Hunter.io vs Snov.io Pricing: Cost Per Credit at Every Tier

Hunter.io starts at $49 a month for 2,000 credits and Snov.io starts at $39 for 1,000, so Snov.io is cheaper on the sticker and Hunter.io is cheaper per unit of work. Hunter gives you 2.4 times the credits for 26 percent more money, and it charges half a credit per email verification where Snov.io charges a full one. Once you convert both to cost per verified address, Hunter is roughly three times cheaper. Snov.io answers back with a second meter, included warm up and mailboxes at half the price.

Both prices below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 5 September 2026, not from a comparison article. That matters here more than usual, because both companies request in a way that returns euro figures to European visitors, and because the two products do not meter the same thing.

The two ladders side by side

Hunter runs three paid tiers plus a free plan and a custom Enterprise tier. Snov.io runs a Starter, then a Pro band split into S, M, L and Ultra steps, plus a Custom Ultra tier.

Hunter discounts about 30 percent for annual billing, taking Starter to an effective $34 a month and Growth to $104. Snov.io discounts 25 percent annually and 5 percent for a three month commitment. Both include unlimited team seats on every plan, which is worth stating plainly because Apollo, the third tool people put on this shortlist, enforces a three seat minimum that turns its $49 sticker into $147.

Cost per credit, which is where the sticker price misleads

At the entry tier a Hunter credit costs $0.0245 and a Snov.io credit costs $0.039, so Hunter is about 37 percent cheaper per credit despite the higher monthly price. The gap narrows at the next step up but does not close.

Then the verification rate widens it again. Hunter charges 0.5 credit per email verification, stated in a tooltip on its plan comparison. Snov.io states in its own plan notes that each email verification and each prospect costs 1 credit. So a verification costs $0.01225 on Hunter Starter and $0.039 on Snov.io Starter. If your monthly job is cleaning a list rather than building one, that is a 3.2x difference and it decides the comparison on its own.

Snov.io's second meter: recipients

Credits are only half of Snov.io's billing. It separately meters recipients, and the rule is specific: you are charged one recipient the first time you contact a lead by email or LinkedIn, and every follow up to that person inside the same billing period is free. Starter includes 5,000 recipients and Pro S includes 25,000, with unlimited monthly emails on both.

Hunter has no recipient meter. What it has instead is a per sequence ceiling: 500 recipients per sequence on Free, 2,500 on Starter, 5,000 on Growth and 15,000 on Scale. These are different constraints and they bite differently. Snov.io's meter punishes contacting many distinct people and rewards long follow up chains. Hunter's cap does not care how many people you contact in a month, only how many fit in one sequence, so a 6,000 name campaign has to be split into two sequences on Growth, which also splits the reporting.

Mailboxes and warm up, where Snov.io wins

Snov.io sells extra email accounts at $5 a month and includes warm up in the plan; Hunter sells extra mailboxes from $10 a month and sells warm up as an Inbox Protection add-on. Snov.io's Starter includes 3 warm ups and Pro S makes them unlimited. Hunter includes 3 connected mailboxes on Starter, 10 on Growth and 20 on Scale.

Build a ten mailbox setup and the difference is real money. On Hunter you either take Growth at $149 for ten included, or stay on Starter at $49 and add seven mailboxes at $10 or more each, which is at least $119 for a quarter of the credits. On Snov.io Starter you add seven at $5, which is $74 a month all in, with warm up counted separately. Snov.io also sells sending domains from $12 a year if you would rather not register them yourself.

The catch on Snov.io is LinkedIn. Its multichannel campaigns are advertised throughout the product, but LinkedIn account slots are not included in any plan. They are $69 a month per slot, or $62 on an annual subscription, with a further $10 off per slot if you also hold an active Sales Suite subscription. One LinkedIn seat therefore costs more than the entire Starter plan it attaches to.

Which one should you buy?

Buy Hunter.io if verification volume is the bulk of your work, if you want the cheapest cost per credit, or if you value the free tier for testing match rate before committing. The half credit verification rate and the roughly 30 percent annual discount are its two strongest commercial arguments, and the full ladder including the API rate limits is broken down on our Hunter.io pricing page.

Buy Snov.io if you need many sending mailboxes, if you want warm up included rather than sold as an add-on, or if follow up depth matters more than breadth, since its recipient meter makes long sequences free after first contact. Just price the LinkedIn slots separately before you commit, and read the credit rules carefully, because a verification costs twice what it does on Hunter. Our Snov.io alternatives page covers the other tools in that band.

Buy neither if you already have your list. Both products price a contact database into every tier, and if your data comes from a CRM export, a provider you already pay, or your own customer records, the credit pool is capacity you will not touch. In that case the mailbox cap is the only limit that binds, and it is the most expensive way either tool sells mailboxes. Sending through mailboxes you already own removes that line entirely. It is also worth deciding in advance who picks up the replies, because a shared inbox with unlimited seats still needs something that routes each reply to the right rep before the lead goes cold.

Does Hunter.io or Snov.io allow cold email?

Both do. Hunter markets its outreach platform as a way to find, verify, and send cold emails, and Snov.io's whole product is built around prospecting and outreach sequences. Neither prohibits the use case the way a marketing email platform does. Both send through mailboxes you connect, so the sending reputation at stake is your own domain's rather than the vendor's, which is the correct architecture for cold outreach but also means domain setup, warm up and volume discipline stay your responsibility. If you want the full field priced rather than just these two, our cold email software pricing comparison covers every major vendor.

The short version

Snov.io is cheaper to start and cheaper to scale mailboxes. Hunter.io is cheaper per credit at every comparable tier and roughly three times cheaper per verification. Snov.io includes warm up and unlimited monthly emails but charges $69 a month for a LinkedIn seat and meters the people you contact. Hunter caps recipients per sequence and puts the custom tracking domain, which any serious cold sender needs, behind the $149 plan. Pick on which meter matches your work, not on the $39 against $49.