An open source Hunter.io alternative with deals built in

Why do teams look for a Hunter.io alternative?

Teams look for a Hunter.io alternative when they want their contacts, emails and deals in one tool, or want to run that tool themselves. Hunter is built around finding and verifying emails. Small teams that also need a pipeline and a newsletter often want those in the same place.

Hunter is an email finding and outreach tool. It has Domain Search, an Email Finder, an Email Verifier, a B2B database called Discover, and Sequences for cold email. Its free plan makes it easy to start. A few things come up as use grows:

• Plan steps. The free plan has 50 credits a month. The next step is Starter, with 2,000 credits a month.
• Credits. Finding an email uses 1 credit, and verifying one uses half a credit. Monthly credits reset each month and do not roll over.
• Extra tools. Many teams keep their deals in a CRM, and run newsletters and forms in yet another tool.

Each extra tool also holds a copy of your contacts. Under the GDPR, you answer for every copy, and fines can reach 4% of yearly global turnover. Fewer copies means less to secure.

How much does Hunter.io cost?

Hunter costs £41 (Starter), £125 (Growth) or £251 (Scale) a month on monthly billing, according to the Hunter pricing page. The page shows a 30% discount for paying yearly: £28, £87 and £175 a month, billed as £336, £1,044 and £2,100 a year. We checked every plan on 12 October 2026. Hunter showed us prices in pounds, from the UK. It may show another currency where you are.

• Free: £0, with 50 credits a month and 1 connected email account.
• Starter: 2,000 credits a month and 3 connected email accounts.
• Growth: 10,000 credits a month and 10 connected email accounts.
• Scale: 25,000 credits a month and 20 connected email accounts.
• Enterprise: custom, through Hunter's sales team.

An email found uses 1 credit, and an email verified uses 0.5. If Hunter cannot find the email, the search is free. On yearly billing, the whole year's credits are available up front. Team members are unlimited on every plan, and share one pool of credits.

MagpieCRM also charges for the work, not the headcount. On Magpie Cloud you pay £0.004 per prospect credit (1 for each prospect a search shows you)$0.006 per prospect credit (1 for each prospect a search shows you), 1 prospect credit (£0.004)1 prospect credit ($0.006) per verified email reveal and £0.15 per 1,000$0.25 per 1,000 emails sent. You choose a monthly allowance of each, paid up front, from £10/month$15/month:

• 1,000 prospects found, 600 verified email reveals and 10,000 emails sent a month comes to £7.90 on Magpie Cloud (1,600 prospect credits and the emails), within the £10 monthly minimum1,000 prospects found, 600 verified email reveals and 10,000 emails sent a month comes to $12.10 on Magpie Cloud (1,600 prospect credits and the emails), within the $15 monthly minimum.
• 2,000 prospects found, 2,000 verified email reveals and 25,000 emails sent a month comes to £19.75 on Magpie Cloud (4,000 prospect credits and the emails)2,000 prospects found, 2,000 verified email reveals and 25,000 emails sent a month comes to $30.25 on Magpie Cloud (4,000 prospect credits and the emails).

These are not like-for-like. A Hunter credit buys one email found, or two emails verified. On Magpie Cloud you pay for each prospect a search shows you, and again for each verified email. Unused allowance does not roll over. If you run out, you can upgrade and pay the difference for the rest of the month. Self-hosted MagpieCRM is free. You pay your data and email providers directly.

MagpieCRM vs Hunter.io: feature comparison

MagpieCRM and Hunter both find work emails, verify them and send email sequences. Hunter goes deeper on finding and verifying. MagpieCRM is a smaller, open source tool that adds campaigns and deal tracking. The table puts the two side by side. Hunter details come from the Hunter pricing, data and Email Verifier pages.

The main difference is where each tool goes deep. Hunter is an email finder and verifier first, with cold email on top. MagpieCRM finds verified contacts, emails them in campaigns or short email sequences, and tracks the deals that follow in a pipeline.

Where is Hunter.io stronger than MagpieCRM?

