The Hunter.io alternative when you need company and IP data on the same key

Name: BusinessMCP
Brand: BusinessMCP

Hunter finds and SMTP-verifies email addresses; BusinessMCP’s Data API returns companies, IP owners, email formats and people on one pay-per-call key.

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Price: Hunter: Free 50 credits/mo, Starter $49/mo (2,000 credits) to Scale $299/mo, API on every plan · BusinessMCP: 1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000
Switching gets you: Company firmographics, IP to company, email formats and domain checks on one mcph_ key over REST and MCP, billed per result instead of a monthly credit bundle.
Stay with Hunter.io if: You need a mailbox-level SMTP verdict, addresses at EU or UK companies, or a Chrome extension and sequencer — Hunter has all three and our Data API has none.

Feature comparison — pricing verified September 2026. Sources: public pricing pages + published teardowns.
	BusinessMCP	Hunter.io
Entry price	1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000	Free 50 credits/mo; Starter $49/mo (2,000 credits)
Company firmographics by domain	1 credit ($0.002), only when a company is found	Company Enrichment API (0.2 credit)
Company search (industry, location, size)	2 credits per company returned; offline websites excluded	Discover (searching is free)
IP to company	Own nightly graph; names a company only on a confident verdict	No
Email finder (named person)	15 credits ($0.030) when an address is returned; card required	Email Finder + Domain Search, 1 credit per email found
Email verification	1 credit: syntax, MX, catch-all, disposable, role — no SMTP mailbox check	SMTP check: valid / invalid / accept_all / unknown
Company email format	2 credits, only when a format is known	Shown in Domain Search results
People coverage	Excludes EU, EEA, UK, Switzerland, four US states and unplaceable people	Any domain you query
MCP server on the same key	Yes — REST /api/hub/v1 and MCP /api/hub/mcp	Official remote MCP server, every plan
Commitment	None: pay per call, monthly cap you set, no seats	Monthly or annual plan; Data Platform prepaid bundles

The full picture

Hunter.io is the developer-friendly email API most people reach for first: Domain Search lists the addresses published at a company, Email Finder guesses one person’s address with a confidence score, and Email Verifier runs an SMTP check and answers valid, invalid, accept_all, webmail, disposable or unknown. On its all-in-one plans every call draws on one monthly credit pool — Free with 50 credits, Starter at $49/month for 2,000, Growth at $149 for 10,000 and Scale at $299 for 25,000, about 30% less on annual billing — where a found email costs 1 credit, a verification 0.5 and an enrichment 0.2. An API-only Data Platform sells prepaid credit bundles that last 12 months, and Hunter runs an official remote MCP server that works on every plan, including Free.

BusinessMCP’s Data API is built around a different centre of gravity. One mcph_ key gives you company lookup by domain, company search by industry, location and size, IP to company from an IP graph we build ourselves every night, the email format a company uses, domain-level email checks, lead checks and — for people outside the regions we exclude — named decision-makers and work emails. It is the same store our own sales product runs on (34M companies), exposed over REST and as MCP tools. There is no plan: the first 1,000 credits each month are free and the rest bill at $2.00 per 1,000, with lookups charged only when something is found.

The honest split: if your job is “get me a verified address for this person”, Hunter is the specialist and does a check we deliberately do not do. If your job is “tell me who this company is, who is behind this IP, what their address format is, and whether their domain takes mail”, one Data API key covers it — and many teams will reasonably run both.

Why teams switch

Company and IP data on the same key

Hunter is an email tool with company enrichment beside it. The Data API is a company and network tool with email beside it: firmographics by domain (name, industry, employee range, location, phone, LinkedIn, website status), company search by industry and size at 2 credits per company returned, and IP to company at 1 credit per IP. None of that needs a second vendor or a second key.

No monthly bundle to use or lose

Hunter’s plan credits are a monthly allocation you size in advance; extra credit packs last three months and Data Platform credits twelve. Data API credits are metered: 1,000 free a month, then billed in arrears for what you actually called, under a monthly cap you set. A quiet month costs only what it used.

The format without paying for the addresses

email_pattern returns the address format a company uses ({first}.{last} and friends), how confident we are, whether it was validated by a live mailbox check when we built it, and whether the domain has MX and is catch-all — for 2 credits, charged only when a format is known. If you already have the names from your CRM, that is often all you need.

Check the lead, not just the address

lead_check scores a form fill on email-domain age, MX, disposable and free-mail domains, gibberish local parts, the submitting IP’s network class and headless-browser signals, and returns ok, suspect or spam with the reasons — the question a signup form actually asks. Hunter’s verifier answers whether one address bounces; it does not look at the IP or the browser.

