When you ask prospiq for someone's email, we don't just look them up in a list. We run a sequence of checks that combine multiple verified sources with live mailbox verification — and only return an address we're willing to charge you for.
What "finding an email" actually means
There are roughly two ways the industry handles email enrichment:
- Cheap and dishonest: guess an address from common formats, return it without checking, charge you regardless of whether it bounces.
- Expensive and reactive: find a candidate, run one verification check, charge you whether the check passes or fails.
Most tools do option 1 with a thin marketing layer on top. prospiq does neither.
We use multiple verified data sources to identify candidate addresses, then we test each one with a real mailbox check before returning it. If the address doesn't pass our checks, you don't see it. And you don't pay for it.
What "verified" means
When we say an email is verified, we mean:
- The domain accepts mail. The receiving server responded to our connection.
- The mailbox exists. The server confirmed the specific address would accept a message.
- It's not a catch-all. Catch-all domains accept everything, which makes verification meaningless. We flag and exclude them.
- It's not disposable. No temporary inbox services.
- It's not a role address. Generic addresses like
info@orsupport@aren't included unless that's specifically what you asked for.
Our guarantee
Every email prospiq returns has cleared every check above. If we couldn't find an address that passes all of them, the lookup returns no result and you spend zero credits.
That's the rule we built the company on: you're never charged for an unverified email.
When emails come back empty
Sometimes we can't find anyone. Common reasons:
- The person doesn't have a discoverable work email (left the company, never had one publicly tied to them, very small private business)
- The company uses a domain we haven't seen before
- The mailbox exists but the server isn't responding to verification right now
When this happens, you spend nothing. Try again later — server availability can change — or contact support if you think we should be finding someone we aren't.