Hunter is stronger at finding and verifying emails. The Hunter data page lists 150 million professional email addresses indexed and 650 million public sources of data. MagpieCRM has no contact database of its own. It searches through SocialFetch, and works out each address from a name and a company domain.

The Hunter Email Verifier checks any address or list you give it, and can verify accept-all addresses with several major email providers. MagpieCRM only checks the addresses it finds. Contacts you import are not verified. The pricing page also lists browser extensions, a Google Sheets add-on, an API, A/B testing and email account rotation.

Hunter is likely the better fit if:

• You already have names or domains, and only need the emails for them.
• You need to verify lists you already hold, in bulk.
• You work from a browser extension, Google Sheets or an API.
• You A/B test your cold emails, or rotate sending across many email accounts.

MagpieCRM is early access software, at version 0.9.41. It is built around verified work emails, simple campaigns and email sequences. It has no phone numbers, no dialer, no LinkedIn or call steps and no A/B tests. For a small team that wants prospecting, email and deals in one place, that trade can be worth it. If finding and verifying emails is all you need, stay with Hunter.

What do you get with MagpieCRM?

MagpieCRM gives small B2B teams, founders and agencies one open source tool to find verified contacts and email them. We built it to keep that job simple and cheap. Today, at version 0.9.41, the app includes:

• Prospect search. Search companies by keyword, industry, headcount and country. Search people by title, seniority, country and keyword.
• Verified emails. Each email is checked with the company's mail server. Out of the box, only verified emails are saved.
• Contacts and lists. Import from CSV or paste, add custom fields, build lists and personas, and export any time.
• Campaigns. Build emails with drag and drop or a template, schedule them, and track opens and clicks.
• Sequences. Send a few plain-text emails to each person, days apart. A sequence stops for a person when they reply, unsubscribe or bounce.
• Deals and pipelines. Track deals on a drag-and-drop board, with a value, owner and close date. Run more than one pipeline, each with its own stages.
• Forms and surveys. Collect sign-ups through forms or an API, and run surveys with branching.
• AI. A copilot on your own Anthropic or OpenAI key, and an MCP server for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and the OpenAI Codex CLI.

MagpieCRM keeps only a prospect's name, title, seniority, company, domain, country and profile URL. Search results are never stored.

How does MagpieCRM verify emails on Magpie Cloud?

MagpieCRM verifies an email by asking the company's mail server whether the address exists. The check stops before any message is sent. On Magpie Cloud, these checks run from our own pool of verification IPs, with our own verification domain. Your domain and your servers are never used for verification, so your reputation is not at risk.

• Checks are spread across the pool and rate-limited per IP, per mail provider and per company.
• If one IP is refused, the check is retried on another.
• Our IPs and verification domain are checked against blocklists every 6 hours. A listed IP is taken out of use until it is clean.
• Prospect data is included, so you need no SocialFetch account of your own.
• Sending needs only a few DNS records, and bounces and complaints are handled for you.

Self-hosting is free, but verification takes real work. You need outbound port 25, which most cloud providers block. You also need clean proxy IPs, reverse DNS and SPF for a verification domain, blocklist checks and rate-limit tuning. Then add your own SocialFetch and sending accounts. On Cloud, updates are also applied for you.

How do you move from Hunter.io to MagpieCRM?

You move from Hunter by exporting your leads to CSV, then importing them into MagpieCRM. Then set up sending and build your first campaign or sequence. A sequence sends your follow-ups for you and stops when someone replies. Check each email against the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide before you send.

1. Verify your leads in Hunter first, because MagpieCRM does not check imported contacts.
2. Export your leads from Hunter to CSV.
3. Import the CSV into MagpieCRM, and map each column to a field.
4. On Magpie Cloud, add the DKIM record we show you, and DMARC if you don't have it yet. Self-hosted, connect SMTP or your own email provider.
5. Build your email in the drag-and-drop builder, then schedule the campaign, or write a short sequence.
6. Keep a Hunter plan if you still need Domain Search, bulk verification or A/B tests.