EmailKingEmailKing vs Hunter.io — Pricing, Features, and Which to Pick
Competitor prices in this article were list prices as of September 30, 2026. For our re-verified, sourced comparison see EmailKing vs Hunter.io.
Hunter.io is a good tool — this is not a hit piece. The two products solve different problems, and the right answer depends on your workflow. Here is the difference, based on list prices and publicly documented features (prices checked Sep 2026; they change, so confirm on each official site).
At a Glance
| EmailKing | Hunter.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | Starter: $9/mo or $90/yr — 500 URLs/mo | Starter: $49/mo on monthly billing, or $34/mo billed annually — 2,000 credits/mo |
| Free tier | 25 URLs/mo | Free plan: 50 credits/mo |
| Approach | Reads the web pages you choose, live, and extracts the emails they publish + syntax/MX checks | Domain Search over its own index of known addresses |
| Bulk | Starter and up: up to 10,000 URLs per session, CSV/TXT export | Varies by plan |
The units differ: EmailKing counts one extraction per URL processed (with no cap on the emails found on it), while Hunter.io prices its plans in its own units, as shown above. Compare against your actual workload.
What Hunter.io Does Well
- Domain Search: lists known email addresses for a company domain from its index — no need to know which page to look at
- Built-in cold-email Sequences, so finding and sending live in one tool
- Chrome extension for finding emails while browsing
Best for: Teams that want a household-name tool with domain search and sending in one place, and are fine with the price
Where EmailKing Fits
Hunter.io's entry paid plan is $34–49/mo versus $9 for EmailKing Starter, and its Domain Search draws on a pre-built index rather than reading the page you point it at. EmailKing has no sequences or Chrome extension — it extracts and checks, nothing more.
EmailKing's approach is simple: you give it the websites you already know, it reads the page live, decodes obfuscated addresses (mailto links, [at]/(at) spellings, Cloudflare email protection, encoded strings), and checks the site's contact/about/team pages when the main page shows none. Each address gets a syntax check, a DNS MX lookup, a disposable-domain check and a label showing whether it matches the site's domain. No index means you're not limited to companies someone else has catalogued — but it also means EmailKing can only find addresses a site actually publishes, and it does not test whether an individual mailbox exists.
Verdict — Which Should You Pick
- Pick Hunter.io if: teams that want a household-name tool with domain search and sending in one place, and are fine with the price.
- Pick EmailKing if: your goal is pulling the emails published on websites you already know and building lists fast, starting at $9/mo. The free plan (25 URLs/mo) lets you check the fit first.