SieveSieve vs Hunter
We built this comparison, so assume bias. That is exactly why the rows where Hunter wins are still in it. Where they are genuinely better, we say so.
Hunter is best known as an email finder. Its core product locates and formats the likely email addresses for people at a company, which makes it a natural fit for prospecting and building new lists from scratch. Verification is offered alongside that, but it is not the center of the product. Sieve is the opposite: it is built to prove whether the addresses you already have are safe to send to. Every verdict carries the MX host and SMTP reply code that produced it, catch-all domains get a 0 to 100 confidence score rather than an accept-all flag, and a pre-send risk verdict folds in your own domain's authentication health.
Price per 1,000 verifications at ~10k volume
Published list prices, June 2026. Check vendor sites for current rates. Sieve pack math: $5/1k = $5.00, $19/5k = $3.80, $69/25k = $2.76, $169/100k = $1.69, $29 Pro / 15,000 = $1.93 per 1,000.
Sieve vs Hunter, capability by capability
| Capability | Sieve | Hunter |
|---|---|---|
Live SMTP mailbox verification Table stakes: both do it. | ||
Verdict receipt on every address The MX host that answered and the SMTP reply code, in the API response. | ||
Catch-all confidence score (0 to 100) Built from real probe evidence. | Accept-all flag | |
Detects full and disabled mailboxes From the live SMTP reply code, shown on the receipt. | ||
Pre-send risk verdict Fuses the recipient verdict with YOUR sending domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC health into one send, caution or suppress call. | ||
Single-tenant, self-hosted privacy Your lists never leave our EU-jurisdiction box, are never resold, and never train a pooled cross-customer dataset. | Multi-tenant cloud | |
AI contact finder Finding and formatting new addresses. | Yes, finding emails is their core product | |
Free tier | Unlimited DNS checks + 100 live SMTP/mo | Limited free plan |
Competitor capabilities summarized from their public docs, June 2026. One caveat that applies to both of us: free-mail providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, iCloud) block mailbox probing. No vendor can truly SMTP-verify those addresses, whatever the marketing says.
The honest tradeoff
Hunter is built around finding new email addresses. Sieve is built around proving whether the addresses you already have are safe to send to, with evidence on every verdict.
Judge us before you pay anything
Grade your sending domain's deliverability free: MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, blacklists. No signup.
Then verify a list with receipts
Unlimited DNS checks plus 100 live SMTP verifications a month, free. Every paid verdict ships with its evidence.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sieve a good Hunter alternative?
For verifying and cleaning a list you already have, yes: Sieve returns the MX host and SMTP reply code behind every verdict, scores catch-all domains 0 to 100, and adds a pre-send risk verdict. If your main goal is discovering brand-new email addresses for prospecting, Hunter is purpose-built for that and is the better tool for the job.
What is the difference between Sieve and Hunter?
Hunter's core product finds and formats email addresses that you do not have yet. Sieve's core product verifies addresses you do have, with evidence: a verdict receipt on each one, catch-all confidence scores, and a pre-send risk verdict built from your sending domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Both offer contact finding, but it is the center of Hunter's product and a side feature of Sieve's.
Does Sieve find email addresses like Hunter?
Sieve includes an AI contact finder, but discovery is Hunter's core product and the thing it is optimized for. If finding new addresses at scale is your primary need, Hunter is the specialist. If your priority is trusting the addresses already on your list, that is what Sieve is built for.
Can I verify a list with Sieve for free?
Yes. Sieve's free plan includes unlimited DNS-layer checks plus 100 live SMTP verifications a month with no credit card, so you can clean a sample of your list and see the evidence on each verdict before paying.