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Last Updated Aug 01, 2023

Free Email List Cleaning Solutions

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Shipton

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Your email list is your most valuable asset when it comes to your online marketing efforts. Time and again, it's been shown that email marketing campaigns are the most effective way to connect with customers, reach new customers, and solidify your brand.

Engagement and a low bounce rate are key when it comes to maintaining a good deliverability score and ensuring that your campaigns make it into your users' inboxes, so it's important to keep your email list healthy and active.

One of the easiest ways to ensure that your subscribers are real, healthy, and active is to periodically clean your list using an email list cleaning service. In this article, we'll break down ten of the top email list cleaning services and talk about how to get the most from your chosen email list cleaning service.

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Why Is an Email List Cleaning Service Important?

You should clean your email list at least once every six months to avoid sending messages to invalid and useless addresses. Your sender reputation is dependent on the engagement you receive from the people who receive your emails, so if your emails are going into spam folders, it will hurt your sender reputation and email deliverability.

Additionally, an email verification service saves you money by removing emails that aren't returning any profit to you from your list. Since your email service provider probably requires you to pay a monthly fee once you have a certain number of subscribers on your list, you want to make sure you're not paying for inactive addresses and spam traps to stay on your list.

Finally, having a clean email list will increase your email marketing campaign ROI by ensuring that emails only go to those users who are most engaged and most likely to buy from you.

Overview of the Best Free Email List Cleaners

There are lots of email verification services out there, but many require you to pay a monthly subscription or pay-as-you-go for each email you want to verify. Fortunately, there are plenty of free email list cleaners out there too, and lots of the top paid email list cleaning services have free tiers.

Top 10 Best Email List Cleaning Service Options

AbstractAPI Free Email Verification and Validation API

AbstractAPI provides an easy-to-integrate API that can be used to validate addresses one at a time when users sign up for mailing lists through online forms, and also provides a bulk validation service for existing email lists.

Simply log on and create a free account, then navigate to the API dashboard and click "Bulk Upload CSV." You can upload a CSV file of up to 100 addresses. The email verification API looks at all the email addresses and weeds out invalid email addresses, then returns the results to you as a CSV file via email.

Related: How to validate email addresses in Excel

JitBit

One of the easiest, and only truly free email list cleaners out there is JitBit, which provides a very simple online interface for adding email addresses to be verified. Simply paste a list of email addresses, one per line, into the text box in the browser and hit "Clean the List."

The tool looks for invalid mailboxes, typos, duplicates, malformed addresses, non-existing domains, invalid MX-records, spam traps, and disposable mailboxes. There is a technical limit of 20,000 email addresses, but that should be more than enough for most people.

Email List Verify

Email List Verify is a paid service that provides free credits for up to 100 emails. They guarantee quick list processing and can process up to 100K requests per customer per hour.

Their pricing options are all pay-as-you-go, and the pay-as-you-go credits never expire. Once you pass the 100 free email limit, their pricing is reasonable. Just $4 to process 1000 emails ($0.004 per email) up to $3290 to process 10,000,000 emails (just $0.0003 per email.)

Proofy

Proofy's email list cleaning service provides the first 100 checks for free and also has an email verification API that you can access for one-off checks in your web forms or mobile app. The free email list cleaner looks for duplicate email addresses, high-risk emails, invalid MX records, syntax errors, and role emails. They also do spam trap removal and domain verification.

The company also provides a bulk trial plan with 500 free credits for bulk email verification services, with the opportunity to earn more free credits with their program.

ZeroBounce

One of the best-known names in email validation, ZeroBounce has a great reputation for improving the email marketing campaigns of top companies like Airbnb, Netflix, and Disney. Fortunately, you don't have to be a Fortune 500 company to use their service: they have a free tier for up to 100 validations.

ZeroBounce provides an easy-to-access input right on the homepage that allows you to test the service for free by uploading a CSV list of bulk emails or inputting a single email address into a text box.

NeverBounce

NeverBounce is used by top companies like MailChimp, HubSpot, Doordash, Uber, and Mailerlite, and the company claims to process billions of email addresses. They offer three services: bulk list cleaning, an integrative email verification API, and automated cleaning that syncs to the top email marketing service providers.

NeverBounce has a limited free tier at just 10 email addresses using their online free email verifications tool, but you can book a demo to receive more free credits.

MailerCheck

MailerCheck's service claims to be the "smarter alternative to NeverBounce." The service allows you to upload email addresses via a CSV file, text file, or import email addresses directly from popular email platforms like MailChimp and Mailerlite.

Mailercheck has a slightly more generous free offering than most other platforms: up to 200 free credits for validating email addresses. After the free email list cleaner credits run out, their pricing is more pricy, however: $0.01 per email for every email up to 1000, then a sliding scale from there. The company is currently offering 10% off to new customers.

Bouncify

Bouncify has some of the cheapest pay-as-you-go options available at just $0.0005 per email for a million verifications. From there, the tiers increase in price from $0.0007 per email at ten thousand verifications, up to $0.019 per email for up to ten thousand verifications.

