Lyre Leads
Hunter.io and five alternatives, compared
Prices, free tiers and verification as each vendor states them on its own site. Hunter shows prices in euros to European visitors, with the same figures as its dollar prices. The last column is our judgement.
| Tool | How it finds businesses | Cheapest plan and free tier | Emails and verification | Best for (our view) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hunter.ioSources: our data, pricing, free plan help, domain search, email verifier | Its own index of the public web, searched by company domain or name. Discover filters a database of 100M+ companies. | Starter $49 ($34 billed yearly; the same figures in euros in Europe): 2,000 credits a month. 1 credit per email found, 0.5 per verification. Free tier: 50 credits a month, no card, API and MCP included. Exports limited to 10 emails per domain. | Emails found on the public web, listed with their sources, or worked out from a name and domain and then verified. Mailbox-level SMTP check, catch-all detection and its own check for catch-all addresses. 0.5 credit each; unknowns are free. | Finding and verifying emails at companies you've already chosen, and sending from the same tool. |
| ApolloSources: data, Maps search help, pricing, waterfall help, verification help, email status help | Stored database of 240M+ contacts and 30M+ companies. Paid plans add a live Google Maps business search: up to 60 results a search, sorted by distance. | Basic $65 per seat billed monthly (2,500 credits a month), or $49 per seat billed yearly. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 8. Free tier: 75 credits a month per seat, API and MCP included. No Google Maps search on Free. | Business emails from its database, plus a waterfall across 20+ outside data vendors on paid plans. Its own seven-step check, SMTP included, marks each email verified, catch-all or unverified. Apollo's pages quote 98%, 91% and over 90% accuracy. | Teams selling to companies with LinkedIn-visible staff who want named contacts and sequencing in one seat-priced tool. |
| RocketReachSources: pricing, credits help, lookup help, API FAQ | Stored database of 700M+ professionals and 60M companies, searched with filters such as title, industry, size and location. | Essentials $69 (US price; it varies by country): 100 email lookups a month. Phones start on Pro + Phone, $119. Free tier: A few one-off lookup credits on a free account, not monthly. RocketReach's own pages give different counts. | Personal and work emails from its database. A lookup is charged only when a verified email or phone comes back. Each email graded A, A-, B or F, and only A or A- grades are charged. The method is described only as tested multiple ways. | Reaching a named professional, or a B2B segment you can define by title, industry and size. |
| LushaSources: data, pricing, accuracy FAQ, home | Stored database of 515M+ contacts and 29M+ companies, built from its user community and partners. | Starter $49.90 ($37.45 billed yearly): 400 credits a month. An email costs 1 credit, a phone number 5. Free tier: 40 credits a month, no card; API and MCP included. | Verified emails and direct dials from its database; searching and filtering are free. Describes domain, SMTP mailbox, catch-all and role checks plus a check that the person still works there; states 98% email accuracy. | Reps who know which person they want and need a direct dial fast, inside LinkedIn or their CRM. |
| OutscraperSources: API docs, app, Maps prices, email prices | One Google Maps search per query, up to 500 places. For dense areas it tells you to split the query; the app can split a city by zip code or neighbourhood. | No subscription. Google Maps places: first 500 free, then $3 per 1,000 up to 100,000, then $1 per 1,000. Emails and contacts are priced separately, from $3 per 1,000 sites. Free tier: First 500 Google Maps places and 500 website email lookups free each billing period; a card or prepaid credits needed to start. | A separately billed Emails & Contacts service reads each business website for emails, phones and social links. A separate, billed Email Address Verifier checks the mailbox (SMTP). | Occasional or technical users who want cheap per-record extraction and pay only for what they switch on. |
| Lyre Leads (ours)Sources: coverage test, pricing, how we verify, features | Live Google Maps search for any keyword. Complete coverage mode searches a city from many overlapping points and merges on place ID (median 2.2x one paged search in 24 US tests). | Growth $39: 7,500 leads (a lead is one new business, enriched and relevance-checked). Unused leads roll over up to three months. Free tier: 500 leads a month, no card. | Company email read off the business's own website, never guessed. Named contacts on request, 2 tokens each, charged only when one is found. Every address checked at the mailbox (SMTP, through MillionVerifier), included. Catch-all addresses are labelled, never counted as verified. | Selling to local businesses in cities over 200,000 people, when you want every business in the territory checked and its emails verified. |
Checked 14 October 2026. Each row links to the pages its facts were read on. Prices are in US dollars, per month on monthly billing, unless the cell says otherwise. "Best for" is our judgement, and we make Lyre Leads.
