Easy Email Finder API vs Hunter API vs Apollo API: Developer Comparison

Three APIs, Three Approaches

If you are building a lead generation feature into your product, you have several email finder APIs to choose from. The three most popular options each take a fundamentally different approach to email discovery. Let us compare them head to head.

Quick Overview

• Easy Email Finder: Searches Google Places to discover businesses, then scrapes their websites in real-time to find emails. Pay-per-email, no subscription.
• Hunter.io: Maintains a pre-indexed database of emails scraped from across the web. Domain-focused search. Subscription-based with monthly credits.
• Apollo.io: Full B2B sales intelligence database with person-level records. Subscription-based with tiered API access.

Authentication

# Easy Email Finder
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer eef_live_abc123..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -X POST https://easyemailfinder.com/api/v1/search \
  -d '{"query": "plumbers", "location": "Austin, TX"}'

# Hunter.io
curl "https://api.hunter.io/v2/domain-search?domain=example.com&api_key=abc123"

# Apollo.io
curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: abc123" \
  -X POST https://api.apollo.io/v1/mixed_people/search \
  -d '{"person_titles": ["CEO"], "organization_domains": ["example.com"]}'

Easy Email Finder uses standard Bearer token auth in headers, the most secure approach since tokens stay out of URLs and server logs. Hunter puts the key in the URL query string. Apollo uses a custom header.

Pricing Model Comparison

Easy Email Finder:

• $0.25 per successful email enrichment
• Search is free (no credits consumed)
• No subscription, no minimum spend
• Credits never expire
• 5 free credits on signup

Hunter.io:

• Free: 25 monthly searches, 50 verifications
• Starter: $49/month for 500 searches
• Growth: $149/month for 5,000 searches
• Business: $499/month for 50,000 searches
• Unused credits do not roll over

Apollo.io:

• Free: 10,000 records (limited fields)
• Basic: $49/user/month (limited API)
• Professional: $79/user/month (full API)
• Organization: $119/user/month (advanced)
• Per-user pricing adds up fast for teams

Use Case Comparison

Scenario 1: Find emails for 100 local businesses per month

• Easy Email Finder: $25/month (100 x $0.25)
• Hunter.io: $49/month (Starter plan, more than needed)
• Apollo.io: $49-79/month (requires paid plan for API)

Scenario 2: Find emails for 5,000 businesses per month

• Easy Email Finder: $1,250/month (5,000 x $0.25)
• Hunter.io: $149/month (Growth plan)
• Apollo.io: $79-119/month (Professional/Organization)

At low volumes, Easy Email Finder wins on cost because you pay only for what you use. At high volumes, subscription services offer better per-unit pricing but come with monthly commitments and wasted credits if usage varies.

Data Quality and Coverage

This is where the approaches diverge most:

Easy Email Finder performs real-time website scraping, which means the data is always fresh. If a business recently updated their contact page, you get the new email immediately. The tradeoff is that scraping takes a few seconds per website. Coverage is excellent for businesses with websites but does not include person-level data.

Hunter.io uses a pre-built index, so lookups are instant but data can be months old. Emails found by Hunter may no longer be valid. Their verification endpoint helps, but adds cost. Coverage is broad for professional domains but weak for small local businesses.

Apollo.io has the richest database with person-level data (names, titles, direct emails). However, its data is also pre-indexed and can be stale. Coverage is strongest for tech companies and enterprise organizations.

Developer Experience Score

• Easy Email Finder: 5 endpoints, minimal auth setup, clear error messages, no SDK required. Time to first API call: under 5 minutes.
• Hunter.io: Well-documented REST API with official Python and Ruby clients. Good webhook support. Time to first API call: 5-10 minutes.
• Apollo.io: Feature-rich but complex API. Requires understanding their data model (people, organizations, sequences). Time to first API call: 15-30 minutes.

Batch Processing

Easy Email Finder offers the /enrich-batch endpoint (up to 20 websites) and /search-and-enrich (up to 60 results). Hunter has a bulk email finder but it requires CSV upload through their web interface. Apollo supports bulk people search via API but requires knowing company names or domains in advance.

When to Use Each

• Easy Email Finder: Best for discovering local businesses and SMBs. Ideal when you need to go from a keyword and location to enriched leads. Start with the quickstart guide.
• Hunter.io: Best when you already have a list of domains and need to find emails at those domains.
• Apollo.io: Best when you need person-level data for enterprise B2B sales and are willing to pay for a monthly subscription.

Many teams use multiple APIs for different parts of their pipeline. For implementation patterns with Easy Email Finder, see our lead gen bot tutorial. Visit the API docs to get started.