The Bouncify free tier offers up to 100 free credits, with free removal of duplicate addresses and free list quality analysis. The company also offers an API that can be integrated into online web forms and mobile apps.

Bouncer

Bouncer's main draw is that it has many mail server options hosted on AWS instances in the EU, and is fully GDPR compliant. The company offers 100 free credits to try out the service, and their pricing once you max out the free tier is reasonable.

Bouncer's pay-as-you-go starts at $0.007 for up to 1000 email addresses, and monthly plans start at $40 for up to 10,000 verifications per month.

DeBounce

DeBounce offers up to 100 free credits, and then pricing starts at $0.002 per verification for emails up to 1000, and drops to just $0.0003 per address for 5 million verifications. The company is offering a 10% discount right now for new customers.

DeBounce checks for disposable email addresses, catch-all addresses, syntax errors, duplication issues, and spam traps. They also do MTA validation and domain health check and validation.

Side-by-side Comparison of the Top Email List Cleaners

Free Tier Pricing Type <1000 Emails Has API
JitBit Unlimited N/A $0 No
AbstractAPI 100 emails Monthly $9 for 5000/month Yes
Proofy 500 emails PAYG $5 No
ZeroBounce 100 emails PAYG / Enterprise $16 (2000 min) Yes
NeverBounce 100 emails PAYG / Automated $8 Yes
MailerCheck 200 emails PAYG / Monthly $10 Yes
Bouncify 100 emails PAYG $19 (10K min) Yes
Bouncer 100 emails PAYG / Monthly $7 Yes

How to Use An Email List Cleaner

Most email list cleaning services operate in the same way. Always check the docs for the specific service you are using, but in general, you can assume that you'll take the following steps:

  • Download your mailing list from your email marketing campaign provider as a CSV
  • Upload the CSV file to the email verification service bulk upload option
  • Wait for the email verification service to check all the email addresses on your list
  • Get a results file with information about the addresses on your list
  • Use the results file to remove problem emails from your email list

Tips and Tricks to Optimize the Use of An Email List Cleaner

In general, you'll get the most out of your email list cleaning service if you utilize it regularly. The longer you wait in between cleanings, the more invalid emails will be on your list, and the longer it will take to clean.

We recommend doing an audit of your email list using an email list service at least once every six months, and continuously weeding out non-performing addresses using your email service provider bulk unsubscribe feature in between cleanings.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a quick and dirty free email list cleaner, you can't go wrong with JitBit for simplicity. However, if you need something a bit more robust, with proven results, opt for one of the other names on the list, like NeverBounce or ZeroBounce. If you're looking for a generous free tier, Proofy offers the most free credits for removing invalid emails.

Whichever email cleaning services and email verification tools you opt for, the most important thing to remember is to clean your email list regularly and do thorough email validation when users first sign up to your list.

Email deliverability is one of the most important components of your online marketing efforts - try one of the best email list cleaning service solutions today to make your next email marketing campaign a success.

FAQs

What is an email list cleaning service?

An email list cleaning service is an online tool that allows you to check and remove invalid, non-existent, or duplicate email addresses from your email list.

Why is an email list cleaning service important?

An email list cleaning service is essential because it helps you maintain a healthy and active email list, which can lead to better engagement and higher deliverability scores for your email campaigns.

How often should I clean my email list?

We recommend cleaning your email list at least once every six months to avoid sending messages to invalid and useless addresses.

Are there any free email list cleaning services available?

Yes, there are many free email list cleaning services available, including JitBit, AbstractAPI Free Email Verification and ValidationAPI, Proofy, ZeroBounce, NeverBounce, MailerCheck, Bouncify, Bouncer, andDeBounce.

How do I use an email list cleaning service?

To use an email list cleaning service, you'll typically need to download your email list from your email marketing campaign provider as a CSV, upload the CSV file to the email verification service bulk upload option, wait for the email verification service to check all the email addresses on your list, get a results file with information about the addresses on your list, and use the results file to remove problem emails from your email list.

How can I optimize the use of an email list cleaning service?

To get the most out of your email list cleaning service, we recommend utilizing it regularly and doing an audit of your email list at least once every six months. In between cleanings, you can continuously weed out non-performing addresses using your email service provider bulk unsubscribe feature.

What are some tips for maintaining a healthy email list?

Some tips for maintaining a healthy email list include regularly cleaning your list, providing valuable and relevant content to your subscribers, and utilizing opt-in and opt-out processes to ensure that your subscribers are engaged and interested in your content.

How can a clean email list improve my email marketing campaign ROI?

A clean email list can improve your email marketing campaign ROI by ensuring that emails only go to those users who are most engaged and most likely to buy from you. Additionally, a clean email list can help improve your deliverability score and avoid sending messages to invalid and useless addresses.

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Elizabeth (Lizzie) Shipton
Lizzie Shipton is an adept Full Stack Developer, skilled in JavaScript, React, Node.js, and GraphQL, with a talent for creating scalable, seamless web applications. Her expertise spans both frontend and backend development, ensuring innovative and efficient solutions.
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