Which alternative verifies emails as carefully as Hunter.io?
Hunter publishes what its Email Verifier does: format and MX checks, an SMTP check that asks the mail server whether it would accept the address without sending anything, detection of catch-all domains, and its own method for judging addresses on those domains. A verification costs half a credit, and an unknown result costs nothing. Few vendors document as much.
- Lyre Leads checks every address it finds at the mailbox, through MillionVerifier, inside the plan. On a catch-all domain it labels the address catch-all rather than trying to guess, and never counts it as verified (how we verify).
- Lusha describes SMTP mailbox, catch-all and role checks.
- Apollo labels each email verified, catch-all or unverified with its own seven-step check.
- RocketReach grades each email A to F and charges only for the top two grades, without describing the method.
- Outscraper sells a separate SMTP verifier alongside its website email scraper.
Where do the companies come from?
Hunter's Domain Search starts from a company you name, and its Discover search filters a database of 100M+ companies built by crawling the public web. That works for businesses with a real web presence. A plumber or a salon with a one-page site gives a crawler little to find, and you may not know its domain to begin with.
Local businesses describe themselves on Google Maps. Lyre Leads searches Maps live for any keyword, and in complete coverage mode searches a city from many overlapping points; in our test of 24 trade-and-city pairs that found about 2.2 times as many businesses as one paged search in the median city (method and numbers). It then reads each business's website, marks whether it's what you searched for, takes the email the business publishes there, and finds named contacts on request. Outscraper also starts from Maps, as a pay-per-place scraper with website emails as an add-on.
Is there a free Hunter.io alternative?
Hunter's free plan is generous for a verifier: 50 credits a month, with the API and its MCP server included, though exports stop at 10 emails per domain. Lyre Leads gives 500 leads a month with no card, each a business found with its email verified. Apollo gives 75 credits a month per seat, Lusha 40, and RocketReach a few one-off lookups. Outscraper's first 500 places each billing period are free once a card or credits are on the account.
When is Hunter.io still the better choice?
When you already know the companies and email is the job. Domain Search shows where each address was found, the verifier is well documented, Sequences sends from the same tool, every plan allows unlimited team members, and its MCP server works on every plan with apps for Claude and ChatGPT. Starter is $49 a month for 2,000 credits, or $34 a month billed yearly. If your list of target domains exists, Hunter is a clean way to work it.
When is Lyre Leads the wrong choice?
- You already have the domains. Hunter or any good verifier will do the email part for less.
- You want to send from the same tool. We export to CSV, Excel or JSON and have an API; we don't send.
- Your targets aren't on Google Maps, such as software companies or enterprises.
The two fit together, too. Build and qualify the list of local businesses in Lyre Leads, export it, and run your sequences wherever you send from now.
Which one fits your campaign?
| If you need | Look at | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Emails at companies you've already chosen, and sending | Hunter.io | Domain search, a documented verifier, sequences |
| Named contacts and sequences at B2B companies | Apollo | Database plus sending in one seat |
| A named professional's email or phone | RocketReach | Lookups across a large professional database |
| Direct dials while browsing LinkedIn | Lusha | Browser extension |
| Raw Google Maps rows, paid per place | Outscraper | Pay as you go, website emails as an add-on |
| Every local business in a city, checked against your keyword, emails verified | Lyre Leads | Starts from Google Maps, reads each website |
How do you test them before you pay?
If your market is local businesses, pick one trade in one city, find the businesses in Lyre Leads and in your current source, and count how many each found. Then take the same 100 domains through Hunter and through the alternative's email step, and put every result through one mailbox verifier. You'll see which tool finds more of the market and which finds more deliverable addresses, which aren't always the same tool.
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500 leads a month, no card. Live Google Maps search for any keyword, 50+ enrichment fields, a relevance check on every business and every address verified.
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