key (Icypeas guide, September 2026).

Pricing

Both tools charge one credit per found email, so cost follows your find rate. The figures below assume every lookup finds an email, which is the worst case for both. Monthly list price comes first, with the billed-yearly price after it.

At 10,000 work emails a month

• Hunter: Growth includes 10,000 credits for $149 a month, or $104 a month billed yearly (Hunter pricing, September 2026).
• Icypeas: Advanced includes 10,000 credits for $89 a month, or $74.17 a month billed yearly ($890 a year), plus VAT (Icypeas pricing, September 2026).

Icypeas is cheaper here: $89 against $149 monthly, $74.17 against $104 yearly. Hunter's extra cost buys the extension, Sheets add-on and Sequences.

At 1M work emails

• Hunter: 1,000,000 Search credits on the Data Platform cost $6,900, paid once and valid 12 months. That is 1,000,000 x $0.0069 (Hunter Data Platform, September 2026).
• Icypeas: the published 1,000,000-credit tier is $3,992 a month, which is 1,000,000 x $0.003992. Billed yearly, 12M credits cost $39,920, or $3,326.67 a month. Prices are plus VAT (Icypeas pricing, September 2026).

The units differ, so read them carefully. Hunter's $6,900 covers a year of credits, which is $575 a month if you spend all 1M over 12 months. If you need 1M every month, repeating the pack is $6,900 x 12 = $82,800 a year at list price. Hunter publishes no monthly 1M plan above that, so a monthly 1M is a quote (Hunter Data Platform, September 2026).

Hunter's all-in-one plans cost more at this size. Scale is $299 a month for 25,000 credits, and credit packs cap at 180,000 credits per purchase (Hunter help, September 2026). At 1M, use the Data Platform.

Credits behave differently too. Icypeas credits roll over with no expiry, even after a cancellation (Icypeas pricing, September 2026). Hunter monthly credits reset each month, and yearly and Data Platform credits last 12 months (Hunter help, September 2026). Verification is cheaper on Icypeas: 0.1 credit against Hunter's 0.5.

Where Hunter.io wins

One product for finding and sending

Hunter includes Sequences, connected email accounts, a Chrome extension and a Google Sheets add-on (Hunter, September 2026). A rep can find, check and send without leaving it. Icypeas is a finder and verifier with an API, not a sending tool.

A free plan that renews

Hunter's Free plan gives 50 credits every month (Hunter pricing, September 2026). Icypeas lists no free plan, only 50 credits on signup. For a side project or a quick test, Hunter costs nothing and keeps costing nothing.

Simple, synchronous calls

Hunter returns the email in the same response, with a score. You write no polling loop. Its bulk finder takes 50,000 rows per file, ten times the Icypeas bulk call (Hunter help, September 2026).

Where Icypeas wins

Lower price per email

Icypeas lists less per credit at both sizes we priced: $89 against $149 at 10,000 emails, and $0.003992 against Hunter's $0.0069 at 1M (Icypeas pricing, September 2026). If you need 1M only once a year, Hunter's one-off pack costs less in total.

Credits that last

Unused credits never expire and stack with no cap. A quiet month costs nothing extra, and a busy one draws on the pile. Hunter's monthly plans reset to zero.

More tools around the API

Icypeas lists a verifier at 0.1 credit, a profile scraper, Find People and Find Companies at 0.02 credit per result, and Make, Zapier and n8n integrations (Icypeas pricing, September 2026). Its MCP server has 21 tools.

If you need volume through an API

Both tools price per found email and start from a name and a domain. LeadOcean starts from a filter. Search 693M people and 63M companies by title, seniority, country and industry, then pull the records over REST or MCP. Counts are free.

Free gives you 1,000 records one-off with no card. Pro is $499 a month, flat, with no credits and 100 requests per second per key. POST /v1/exports returns up to 50,000 rows per request, and GET /v2/people/phone returns a phone for one record.

A LeadOcean record is one person or company returned, not one found email, so the units differ. A very large month is paced down past the fair-usage line, not cut off. See pricing and the Hunter alternative page.

FAQ