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Email verification results: what Valid, Risky and Not found mean

Q: How do Scalelist statuses compare to ZeroBounce or NeverBounce?

They map directly. Scalelist's Valid matches valid at ZeroBounce and NeverBounce and good at MillionVerifier. Risky matches catch-all, catchall or risky. Scalelist does not return addresses those tools call invalid or bad; the person shows as Not found instead, at 0 credits.

Every email Scalelist finds for you comes back with one of three email verification results: Valid, Risky or Not found. Read them wrong and you either burn your main domain on catch-all addresses, or you drop people you could still reach by phone.

This guide explains what each result means, how Scalelist decides it, what it costs, what to do with it in a cadence, and how the labels map to ZeroBounce, NeverBounce and MillionVerifier. It is one step in our playbook for finding business contact information.

What do the email verification results mean?

Scalelist’s email verification results answer one question: can this mailbox be confirmed before you send? Wherever Scalelist finds an email for you (Lead Finder, the Email Finder, a bulk CSV upload, the Chrome extension or the Google Sheets add-on), the email status is one of these three.

Valid

The email was found and its mailbox was verified: the recipient’s mail server confirmed the mailbox exists. Valid emails are the only ones that belong in a sequence sent from your main sales domain.

Risky

The email was found, but the company’s domain accepts every address, so nobody can confirm this specific mailbox. That setup is called catch-all or accept-all. Risky does not mean dead: Scalelist’s help center estimates about 20 to 30% of Risky emails are deliverable.

Not found

No email address was found for this person. You are charged nothing. The person is still reachable: look up their mobile number and call.

Where you see the statuses in Scalelist

A list in Scalelist shows the split between Valid, Risky and Not found at the top, before you export or push anything.

Scalelist product screenshot of a list: 80 leads, 66 emails found, 56 Valid (70%), 10 Risky (12.5%), 14 Not found (17.5%), 77 phone numbers — Scalelist product screenshot: the list view splits emails into Valid, Risky and Not found, so you can route each group before you send.

In this demo list of 80 leads, 66 got an email: 56 Valid and 10 Risky. The other 14 are Not found. These are demo numbers, not a benchmark. At 1 credit per email found, the emails in this list cost 66 credits, and the 14 misses cost nothing.

You meet the same statuses outside the list view:

HubSpot: choose Push Valid Emails Only to keep Risky addresses out of your CRM.
Google Sheets: the add-on writes Email, Status and Result columns into your sheet.
API: developers can check addresses over the email verification API (POST /api/v1/email/verify).

How Scalelist decides the status

Scalelist verifies every email before it returns it, so the status reflects checks that already ran. Scalelist finds and verifies contact details on demand rather than serving a pre-compiled list.

Seven email verification checks (syntax, domain, MX, SMTP mailbox, catch-all, disposable, spam traps) leading to a Valid, Risky or Not found status — The status is the outcome of seven checks: only a mailbox the server confirms, on a domain that is not catch-all, comes back Valid.

The seven checks answer different questions:

Syntax: is the address correctly formed?
Domain and MX records: does the domain exist, and is it set up to receive mail?
SMTP mailbox check: does the mail server confirm this mailbox? No message is sent.
Catch-all test: does the server say yes to every address, real or not?
Disposable and spam-trap signals: is it a throwaway domain or a trap address?

The rule that follows is simple. A confirmed mailbox is Valid. A mailbox on a catch-all domain is Risky, because the server’s yes proves nothing. When no address for the person passes, the result is Not found. Our guide on how to verify an email address explains each check in depth.

Catch-all domains: why Risky exists

Risky exists because a catch-all domain answers “yes” for dana@, dana.whitfield@ and a random string alike. The mailbox check that proves a Valid email cannot tell a real person from a made-up address there.

Catch-all is common. ZeroBounce found more than 9% of the addresses its customers submitted in 2025 were catch-all (vendor data; more in our email verification statistics). Calling those emails Valid would hide real bounce risk, and calling them dead would throw away reachable people. Our catch-all email guide covers how to send to them safely.

What each result costs

You pay 1 credit per email found, whether it is Valid or Risky, and nothing when no email is found. Checking emails you already have is included in every plan.

Result	Credits	Why
Valid	1	An email was found and its mailbox confirmed
Risky	1	An email was found; the domain hides the mailbox answer
Not found	0	Nothing found, nothing charged
Verifying an email you already have	Included	Verification is included in every plan

A mobile number costs 20 credits, also only when one is found, and a lead found in Lead Finder costs 1. So a fully enriched lead (lead, email and mobile) costs 22 credits. New accounts get 20 free credits, no credit card required, and paid plans start at 29 USD a month (Scalelist pricing).

What to do with each status in your cadence

Route each status to its own track: Valid into your main email sequence, Risky to the phone first and a secondary domain second, and Not found straight to the phone.

Decision figure for email verification statuses: Valid goes to the main sequence, Risky to a call then a secondary domain, Not found to the phone — One list, three tracks: only Valid emails ever touch your main sending domain.

