You ran the same contact through prospiq and another enrichment tool and got different answers. Different emails, different phones, or one tool returned a result and the other didn't. Which one is right?
This article won't tell you the answer is always prospiq. Sometimes another tool will have something we don't. But it explains the actual mechanics behind the disagreement so you can decide what to trust.
The four ways enrichment tools disagree
One: one tool guessed, the other verified
This is the most common reason. Many tools return candidate emails without testing them against the receiving mail server. They look up common patterns for a domain (first.last@, flast@, first@) and return whichever one shows up in their internal list — even if that mailbox doesn't actually exist anymore.
prospiq runs a live verification against the mail server before returning an address. If the tool that disagrees with us didn't do the same check, the disagreement is just our verification catching something theirs didn't.
How to test for this yourself: put the disputed email into a free verification tool (Hunter's email verifier, MillionVerifier, etc.). If it comes back invalid, the other tool was guessing.
Two: the data is from different points in time
Contact data ages. Someone changed jobs, the email got decommissioned, the company changed domains after an acquisition. One tool may be holding a result from six months ago that's now stale. Another may have refreshed their record yesterday.
prospiq re-verifies fresh on every lookup that hasn't been recently checked. Most other tools serve from cache without re-checking. If a tool returned a result instantly with no verification delay, you're getting a cached answer that might be old.
Three: different sources, both legitimate
Contact data is sourced from multiple places — company websites, professional networks, business directories, licensed data partners. Different tools subscribe to different data sources and cross-reference them differently.
It's possible for two tools to disagree about a person's email because they're looking at the person's two different valid work emails (a primary inbox and an alias, or an old role and a new role at the same company). Both answers are technically "right" in that the person uses both addresses.
Four: one tool returned no result and the other returned something
If we returned nothing and another tool returned a result, two things are usually happening: that tool didn't verify, or they sourced data we don't accept (catch-all domains, role addresses, or data lineage we don't trust).
Sometimes, though, they genuinely have something we don't. Our coverage isn't 100%. If you consistently see this for contacts you're sure should be findable, email support — we'd rather know about coverage gaps than pretend they don't exist.
How to decide which result to trust
Practical rules:
Send to the email yourself and watch what happens. A test message from your real address is the only ground truth. If it delivers, the email exists. If it bounces, it doesn't.
Don't trust the tool that returned data instantly. Real verification takes a few seconds. Tools that return results in under a second are usually serving from cache without checking.
Look at the metadata both tools provide. Did either tool say "verified"? Did either say "catch-all" or "low confidence"? A tool that's transparent about its confidence is more trustworthy than one that just hands you an address.
Cross-reference with LinkedIn or the company website. Sometimes the person's real email is visible in their profile, in a press release, or on the company's contact page. If neither tool's answer matches what you can find directly, both might be wrong.
When prospiq is the conservative one
We'll often return less data than another tool — and we mean to. If we can't verify, we don't return. If a domain is catch-all, we don't return. If we can't tie a phone to the person with confidence, we don't return.
That conservatism costs us in coverage-percentage comparisons. We'd rather show you nothing than show you something that won't work.
If you want a tool that returns more, you have options. If you want a tool whose results don't bounce, prospiq is the right call.