← All posts · 2026-06-18

Email Verification API Pricing: What You Should Pay

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Email verification is mostly a regex, a DNS lookup, and some list comparisons, yet the established providers charge like it's something far heavier. Here's how the pricing usually works, and where MailGuard lands.

How most providers price it

Per credit / per check: typically a fraction of a penny up to around a penny per verification, often sold in prepaid bundles.
Monthly tiers: a set number of checks per month, with steep jumps between tiers.
Free trials, not free tiers: a one-off bucket of trial credits, then it's pay to continue.

At "validate every signup" volumes, a penny a check adds up quickly, and you're often paying enterprise rates for checks that cost the vendor almost nothing.

How MailGuard prices it

MailGuard runs on serverless infrastructure with near-zero hosting cost, so it can pass the saving on:

Free: 500 checks per month, no card required. A genuine free tier, not a trial.
Paid plans from £5/month (Starter, then Pro and Scale), launching soon.

That works out to roughly £0.00005 to £0.0001 per check: up to 100× cheaper than the usual rates for the same syntax + MX + heuristic verification.

What you actually need to pay for

For the common case, validating emails at signup, you do not need the most expensive option. Syntax, MX, disposable/role detection, typo suggestions, and a deliverability score catch the large majority of bad addresses. Live SMTP mailbox probing costs more and is mainly worth it for cleaning old, cold lists, so don't pay for it if your job is keeping junk out of a signup form.

Start free

The free tier is live now: get a key (500/month, no card), or try the free email checker first. Paid plans are coming soon; email to register interest.

Try MailGuard free — 500 verifications a month, no card required. Get a key →