Email validation checks whether your contacts’ email addresses are valid before you add them to a Multichannel sequence. It helps you avoid sending to addresses that will bounce.
Validate your contacts. Run validation when you upload contacts or before you add them to a Multichannel sequence. Validation can't be run on a contact once it has been added to a sequence.
Watch the run. While a run is in progress, you can see validated contacts, the Safe and Unsafe split, and the ESP breakdown as results come in. You don't need to wait for the run to finish.
Review the results. Each contact gets a validation status, such as Safe, Catch-all, Role account, or Invalid. Contacts that couldn't be checked appear as Unvalidated under the Unsafe tab.
Choose who to add. By default, only Safe contacts are selected when you add contacts to a sequence. In the Multichannel builder, the Is email validated condition selects Safe, Catch-all and Role account by default. You can change the selection before you add contacts.
Re-run if needed. Re-run validation on only the Unvalidated contacts.
If a run can’t start, for example because you don’t have enough credits, it’s rejected straight away and nothing is charged. If a run can’t finish, you can review the results you have and re-run validation on any Unvalidated contacts. Credits for the part of the run that wasn’t completed are refunded automatically.
Each contact you validate uses 1 credit. Credits are reserved when a validation run starts. If part of the run can’t be completed, the unused credits are refunded automatically.
Safe: the address passed all checks. This is the only status that sends by default.
Invalid: the address failed syntax, domain or mail-server checks.
Disabled: the mailbox exists but has been disabled.
Disposable: a temporary or throwaway email provider.
Inbox full: the mailbox is full and can't accept mail.
Catch-all: the domain accepts mail for any address, so the specific inbox can't be confirmed. These contacts can still bounce later. For cold outreach, we recommend excluding them or testing them in small batches.
Role account: a shared address such as info@ or support@.
Spam trap: the address is flagged as a spam trap. Don't send to these.
Unknown: the check ran, but the status couldn't be determined. Leads imported from HubSpot often start here.
Unvalidated: the contact hasn't been checked yet, for example because validation credits ran out. Check these before you launch a sequence.
Unknown and Unvalidated are different. Unknown means a check ran but couldn't reach a conclusion. Unvalidated means no check has run yet.
Validation status and ESP are separate filters. Contacts whose email provider is Anti-spam software (for example Proofpoint or Mimecast) are excluded by default, even when their status is Safe. These addresses are likely to bounce, so we don’t recommend sending cold email to them.
In the Multichannel sequence builder, add the Is email validated condition and run validation when you add contacts. The condition selects contacts with the Safe, Catch-all and Role account statuses, and this selection is set when the condition is created. Contacts that match follow the Yes branch. Contacts that don’t match, or that were never validated, follow the No branch.
Validation runs are asynchronous, with statuses completed, partially_completed, and failed, plus finishedAt and failureCode fields. You can fetch partial results while a run is still processing. Insufficient credits return a 402 error.
