How to Find Someone's Email Address
Three ways that work, and a tool that only charges on a hit.
The methods that actually work
Three approaches carry the weight. The rest is noise. Here is what each one is and when to reach for it.
Most guides on how to find someone's email address hand you ten browser tricks and hope one sticks. Three methods do the real work: guess the company's pattern and verify it, read the person's LinkedIn, or run a finder that does both.
1. Guess the pattern, then verify. Most companies use one format for everyone, like first.last@company.com or flast@company.com. Copy the shape of one known address, apply it to your target's name, then run an SMTP check before you send.
2. Read it off their LinkedIn. A profile ties a name to a current employer and title. That is enough to derive the work email once you know the company's pattern, and it is the input every serious finder starts from.
3. Use a finder that returns a verified email. A good tool takes a name and company, or a LinkedIn URL, and hands back one work email it has already checked. That is what our LinkedIn person endpoint does, covered next.
One verified email per profile
Our LinkedIn person endpoint takes a public profile and returns the person's details plus one verified work email. The email comes back only when it passes the check, and you pay only when one is found.
Point it at a public profile URL. It reads the logged-out page, derives the work email, and verifies it against the mail server before returning the row. No verified email, no charge.
How do you get started?
No code needed. From zero to a verified email in about two minutes:
- 1
Create a free account. Try it free, no card needed.
- 2
Paste a LinkedIn profile URL in the playground. The person and their verified email land in a table.
- 3
Export the CSV, or run the curl below with your key. Same data as JSON.
The response as a flat CSV, the way the playground renders it:
Every field on the profile comes back alongside the email, so you get the person and their address in one call.
Related: LinkedIn email finder · LinkedIn people search API (beta) · Email scraper
Finder tools, side by side
The email-finder market runs on monthly credit plans. Hunter's free credits reset each month (hunter.io); Apollo bills per seat and its credits expire each cycle (apollo.io). Here is where they land against our pricing.
| Hunter.io | Apollo.io | CrustAPI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free per month | 50 searches | Free tier, capped credits | $6 of free usage each month |
| Unused paid funds / quota | Reset monthly | Expire each cycle | Never expire |
| Charge on a miss | No | Credit rules vary | Successful profile responses are billed. Work email lookup is included when available. |
| Access model | Web + API | Per-seat SaaS | One API, no seats |
| Entry price | Starter ~$34/mo billed yearly | Basic ~$49/seat/mo | Work email lookup included with LinkedIn profiles |
CrustAPI uses prepaid funds. A successful LinkedIn profile request starts at $0.006 with work email lookup included. Email availability varies; the profile request is the billing unit. Paid funds never expire, and the monthly free allowance is $6.
You need a whole domain or a full sales suite: Hunter's Domain Search returns every public email pattern for a company in one shot, and Apollo wraps a CRM, sequences, and a dialer around its data. For those jobs, they win. We do one thing: a verified work email for one person.
What you can't reliably find
A page that promises to find "anyone's" email is selling you something. Here is where the methods above stop working, so you know before you start.
Personal addresses. A private Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook address is tied to no company pattern and no public directory. It is not reliably findable from public data, and we do not claim to return it.
People with no public footprint. If someone has no LinkedIn profile and their company lists no staff, there is nothing to match a name against. The pattern trick needs a known address to copy, and the LinkedIn method needs a profile to read.
Google Maps listings. A Maps record gives you a business name, phone, website, and address; there is no email field anywhere in Maps data. To reach a person, use the LinkedIn profile endpoint; the Maps scraper API shows what Maps does return.
How much does finding an email cost?
Work email lookup is included with one found, verified email. A lookup that turns up nothing costs nothing, so you are never billed for a dead search.
| Deposit | Google Search / 1,000 requests | Maps / 1,000 businesses | LinkedIn reads / 1,000 requests | People, Jobs, Refresh / 1,000 units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10+ | $1.00 | $1.96 | $6.00 | $1.96 |
| $149+ | $0.76 | $1.49 | $4.50 | $1.49 |
| $549+ | $0.56 | $1.10 | $3.30 | $1.10 |
| $1,999+ | $0.41 | $0.80 | $2.45 | $0.80 |
| $6,500+ | $0.33 | $0.65 | $1.95 | $0.65 |
| $27,500+ | $0.28 | $0.55 | $1.65 | $0.55 |
| $50,000+ | $0.26 | $0.50 | $1.50 | $0.50 |
| $100,000+ | $0.20 | $0.40 | $1.50 | $0.40 |
Every eligible account gets $6 of free usage monthly. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent; paid funds never expire. People and Jobs bill per successful search, Refresh per accessible profile. Full profiles in People use the read rate per full profile. See all billing details.
Larger deposits unlock lower endpoint prices. Each deposit keeps its prices until spent. See the full deposit table on the pricing page. Prices in USD, ex-tax.
Funds are prepaid and never expire, so an unused pack is still yours next year.
Who uses an email finder?
- Sales teams. Turn a list of LinkedIn profiles into verified inboxes and start outreach the same day.
- Recruiters. Reach a candidate directly instead of waiting on an InMail that never gets opened.
- Founders. Find the exact buyer at a target account without paying for a per-seat platform.
- Agencies. Build client prospect lists that pass the bounce check before the first send.
Common questions
Work emails, yes, when the person has a LinkedIn profile or a company footprint to match against. Personal addresses like a private Gmail or Yahoo are a different case. They are not reliably findable from public data, so we do not claim to return them.
The address is checked against the mail server before it is returned, the same SMTP check you would run by hand. If it does not pass, the row comes back without an email and you are not charged for that lookup.
Logged-out, public-only collection has repeatedly defeated computer-fraud and contract claims. We handle the collection, and what you get is data that is public for anyone to see. Sending the email is on you, so follow local rules like CAN-SPAM and GDPR.
Work email lookup is included in a successful LinkedIn profile request. You pay for the profile, including when no email is available. Private, empty or failed profile requests are free.
No. Google Maps listings carry a name, phone, website, and full address, but there is no email field anywhere in Maps data, from us or anyone. Person emails come from the LinkedIn profile endpoint, not a business listing.
Most companies use one email format for everyone, like first.last@company.com or first@company.com. Find one known address at the company, copy its shape, and apply it to your target's name. Verify the result before you send so you do not hit a bounce.
Clay
Find the email, skip the guesswork
Get a public LinkedIn profile with a verified work email when available. Successful profile responses are billed even when no email is found. Empty or failed profile responses cost nothing. Start with $6 of free usage each month, no credit card required.
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