Here is how that looks as a 7-day cadence for one SDR, Chris Delgado at Lakeside Payroll in Madison, Wisconsin:

Status	Day 1	Day 3	Day 7
Valid	Email from the main domain	Call the mobile	Follow-up email
Risky, target account	Call the mobile	Email from a secondary domain	Call and leave a voicemail
Risky, other accounts	Email from a secondary domain, small batch	Check for late bounces	Follow-up only if nothing bounced
Not found	Call the mobile	Call at a different time	Voicemail and a final call

Three habits keep the tracks clean:

Store the status in its own CRM field, so nobody merges Risky back into a main campaign.
Stop a Risky batch above 2% bounces. That is the line Instantly’s 2026 benchmark report recommends. Our guide to email bounce rate shows how to measure it.
Find mobiles for your best Risky and Not found contacts. The Scalelist Mobile Finder charges 20 credits per mobile found and 0 on a miss.

Upload a list and see which emails come back Valid, Risky or Not found before you send.

Get 20 credits to test it

How other verifiers label email verification results

Other verifiers use more labels, but they map onto the same three questions: is the mailbox confirmed, is the domain catch-all, or should the address never be mailed?

Table mapping email verification results: Scalelist Valid equals valid or good, Risky equals catch-all, catchall or risky, across ZeroBounce, NeverBounce and MillionVerifier — Different words, same three questions: confirmed, catch-all, or never mail it.

What the check found	Scalelist	ZeroBounce	NeverBounce	MillionVerifier
Mailbox confirmed	Valid	`valid`	`valid`	`good`
Domain accepts every address	Risky	`catch-all`	`catchall` (accept-all)	`risky`
Server gave no answer	No separate status	`unknown`	`unknown`	`risky`
Mailbox or domain does not exist	Not returned (Not found, 0 credits)	`invalid`	`invalid`	`bad`
Unsafe to mail	Not returned	`spamtrap`, `abuse`, `do_not_mail`	`disposable`	Not published

Labels come from each vendor’s documentation as of September 2026. Billing differs too: ZeroBounce says it never charges for unknown results, MillionVerifier charges for good and bad but not risky, and NeverBounce does not publish whether unknown or catch-all results use credits.

If you verified a list elsewhere, translate it before loading:

valid or good: treat as Valid.
catch-all, catchall, risky or unknown: treat as Risky.
Everything else: remove it before it becomes a hard bounce.

Troubleshooting

Most status problems trace back to timing, the domain or the input. Here are five common ones.

An email marked Valid bounced

A result is a snapshot. The person may have left, and their mailbox been deleted, after the check. Fix: verify close to the send date, and remove the hard bounce the same day. The Scalelist Email Verifier re-checks a list before you load it.

Everyone at one company comes back Risky

Catch-all is a domain setting, so every address at that company gets the same answer. Fix: call your top contacts there, and email only the few that matter from a secondary domain.

Too many Not found results

Check the input first: a misspelled name, a nickname or an old company domain will miss. Fix: use the name the person works under and the company’s current website domain, then run the Email Finder again. Not found results cost nothing, so a second attempt is free when it misses again.

Another tool gave a different result

Tools label the same address differently (see the mapping table), and a mailbox can change between two checks. Fix: re-verify the whole list in one tool, right before you send, and act on that result.

Risky emails ended up in the main sequence

Once a list is imported, most sending tools see only an address. Fix: push only Valid emails to your CRM or main campaign, and import Risky contacts into a separate campaign tied to a secondary domain. Our email deliverability best practices cover that setup.

FAQ

What does Risky mean in email verification?

Risky means the email was found but its domain accepts every address (catch-all), so the specific mailbox cannot be confirmed. It is not the same as dead: Scalelist’s help center estimates about 20 to 30% of Risky emails are deliverable. Send them from a secondary domain in small batches, or call the person instead.

Is it safe to send to a Risky email?

Not from your main domain. Some Risky emails reach real people, but others bounce, sometimes days after the send. Scalelist’s help center recommends sending Risky emails from a secondary domain. Start with a small batch, stop if bounces cross 2%, and call the contacts that matter most.

Do I pay credits for Risky or Not found results?

You pay 1 credit for a Risky email, the same as a Valid one, because an email was found. Not found costs 0 credits. Checking emails you already have with the Email Verifier is included in every plan. Mobile numbers cost 20 credits each, only when one is found.

What happens to addresses that fail verification?

Scalelist does not return them as results. Every email it returns has been verified and labeled Valid or Risky, so when no address for a person passes the checks, you see Not found and pay nothing. When you verify a list you already have, remove any address that does not come back Valid or Risky.

How accurate are Valid email verification results?

Every email is verified before it is returned and labeled Valid or Risky, which means the mail server confirmed a Valid mailbox at the time of the check. No verifier can promise zero bounces, because mailboxes are deleted after checks. Verify close to the send date and remove hard bounces the same day.

How do Scalelist statuses compare to ZeroBounce or NeverBounce?

They map directly. Scalelist’s Valid matches valid at ZeroBounce and NeverBounce and good at MillionVerifier. Risky matches catch-all, catchall or risky. Scalelist does not return addresses those tools call invalid or bad; the person shows as Not found instead, at 0 credits.

Sources

Arnaud Renoux

Co-Founder at Scalelist