Hunter.io pricing, broken down

Plan	Price	Notes
Free	$0	50 credits/mo; API key and MCP server included
Starter	$49/mo	$34/mo billed annually; 2,000 credits/mo; 3 connected email accounts
Growth	$149/mo	$104/mo billed annually; 10,000 credits/mo; 10 email accounts
Scale	$299/mo	$209/mo billed annually; 25,000 credits/mo; 20 email accounts
Enterprise	Custom	custom credits and account manager
Data Platform (API-only)	Prepaid bundles	no fixed table; the published example is $6,500 for 1,000 search + 200,000 verification credits, usable for 12 months
Credit use	1 · 0.5 · 0.2	1 credit per email found (Domain Search: 1 per 1–10 emails), 0.5 per verification, 0.2 per enriched email or domain
BusinessMCP Data API	1,000 free credits/mo · then $2.00 per 1,000	email_finder 15 credits ($0.030) when found · email_verify 1 credit ($0.002) · company_lookup 1 credit when found

Hunter prices are from hunter.io/pricing and Hunter’s help centre on 2026-09-28, cross-checked against a September 2026 teardown. Per credit, Hunter’s Starter plan works out near $0.025 and Scale near $0.012, so a found email on Scale is cheaper than our email_finder. BusinessMCP: the first 1,000 first-party credits each month are free; after that credits are billed in arrears at $2.00 per 1,000 for the first 100,000, falling to $0.80 per 1,000 above a million. New paying accounts start with a 50,000-credit monthly cap you can change. Prices come from the same file the charge path reads.

Where BusinessMCP is NOT the right choice

An alternatives page you can trust has to cut both ways. Honestly:

Our email_verify never opens an SMTP session, so it cannot tell you a specific mailbox exists: its verdicts are undeliverable, risky, domain_ok or unknown — never “valid”. If you need a per-mailbox answer before a send, use a verifier that performs the SMTP check. Hunter’s Email Verifier does exactly that — it is why our own sales product can use a Hunter key you connect (bring your own key) as its mailbox verifier.
The people tools (people_search, email_finder, person_enrich) need a card and accepted people-data terms, are never covered by the free credits, default to 500 records a day, and never return people in the EU, the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, people we place in California, Texas, Vermont and Oregon, or people we cannot place at all. A European or Californian prospect list is not something this API will build.
Per found email, Hunter can be cheaper: on its Scale plan a credit costs about $0.012 against $0.030 for our email_finder at the first tier, and an address we build from a company’s format comes back marked “pattern” — built, never checked — so you still need to verify it.
The Data API has no Chrome extension, no Google Sheets add-on, no bulk-file upload screen and no sending. Hunter bundles an extension, campaigns and connected email accounts; with us you call an endpoint from code or an agent.
The Data API is a young product from a small company. You get published per-call prices and direct founder support, not an account team, a long track record or an integrations marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

Do you use Hunter?

Yes, in one place. Our sales product can use a Hunter API key that you connect yourself (bring your own key) to SMTP-verify prospect addresses, because Hunter performs a mailbox check we do not. Nothing in the Data API calls Hunter, and we do not resell Hunter data.

What does Hunter.io cost?

On hunter.io/pricing (checked 28 September 2026): Free with 50 credits a month; Starter $49/month for 2,000 credits; Growth $149 for 10,000; Scale $299 for 25,000; about 30% less billed annually; Enterprise is custom. A found email costs 1 credit, a verification 0.5 and an enrichment 0.2. The API-only Data Platform sells prepaid bundles valid for 12 months.

Is BusinessMCP’s email_verify the same as Hunter’s Email Verifier?

No. Hunter connects to the mail server and can answer that a mailbox is valid. Our email_verify checks syntax, a live MX record, whether the domain is catch-all, disposable or free-mail, whether the address is a role inbox and whether it fits the company’s known format, and returns undeliverable, risky, domain_ok or unknown. domain_ok means the domain takes mail, not that the mailbox exists.

Can the Data API find emails at European companies?

Company-level tools work worldwide — lookup, search, email format and domain checks. The people tools do not: they never return people in the EU, the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, people we place in California, Texas, Vermont and Oregon, or people we cannot place at all, and anyone who opts out is removed and never returned again.

Does the Data API have an MCP server like Hunter’s?

Yes. The same mcph_ key works at /api/hub/mcp, where every tool you can call over REST is an MCP tool with the same price and the same errors. Hunter’s remote MCP server is also good; the difference is what the tools return, not whether MCP exists.

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How to migrate

1
Keep Hunter’s Email Verifier for any list you are about to send to — nothing in our API replaces an SMTP check.
2
Create a Data API key in the developer portal and move company enrichment first: call GET /api/hub/v1/companies/{domain}, which costs 1 credit only when a company is found.
3
Replace “find the format” Domain Search calls with email_pattern (2 credits when known), and add ip_lookup or lead_check where your signup flow needs them.
4
If your agents already speak MCP, point them at /api/hub/mcp with the same key; Hunter’s MCP server and ours can sit side by side in one client.

Sources & verification

Every price on this page traces to a public source, last verified September 28, 2026. Spotted a change? Tell us and we'll re-verify.

Keep reading

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