Email Verification: Syntax, MX, Disposable, Role and Optional SMTP

Keyless bulk email verification for list cleaning. The Actor checks practical syntax, domain mail routing (MX with implicit A/AAAA fallback), a built-in disposable-domain list, role-account patterns, and free-provider domains. It can optionally make one short SMTP recipient probe per address.

Honest scope

This Actor does not claim that an inbox exists, that a person owns it, or that a future message will be delivered. A domain with MX records can still reject a recipient, use a catch-all, block probes, or accept mail temporarily. SMTP acceptance is labelled as a best-effort protocol response, not proof of deliverability. SMTP timeouts, port-25 blocks, provider anti-enumeration, and catch-all behavior are returned as inconclusive.

No email is sent. No login, API key, residential proxy, mailbox access, or guessed address is used. DNS-over-HTTPS is used so cloud DNS behavior is consistent and bounded by a deadline.

Input

{
  "emails": ["person@example.com", "info@example.com", "bad@@example.com"],
  "checkSmtp": false,
  "smtpTimeoutMs": 5000,
  "maxConcurrency": 10
}

Duplicate addresses are normalized and verified once. With an empty emails array, the Actor returns one _sample: true row and charges nothing. Diagnostic and sample rows are never charged.

Output

Each completed address returns status (valid, risky, invalid, or unknown), confidence (a heuristic 0-100 score), syntax, domain, MX evidence, disposable and role flags, free-provider flag, and an optional SMTP object. valid means the address passed syntax and domain mail-routing checks; it is deliberately not a mailbox guarantee.

SMTP behavior

When checkSmtp is true, the Actor connects to the first MX host on TCP port 25 and sends EHLO, MAIL FROM, and RCPT TO, with an 8-second maximum per connection. It never sends a message. Cloud providers frequently block port 25 or mail providers deliberately prevent mailbox enumeration. In those cases the row remains valid/unknown based on MX evidence and the SMTP field says inconclusive; it is never upgraded to a deliverability claim.

Pricing

$0.60 per 1,000 verifications ($0.0006 each), plus $0.001 each time a run starts. Flat rate — no volume tiers, no plan gates — and you are charged only for verifications actually returned.

That rate is the same on every Apify plan. The other actively-used verifiers are tiered or dearer — checked against the Store on 10 August 2026:

Actor	Monthly users	Free plan	Cheapest tier
michael.g/email-verifier-validator	391	$100.00 / 1k	$0.60 / 1k (Gold and above)
bounceverify/bounceverify-email-verifier	296	$0.89 / 1k	$0.89 / 1k
fatihtahta/email-verifier-validator-pro	161	$2.00 / 1k	$0.89 / 1k

Invalid-syntax rows are still completed checks and are billed once; empty, sample and diagnostic rows are not billed. No residential proxy is required.

From 24 August 2026 the per-verification price becomes $0.00199 ($1.99 per 1,000); the $0.001 run-start fee is unchanged.

Responsible use

Use only on addresses you are permitted to process. Respect privacy, anti-spam, data-protection, and recipient-domain policies. Results are list-cleaning signals, not consent or permission to send.

Billing

Two charges apply: a $0.001 run-start fee each time a run begins, and the per-result fee for results actually delivered. Samples, diagnostics, duplicates, blocked look-ups and no-result runs never incur the per-result fee — a run that returns nothing costs only the $0.001 start fee.