Email permutator: every likely work email for any name, and how to test them

An email permutator lists every likely work email address for one person from three inputs: first name, last name and company domain. Below are the 16 email permutations to try for any name, a one-cell spreadsheet formula that builds them for you, and how to find out which one is real without sending a single email.

Want to skip the guessing? Scalelist’s Email Finder returns the verified address for 1 credit, and nothing if it finds none.

In our own benchmark of 8 providers, run on the same list of founders per region, Scalelist found an email for 92% of the North America list. The raw data is on our B2B data provider comparison.

What is an email permutator?

An email permutator is a tool or template that combines a person’s first name, last name and company domain into every common email format, such as dana.whitfield@, dwhitfield@ and dana@. Each combination is one email permutation, a guess at the real address.

A permutator only tells you what the address could be. One guess may be the real inbox, or none may be, and on some company mail servers you cannot tell them apart without a verifier. That is why the second half of this page matters more than the first.

Email permutations for any name

These are the 16 permutations to try for a first name, a last name and a domain. The example uses Dana Whitfield, Head of Operations at Northwind Fabrication (northwindfab.com), a fictional company in Columbus, Ohio.

There is no official ranking of these formats. If you can find one real address from a named employee, you only need one row: our company email format guide shows where to look.

Build your own email permutator in Google Sheets or Excel

Put the first name in A2, the last name in B2 and the domain in C2. This one formula returns all 16 permutations in one cell, in the same order as the table.

Two useful variations:

• One address per row. In Google Sheets, wrap the formula in =TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(...,", ")). In Excel 365, use =TEXTSPLIT(...,,", ").
• Clean names first. Remove apostrophes and spaces with =LOWER(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"'","")," ","")), so O’Neill becomes oneill and De La Cruz becomes delacruz. Replace accents by hand: José becomes jose.

For hyphenated last names such as Smith-Jones, run the formula twice: once with the hyphen and once without it.

Why every email permutation needs verification

Every permutation needs verification because a permutator lists possibilities, not addresses. If you test 16 guesses by sending, up to 15 of them bounce, and bounces damage the sending domain you need for the rest of your outreach.

For scale: Hunter’s 2025 data put the average cold email bounce rate at 3.6%, and Instantly advises keeping bounces under 2%. Fifteen bounces from one person would blow through either number on a small campaign.

A verifier checks each address without sending anything:

1. Syntax: is the address well formed? (RFC 5321 caps the part before the @ at 64 characters.)
2. Domain and MX: does the domain exist and have mail servers?
3. Mailbox: the verifier opens an SMTP conversation with the company’s mail server, asks whether it accepts mail for that address, and hangs up before any message is sent.
4. Catch-all: does the server say yes to every address, including ones that cannot exist?

Our guide to verifying an email address without sending walks through each check in detail.

The fourth check is the trap. On a catch-all domain all 16 permutations pass, which means none is confirmed. ZeroBounce reports that more than 9% of the addresses submitted to it in 2025 were catch-all.

Scalelist labels a found email on these domains Risky; its help center says about 20 to 30% of Risky emails are deliverable. More in our guide to catch-all emails.

How to test email permutations with Scalelist

You can test your guesses, or skip them and let Scalelist find the address. Both end with a status you can act on.

1. Skip the permutations. Enter the full name and company domain in the Email Finder. Scalelist finds and verifies the address and returns it as Valid or Risky. 1 credit if found, 0 if not.
2. Check the guesses you already have. Paste them into the Scalelist Email Verifier, which checks syntax, domain, MX, SMTP, catch-all, disposable addresses and spam traps. Verification is included in every plan.
3. Do it for a whole list. Upload a CSV of names and domains to the bulk email finder instead of building permutations row by row. 1 credit per email found.

Email permutator, email finder or email verifier?

Each tool answers a different question. The permutator answers “what could the address be?”, the verifier answers “is this address real?”, and the finder answers both at once.

When an email permutator is the right tool

A permutator earns its place in a few specific situations:

• One key account where tools come back empty. A new company, a tiny team or a recent domain change.
• A contact you met in person. You have the name and the company from a badge or a card, but not the address.
• Working out a company’s format. Verify permutations for two or three employees and the pattern for the whole account becomes clear.
• A domain change. The company rebranded; the old format probably carries over to the new domain, but verify it.

For anything more than a handful of people, a finder is cheaper than your time. For finding people as well as their emails, start from the company email finder guide.

What it costs

The permutator on this page costs nothing. In Scalelist, finding the address costs 1 credit per email found (Valid or Risky), a mobile number costs 20 credits per number found, and a miss costs 0. Email verification is included.

Plans start at 29 USD a month for 500 credits, and new accounts get 20 free credits with no credit card. See the Scalelist pricing page for the full grid. Emails and mobiles are one part of finding business contact information; the rest of that guide covers the other channels.

FAQ

What is an email permutation?

An email permutation is one possible version of a person’s work email, built from their first name, last name and company domain in a specific format, such as first.last@ or flast@. A permutator generates all the common versions at once. Only verification tells you which permutation, if any, is the real inbox.

How many email permutations should I try?

Start with the 16 in the table above; they cover the formats built from first names, last names and initials. If you know the company’s format from one real address, you only need that single permutation. If none of the 16 verifies, the person may use a nickname, a middle initial or a different domain.

Can I check an email permutation without sending an email?

Yes. An email verifier checks syntax, the domain’s mail servers, and whether the server accepts mail for that exact address, then disconnects before any message is sent. Scalelist’s Email Verifier does this and is included in every plan. Never test permutations by sending real emails.

Why do all my permutations show as deliverable?

Because the company’s mail server is catch-all: it accepts mail for any address, so every permutation passes and none is confirmed. Scalelist marks found emails on these domains Risky. About 20 to 30% of Risky emails are deliverable, per Scalelist’s help center, so send them separately from a secondary domain.

Does Scalelist have an email permutator tool?

No. Scalelist skips that step: its Email Finder takes a name and a company domain and returns the verified address with a status, for 1 credit only if it finds one. Use the table and the formula on this page when you want to build the guesses yourself.

Which email format is the most common?

There is no reliable published ranking, so treat any percentage you see with caution. The quickest answer for one company is a real address from one of its employees, found on a press release, a team page or a blog author box. Read that pattern and apply it to your prospect’s name.

Sources

• RFC 5321: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
• Hunter: The State of Cold Email (2025 data)
• Instantly: Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026
• ZeroBounce: The Email List Decay Report for 2026
• Scalelist help center: Can we use the risky emails found by Scalelist?