When planning your email verification usage, it’s important to understand the difference between Email Validation and Catch-All Validation, as each serves a different purpose and consumes credits differently.

This article explains how both processes work and how they impact your total credit usage.

What Is Email Validation?

Email Validation is the standard validation process applied to every email address you submit.

During this step, the system checks:

  • Email syntax and formatting

  • Domain existence and MX records

  • Mail server availability and response behavior

  • Disposable email providers

  • Role-based addresses (such as info@, support@)

  • Known spam traps and risky patterns

Based on these checks, each email is categorized as one of the following:

  • Valid

  • Invalid

  • Disposable

  • Role-based

  • Catch-all

  • Unknown

Credit usage:

  • 1 credit per email

This process clearly identifies valid, invalid, disposable, role-based, and unknown emails, while also detecting whether an address belongs to a catch-all domain.

What Is Catch-All Validation?

Some email domains are configured as catch-all domains, meaning their mail servers accept all incoming emails—even if the actual inbox does not exist. Because of this behavior, standard email validation cannot reliably confirm whether a catch-all email address is truly deliverable.

Catch-All Validation is an optional, advanced validation step applied only to emails identified as catch-all. It uses a deeper and more resource-intensive analysis to estimate whether the email is likely deliverable or risky.

Credit usage:

  • 10 credits per email

How Credit Usage Works

  1. All email addresses are first processed using standard email validation

    • 1 credit per email

  2. Only emails detected as catch-all are eligible for catch-all validation

    • 10 additional credits per email

  3. Emails classified as valid, invalid, disposable, or role-based do not consume extra credits

How Many Credits Do You Need?

The total number of credits required depends on:

  • The total number of emails in your list

  • The percentage of emails belonging to catch-all domains

  • Whether you choose to apply catch-all validation

If your list includes a large number of catch-all emails and you want deeper deliverability insights, you should plan for additional credits accordingly.

Summary

  • Email Validation:

    • Baseline deliverability check

    • Classifies emails into clear categories

    • 1 credit per email

  • Catch-All Validation:

    • Optional advanced check for catch-all emails only

    • Helps estimate real deliverability

    • 10 credits per email

Understanding this distinction helps you accurately estimate credit usage and choose the validation depth that best fits your needs.